He laughed a little uneasily.
"I am too old for a girl of nineteen," he replied.
"At any rate, you have excited my curiosity. Let her come, Lawrence, as soon as you please. I want to see this paragon of girls, who is more ignorant than a charity school girl."
"On the contrary, Agatha, she is better informed than most girls of her age. If she is not well read she is well told."
"But really, Lawrence, think. She cannot read, even."
"Not if you gave her a basketful of tracts. But that is rather a distinction now. At least she will never want to go in for what they call the Higher Education, will she?"
"She must learn to read; but will she ever master Spelling?"
"Very few people do; they only pretend. I am weak myself in spelling. Phillis does not want to be a certificated Mistress, Agatha."
"And Arithmetic, too."
"Well, my cousin, of course the Rule of Three is as necessary to life as the Use of the Globes, over which the schoolmistresses used to keep such a coil. And it has been about as accessible to poor Phillis as an easy seat to a tombstone cherub. But she can count and multiply and add, and tell you how much things ought to come to; and really when you think of it, a woman does not want much more, does she?"