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.'

General information, indeed! Just as if she who had lived in London,
gone to lectures, and travelled on the Continent, must not know more
than these children cast up and down in a soldier's life; and as if her
Fraulein, with all her diplomas, must not be far superior to a mere
little daily governess, and a mother! It was all for the sake of
depreciating her.

At twelve o'clock, to her further indignation, she found there was to
be an hour of reading aloud and of needlework-actual plain needlework.
The three girls were making under-garments for themselves; and on
Dolores proving to have no work of any sort, her aunt sent Gillian to
the drawer, and produced a child's pinafore, which she was desired to
hem. Each, however, had a quarter of an hour's reading aloud of
history to do in turn, all from one big book, a history of Rome, and