Queechy Volume I Part 42

"No, Sir. Hugh and I have our lessons at home."

"Teaching each other, I suppose?"

"O no, Sir," said Fleda, laughing; "Mme. Lascelles and Mr.

Schweppenhesser, and Signor Barytone come to teach us, besides our music masters."

"Do you ever talk German with this Mr. What's-his-name, who has just gone out with your cousin Marion!"

"I never talk to him at all, Sir."

"Don't you? Why not? Don't you like him?"

Fleda said, "Not particularly," and seemed to wish to let the subject pa.s.s, but the doctor was amused, and pressed it.

"Why, why don't you like him?" said he; "I am sure he's a fine-looking das.h.i.+ng gentleman; ? dresses as well as anybody, and talks as much as most people ? why don't you like him?

Isn't he a handsome fellow ? eh?"

"I dare say he is, to many people," said Fleda.

"She said she didn't think there was any moral expression in his face," said Hugh, by way of settling the matter.

"Moral expression!" cried the doctor, "moral expression! and what if there isn't, you Elf! ? what if there isn't?"

"I shouldn't care what other kind of expression it had," said Fleda, colouring a little.

Mr. Rossitur "pished" rather impatiently. The doctor glanced at his niece, and changed the subject.

"Well, who teaches you English, Miss Fleda? you haven't told me that yet."

"Oh, that we teach ourselves," said Fleda, smiling, as if it was a very innocent question.

"Hum! ? you do! Pray how do you teach yourselves?"

"By reading, Sir."

"Reading! And what do you read? what have you read in the last twelve months, now?"

"I don't think I could remember all exactly," said Fleda.

"But you have got a list of them all," said Hugh, who chanced to have been looking over said list a day or two before, and felt quite proud of it.

"Let's have it, let's have it," said the doctor. And Mrs.

Rossitur, laughing, said, "Let's have it;" and even her husband commanded Hugh to go and fetch it; so poor Fleda, though not a little unwilling, was obliged to let the list be forthcoming. Hugh brought it, in a neat little book covered with pink blotting paper.

"Now for it!" said the doctor; "let us see what this English amounts to. Can you stand fire, Elfleda?"

" 'Jan. 1. Robinson Crusoe.' * [* A true list made by a child of that age.]

"Hum ? that sounds reasonable, at all events."

"I had it for a New Year's present," remarked Fleda, who stood by with downcast eyes, like a person undergoing an examination.

" 'Jan. 2. Histoire de France.'

"What History of France is this?"

Fleda hesitated, and then said it was by Lacretelle.

"Lacretelle? ? what? of the Revolution?"

"No, Sir; it is before that; it is in five or six large volumes."

"What, Louis XV.'s time," said the doctor, muttering to himself.

" 'Jan. 27. 2 ditto, ditto.'

" 'Two' means the second volume, I suppose?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Hum ? if you were a mouse, you would gnaw through the wall in time, at that rate. This is in the original?"

"Yes Sir."

" 'Feb. 3. Paris. L. E. K.'

"What do these hieroglyphics mean?"

"That stands for the 'Library of Entertaining Knowledge,' "

said Fleda.

"But how is this? do you go hop, skip, and jump through these books, or read a little, and then throw them away'? Here it is only seven days since you began the second volume of Lacretelle ? not time enough to get through it."

"Oh no, Sir," said Fleda, smiling: "I like to have several books that I am reading in at once; I mean at the same time, you know; and then if I am not in the mood of one I take up another."

"She reads them all through," said Hugh, "always, though she reads them very quick."

"Hum ? I understand," said the old doctor, with a humorous expression, going on with the list.

" 'March 3. 3 Hist. de France.'

"But you finish one of these volumes, I suppose, before you begin another; or do you dip into different parts of the same work at once?"

"Oh no, Sir; of course not!"

" 'Mar. 5. Modern Egyptians. L. E. K. Ap. 13.'

"What are these dates on the right, as well as on the left?"