“I can't stand that, Fan,” she said. “You might be gabbling Dutch or Hindustani. And you are running on without a single pause. Even a bee hovering about the flowers has an occasional comma, or colon, or full stop in its humming. Try once more, but not so fast and a little louder.” The good-humoured tone in which she spoke served to reassure Fan; and knowing that she could do better, and getting over her nervousness, she began again, and this time Miss Starbrow let her finish the page. “You _can_ read, I find. Better, I think, than any of the maids I have had. You have a very nice expressive voice, and you will do better when you read a book through from the beginning, and feel interested in it. I shall let you read every day to me. What else did you learn--writing?” “Yes, ma'am, I always got a high mark for that. And we had Scripture lessons, and grammar, and composition, and arithmetic, and geography; and when I was in the fifth form I had history and drawing.” “History and drawing--well, what next, I wonder! That's what we are taxed a shilling in the pound for, to give education to a--well, never mind. But can you really draw, Fan? Here's pencil and paper, just draw something for me.” “What shall I draw, ma'am?” she said, taking the pencil and feeling nervous again. “Oh, anything you like.” Now it happened that her drawing lessons had always given her more pleasure than anything else at school, but owing to Joe Harrod's having taken her away as soon as he was allowed to do so, they had not continued long. Still, even in a short time she had made some progress; and even after leaving school she had continued to find a mournful pleasure in depicting leaf and flower forms. Left to choose her own subject, she naturally began sketching a flower--a-rosebud, half-open, with leaves. “Don't hurry, Fan, as you did with your reading. The slower you are the better it will be,” said Miss Starbrow, taking up a volume and beginning to read, or pretending to read, for her eyes were on the face of the girl most of the time. Fan, happily unconscious of the other's regard, gave eight or ten minutes to her drawing, and then Miss Starbrow took it in her hands to examine it. “This is really very well done,” she said, “but what in goodness' name did they teach you drawing for!' What would be the use of it after leaving school? Well, yes, it might be useful in one way. It astonishes me to think how you were trying to live, Fan. You were certainly not fit for that hard rough work, and would have starved at it. You were made, body and mind, in a more delicate mould, and for something better. I think that with all you have learnt at school, and with your appearance, especially with those truthful eyes of yours and that sweet voice, you might have got a place as nursery governess, to teach small children, or something of that sort. Why did you go starving about the streets, Fan?”