No More Learning

She had a lawn-tennis racket under her
arm, and was walking slowly on the shady side of the road. She was a
pretty girl with quite irregular features, who though not really more
than pretty, had so much manner, so much of an air, that every one
called her a beauty: a trefoil with the fragrance of a rose.

'Mr. Sherman,' she cried, coming smiling to meet him, 'I have been ill,
but could not stand the house any longer. I am going to the Square to
play tennis. Will you come with me? '

'I am a bad player,' he said.

'Of course you are,' she answered; 'but you are the only person under a
hundred to be found this afternoon. How dull life is! ' she continued,
with a sigh. 'You heard how ill I have been? What do you do all day? '

'I sit at a desk, sometimes writing, and sometimes, when I get lazy,
looking up at the flies. There are fourteen on the plaster of the
ceiling over my head. They died two winters ago.
I sometimes think to
have them brushed off, but they have been there so long now I hardly
like to. '

'Ah! you like them,' she said, 'because you are accustomed to them. In
most cases there is not much more to be said for our family affections,
I think. '

'In a room close at hand,' he went on, 'there is, you know, Uncle
Michael, who never speaks. '

'Precisely. You have an uncle who never speaks; I have a mother who
never is silent. She went to see Mrs. Sherman the other day. What did
she say to her? '

'Nothing. '

'Really! What a dull thing existence is! '--this with a great sigh.
'When the Fates are weaving our web of life some mischievous goblin
always runs off with the dye-pot. Everything is dull and grey.