"I don't know that," replied Florence, in a sulky tone. "Where is the good," she said to herself, "of trying to please this horrid Aunt Susan, and I quite hate Mummy to fawn on her the way she is doing. I at least cannot stoop to it. No; and I will not."
"You have not profited by your time at school," replied Mrs. Aylmer the great; "what do you mean?"
"I have done my best, of course," replied Florence, "but I am quite a young girl still, only just fifteen. Girls of fifteen are not educated, are they, Aunt Susan? Were you educated when you were fifteen?"
"Oh, Flo, Flo," said the mother, in a voice of agony; "pray do forgive her, Susan."
"I wish you wouldn't interrupt, Mabel," said Mrs. Aylmer, lying back in her luxurious chair as she spoke, and folding her fat hands across her lap. "I like Florence to speak out. I hate people to fawn on me."
"Dear! dear!" said Mrs. Aylmer the less. She rolled her black eyes, then lowered them and fixed them on the carpet. It was impossible to understand Susan, she was a most extraordinary woman. If, after all, Florry was on the right track and won the day!
"Girls of fifteen are not specially well educated," proceeded Mrs. Aylmer, fixing her eyes again upon Florence's face, which was now a little red; "and I don't intend your education to be finished. I have been fortunate enough to gain you admittance into an excellent school for the daughters of the poor clergy. You are to go as a pupil teacher; you will not receive any remuneration for the first two years, but you can continue to have lessons in music, French, and German."
"You are to impart English. I conclude that at your age you at least know your mother tongue thoroughly."
"But that's just it, I do not," said Florence. "I know French fairly well for a girl of my age, and I have a smattering of German, and am fairly fond of music. I don't care for English History nor English Literature, and I have not studied either of them; and my grammar is very weak, and my spelling--well, Aunt Susan, I can't spell properly. I am sorry, but I inherit bad spelling from my mother."
"Oh, Florence!" cried the poor little widow.
"I do, Mummy; you know perfectly well that you have never yet spelt 'arrange' right, nor 'agreeable.' You always leave out one of the 'e's' in the middle of agreeable. Oh, I have had such a fight with those two words, and I do inherit my bad spelling from you. Well, Aunt Susan, what more do you wish me to say?"