Ellen soon discovered that Carolyn was not possessed of much imagination, but was a conscientious, plodding student with great respect for the attainments of others. “I’ll never be brilliant,” she confided to Ellen, “though I do hope I won’t turn out to be an utter idiot. What are your favorite studies, Ellen?” “Music and French,” Ellen answered promptly. “Oh!” Carolyn looked surprised. “I must say that I’ve never aspired to be a musician. I hate to practise. I began lessons on the piano, but I was so unhappy over them that Father said it was foolish for me to keep on. I might like French if there were a chance to study it, but who in the world would teach me? It isn’t taught in this school. I’m afraid you’ll have to give it up, Ellen.” “I don’t believe I need to. I have quite a number of French books, and I can keep on reading those, even if I have no one to talk to. It isn’t a bad plan to read aloud so as not to lose the accent.” “Can you really read it?” “Why, yes, not so very fluently, but I manage pretty well with a dictionary.” “How smart you are. You could read aloud to me, couldn’t you?” “But you wouldn’t understand it.” “That wouldn’t matter. I’d like the sound.” Ellen laughed. “You are very good to want to listen to my halting accents.” “Bring one of your books to school to-morrow and read to me at recess, or, better still, come over to my house. Oh, no; I must call on you first, because you are the stranger here; then when you return the call you can bring the book and read to me. We can go into Dad’s office; he’s a doctor, you know, and when he is out making his visits we can have the office all to ourselves. I almost always study in there for it is nice and quiet and nobody disturbs me. What are you going to do about your music? Miss Rindy hasn’t a piano, has she?” “I am going to take lessons from Mr. Todd on the organ. I can practise at the church, he says.” “Really? Can you play at all?” “Not on the organ, but on the piano. I used to play duets with my mother. We loved the old masters, Beethoven and Mozart and those. We studied some of their symphonies.” “That highbrow stuff? Oh, dear, I’d never fall for that. Jazz is about all I can appreciate.” “What do you like best to study?” “I don’t like to study at all, not really, but if I’ve got to, I want to do my best and get somewhere. I wouldn’t disappoint Father and Mother for the world, particularly Father. He takes such pride in my reports when they’re good.” She did not explain that they were seldom anything else. Here Florence Ives came up with her most insinuating lisp. “I wath jutht wondering what you two were talking about,” she began. “We were talking about studying,” Carolyn told her. “Just think, Flo, Ellen can read French. This is Ellen North, you know.”