"Bull, my dear—B, u, l, l, bull. The initial B is below."
"And is this," asked Phillis, with great contempt, "the way to learn reading? A kitchen chopper stands for A, and a cow with her legs out of drawing stands for B. Unless I can draw my cows for myself, Mrs. Cassilis, I shall not try to learn reading."
"You can draw, then?"
"I draw a little," said Phillis. "Not so well, of course, as girls brought up respectably."
"Pardon me, my dear Miss Fleming, if I say that sarcasm is not considered good style. It fails to attract."
Good style, thought Phillis, means talking so as to attract.
"Do let me draw you," said Phillis. Her temper was not faultless, and it was rising by degrees, so that she wanted the relief of silence. "Do let me draw you as you sit there."
She did not wait for permission, but sketched in a few moments a profile portrait of her visitor, in which somehow the face, perfectly rendered in its coldness and strength, was without the look which its owner always thought was there—the look which invites sympathy. The real unsympathetic nature, caught in a moment by some subtle artist's touch, was there instead. Mrs. Cassilis looked at it, and an angry flush crossed her face, which Phillis, wondering why, noted.
"You caricature extremely well. I congratulate you on that power, but it is a dangerous accomplishment—even more dangerous than the practice of sarcasm. The girl who indulges in the latter at most fails to attract; but the caricaturist repels."
"Oh!" said Phillis, innocent of any attempt to caricature, but trying to assimilate this strange dogmatic teaching.