"Oh no, thank you," said Marjory, cutting the woman short; "I only wanted to inquire." And she turned Brownie's head in the direction of Braeside. "Good-morning. I'm much obliged to you."
Marjory was bitterly disappointed at the failure of her peacemaking mission, for she had set out almost certain of success. She wondered whether the man was really a bad character, and whether he had been set upon by the keepers, and so got his clothes torn. So it wasn't Mr. Shaw after all. It was very disappointing, and Marjory sighed. She smiled, however, as she thought over English Mary's voluble explanation and her queer language. The King would hardly recognize it as his.
Marjory found the study of the King's English very interesting. As Miss Waspe presented it to her, it was not contained in a lifeless grammar-book, the terror of many schoolgirls' lives, but it was a wonderful living medium of expression--a means by which she could translate her ideas and imaginings into musical phrases, and which enabled her to understand the spoken and written thoughts of others. Miss Waspe had a way of dressing up hard facts and tiresome rules in the most attractive clothing, and like the dog who unconsciously and gratefully swallows a pill in a succulent tit-bit, her pupil assimilated both with excellent results.
Blanche said to Marjory one day, "I _can't_ think how you can like that horrid grammar. If I was a boy, or, according to _it_, _were_ I a boy, I should call it a beastly grind; but as mother doesn't like me to use boys' words, I have to call it a horrid nuisance or some other tame thing like that. Anyway, I feel it is a b-e-a-s-t-l-y g-r-i-n-d, so there."
"I don't wonder your mother doesn't like you to use boys' words; you're much too pretty," replied Marjory. "They are far more suitable for me, because I am big and rough-looking, like a boy, and you are just like a piece of thin china--like that Dresden shepherdess in the drawing-room. You couldn't imagine her saying anything ugly."
"Why do you always make out that you're not pretty?" asked Blanche indignantly. "I think you're better than pretty, you're _grand_, with those great big stormy-looking eyes and your lovely wavy hair. I've never seen such long hair."