No More Learning

It must be hard to keep
from getting stupid. '

'My friend is not at all stupid,' said Sherman.

'Does she speak with a brogue? I remember you told me she was very
good. It must be difficult to keep from talking platitudes when one is
very good. '

'You are quite wrong about her. You would like her very much,' he
replied.

'She is one of those people, I suppose, who can only talk about their
relatives, or their families, or about their friends' children: how
this one has got the whooping-cough, and this one is getting well of
the measles! ' She kept swaying one of the leaves between her finger
and thumb impatiently. 'What a strange way she does her hair; and what
an ugly dress! '

'You must not talk that way about her--she is my great friend. '

'Friend! friend! ' she burst out. 'He thinks I will believe in
friendship between a man and a woman!
'

She got up, and said, turning round with an air of changing the
subject, 'Have you written to your friends about our engagement? You
had not done so when I asked you lately. '

'I have. '

'All? '

'Well, not all. '

'Your great friend, Miss ---- what do you call her? '

'Miss Carton. I have not written to her. '

She tapped impatiently with her foot.

'They were really old companions--that is all,' said Mrs. Sherman,
wishing to mend matters. 'They were both readers; that brought them
together. I never much fancied her. Yet she was well enough as a
friend, and helped, maybe, with reading, and the gardening, and
his good bringing-up, to keep him from the idle young men of the
neighbourhood. '

'You must make him write and tell her at once--you must, you must! '
almost sobbed out Miss Leland.