"I fear your books are worse than none. How did you come to get such books? I have heard Monsieur D'Anvers say some of these were vile trash; and I notice sentences in the others that are not fit reading for a young maid." "They are French," said Doris. "That does not make them better. There are good books to be had in French; and you have Byron for your only poet. I have heard our rector say Byron is unfit reading for girls." "You ridiculous, strait-laced creature!" "And I don't quite like your pictures, dear. The _subjects_ are not pleasant to me. These French beauties were famous for vice. La Pompadour, and Diana, and the rest. This Cleopatra is too scantily attired to suit my taste, and this Trojan Helen is not a nice picture. I would have chosen Joan of Arc, and tender Margaret More, and sad Hecuba, and martyr Margaret. Pictures should elevate our souls." "My goodness, Mattie! have you been taking lessons of that gentleman poet you mentioned? Where does he live!" "At Lindenholm--his mother owns it, and came there two years ago, when she was left a widow. Her husband was a curate." "Then I don't believe your Earle Moray is very rich. He is just a farmer, if he has only Lindenholm. I remember the place, half villa, half farm-house, with great linden trees around it. Does he write books?" "He has written one small one--'Songs of the Country-side.' I have it here. You can read it; it is like music." "Ta, ta! I hate poetry. What does the man look like?" "Why, he looks as he is, a gentleman, a good man." "I foresee I shall have a surfeit of goodness here. If the man is neither rich nor handsome, he will hardly pay to flirt with, unless one is desperate." "To flirt with!" cried Mattie, aghast. "You would not _flirt_, Doris?" "And why wouldn't I?" "Why, it is wicked. It is cruel, it is deceitful." "Hear the girl talk!" cried Doris, flinging herself back on the bed with peals of musical laughter. "Why, goosey, I flirted with every male creature I set eyes on at school." "But I thought they did not allow such things." "Allow? You will undoubtedly be the death of me, with your simplicity," said Doris, sitting up, her golden hair distractingly rumpled, her eyes shining with glee, her dimples dancing like tricky sprites among the deepened roses on her cheeks. "_Don't_ you understand that it was our chief aim to do what we were not allowed? Men, I admit, were scarce. The writing-master was engaged to one of the teachers; but I flirted with him until _she_ nearly cried her eyes out; and after he withstood me three months he surrendered at discretion, and I laughed at him. The French master vowed he would kill himself on my behalf; the music-master fell so conspicuously into my power that the preceptress dismissed him, and got a gorgon of a woman in green spectacles in his place. As for the dancing-master, he played the fool and erred exceedingly whenever I was in sight; so the girls said it was better than any theater."