Children -- Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction; Motherless families -- Juvenile fiction; Siblings -- Juvenile fiction
At breakfast, on the following morning, whenever Diana opened her
rosebud lips, she was told that she must not speak unless she could do
so in the French tongue. Now, all that Diana could manage to say in
French was 'Oui' and 'Non,' nor was she very certain when to say
either of these very simple words. She hated being silent, for she was
a very talkative, cheery little body, except when she was angry.
Accordingly, the meal was a depressing one, and Diana began to yawn
and to look wearily out on the sunshiny garden before it was
half-finished. But, of course, there was no play in the garden for any
of the children that morning. Immediately after breakfast they all
went up to the schoolroom. Now, the schoolroom was a very pleasant
room, nicely and suitably furnished, but in summer it was hot, and on
very sunshiny days it was painfully hot; its single large bay window
faced due south, and the sun poured in relentlessly all during the
hours of morning school. Miss Ramsay, seated at the head of the
baize-covered table with her spectacles on, looked decidedly
formidable, and each of the children gazed at their governess with
anxious eyes. Mary and Lucy were always good little girls, but Philip
and Conrad were as idle as boys could possibly be, and did their
utmost to evade Miss Ramsay's endeavors to instill learning into their
small heads. Orion sat between his two little boy cousins, but for
some reason or other Orion did not look well that morning. His little
face, not unlike Diana's in appearance, was bloated, his eyes were
heavy, he had scarcely touched his breakfast, and he earnestly, most
earnestly longed to get out of the hot schoolroom.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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