Ivy smiled through her tears.

"Not quite so bad as that, Sir."

"You do know your letters? Perhaps you can even count, and spell your
name; maybe write it. Pray, enlighten me."

Ivy grew calm as he became playful.

"I can cipher pretty well. I have been through Greenleaf's Large."

"House or meadow? And the exact dimensions, if you please."

"Sir?"

"I understood you to say you had traversed Greenleaf's large. You did
not designate what."

He was laughing at her now, indeed, but it was open and genial, and she
joined.

"My Arithmetic, of course. I supposed everybody knew that. Everybody
calls it so."

"Time is short. Yes. We are an abbreviating nation. Do you like
Arithmetic?"

"Pretty well, some parts of it. Fractions and Partial Payments. But I
can't bear Duodecimals, Position, and such things."