What was Dolores
to do?
'Have you done any Latin, my dear?' asked her aunt.
'Not yet. Father wished to be quite convinced that the professor was a
good scholar,' said Dolores.
'Very well. We will wait a little,' said Aunt Lilias, and Dolores
indignantly thought that she was amused.
Mysie was sent off to her music in the drawing-room, whither her mother
followed with Primrose's little lessons, leaving the schoolroom piano
to Valetta, and Fergus to write copies and to do sums, while Miss
Vincent examined the new-comer, which she did by giving her some
questions to answer in writing, and some French and German to translate
and parse also in writing.
The music was inconvenient to a girl who had always prepared her work
alone. She could do the language work easily, but the questions teased
her. They seemed to her of no use, and quite out of her beat. No
dates, none of the subject she had specially got up. Why, if Miss
Vincent did not know that people were not to be expected to answer
stupid questions about history quite out of their own line, that was
her fault.
She did what she knew, and then sat biting the top of her pen till her
aunt came back, and there was a change in occupations all round,
resulting in her having to read French aloud, which she knew she did
well; but it was provoking to find that Gillian read quite as well, and
knew a word at which she had made a shot, and a wrong one.
She heard the observation pass between her aunt and the governess,
'Languages fair, but she seems to have very little general
information.
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