There was one thing about Mary Ann which interested Marjory profoundly, and that was her school experience. She felt that she would like to question the girl about it, and yet was too proud to betray her curiosity by bringing up the subject. Mary Ann, however, saved her the trouble, for as soon as they were seated she began at once,--
"Why don't your uncle send you to school? Any one would think a great girl like you ought to be sent to school. Why don't he send you?"
"Maybe he don't want to pay the fees," said Mary Ann.
"I learn French and German and music. I'm getting on fine with the piano, and papa's going to buy me one of my own soon. You haven't got a piano at Hunters' Brae, have you?"
As a matter of fact there was a piano at Hunters' Brae, but it was kept in the room that had been her mother's--a room that Marjory was not allowed to enter. For reasons of his own the doctor had forbidden Marjory to go into it. She should do so on her fifteenth birthday, but not before. Lisbeth went in once a week with pail, broom, and duster, but she always carefully locked the door behind her, and Marjory knew nothing of the room or its contents. "Some bonnie day," was all that the old woman would say when she questioned her.
"It seems a shame you can't be made a lady of too."
"I can be a lady without going to school," said Marjory sulkily.
"Oh no, you can't. Who is there to teach you? You have to learn manners and deportment and accomplishments and all that sort of thing first. I don't see that you've got any chance here, you poor little thing," patronizingly.
"I don't care," said Marjory, knowing in her heart that she did care beyond everything, and that her greatest desire was to learn all sorts of things. "I don't care a pin," she repeated.
"Yes, you do, or you wouldn't get so red," said Mary Ann provokingly. Then she continued, "Your uncle's queer, isn't he?"
"Well--queer--in his head, you know. People say he is, and, anyhow, he does queer things--keeping that room shut up, and all that. I should say he _must_ be a little bit mad."
"He _isn't_," indignantly. "He's a very clever, celebrated man."
Mary Ann went off into peals of laughter.
"Oh dear! who told you that?" she cried at last.