"I didn't, miss--I did it quite fairly. You had four chances; you got the tinker once and the policeman three times. You're to marry a bobby--there's no hope for you!" "I won't, I won't, I won't!" she retorts passionately, angry tears welling into her big, foolish eyes. "I won't marry a policeman, Hal! I'd rather die an old maid ten times over." "First catch your policeman, my dear," chimes in Pauline, languidly waving aside a swarm of gnats dancing round her beautiful dusky head. "You'll not find many of that ilk sneaking round our larder, I can tell you!" "I don't care whether I do or not. I won't marry a--" "That will do, Lottie; we have had quite enough of this nonsense," interposes Addie, suddenly and unexpectedly assuming the tones of a reproving elder sister. "You came out here to study, and I don't think either you or Pauline has read that French exercise once, though you promised Aunt Jo you would have it off by heart for her this afternoon. Give me the book; I'll hear you. Translate 'I am hungry; give me some cheese.'" "_Je suis faim; donnez-moi du--du--_" "No; wrong to begin with. It is _J'ai faim_, 'I have hunger.'" "'I have hunger!'" grumbles Lottie. "That just shows what a useless humbugging language French is! Fancy any one but an idiot saying, 'I have hunger,' instead of--" "Don't talk so much. 'Have you my brother's penknife?'" "_Avez-vous mon frère's plume-couteau?_" Miss Lefroy tosses back the tattered Ahn in speechless disgust. "Never mind, Goggles; I'll give you a sentence to translate," whispers Hal teasingly. "Listen! _Esker le policeman est en amour_--eh? That's better than anything in an old Ahn or Ollendorff, isn't it? _Esker le poli_--" "Hal, do leave your sister alone, and attend to your own task. I don't believe you have got that wretched sum right yet, though you have been at it all the morning." "And such a toothsome sum too!" says Pauline, leaning forward and reading aloud the problem inscribed on the top of the cracked greasy slate in Aunt Jo's straggling old fashioned writing-- "'Uncle Dick gave little Jemmy five shillings as a Christmas-box. He went to a pastry-cook's, and bought seven mince-pies at twopence halfpenny each, a box of chocolate, nine oranges at one shilling and sixpence per dozen; he gave tenpence to a poor boy, and had four-pence left. What was the price of the chocolate?'" "It's a rotten old sum--that's what it is!" says Hal trenchantly. "What's the sense of annoying a fellow with mince-pies and things when he hasn't the faintest chance of getting outside one for--" "Hal, don't be vulgar!" "Besides, you can change the pies into potatoes or rhubarb-powders if you like," puts in Goggles spitefully, "and work the sum all the same. I'll tell auntie you did nothing but draw the dogs all the morning." "Yah! Tell-tale tit, your tongue shall be split!" "Why did you say I'd marry a--" "Charlotte, hold your tongue at once!"