"Don't they, Carrie? I am not so sure of that. I have heard of women who are always nagging their husbands, and giving them no peace of their lives. I have heard of women who think of nothing but dress, and who go about and leave their homes and children to shift for themselves. I have heard of women who spend all their time spreading scandal. I have heard of--" "There, that is enough," Carrie broke in hastily. "But you don't mean to say that they would be any the better for beating, Gerald?" "I don't know, Carrie; I should think perhaps they might be, sometimes. At any rate, I think that they deserve a beating quite as much as a boy does, for neglecting to learn a lesson or for playing some prank--which comes just as naturally, to him, as mischief does to a kitten. For anything really bad, I would beat a boy as long as I could stand over him. For lying, or thieving, or any mean, dirty trick I would have no mercy on him. But that is a very different thing to keeping the cane always going, at school, as they do now. "But here comes Bob. Well, Bob, is the doctor gone? Didn't you ask him to come up, and have a cigar?" "Yes; but he said he had got two or three cases at the hospital he must see, and would wait until this evening." "How have you got on, Bob?" "Splendidly. I wonder why they don't teach at school, like that." "It didn't sound much like teaching," Carrie said, severely. "I don't suppose it did, Carrie; but it was teaching, for all that. Why, I have learned as much, this evening, as I did in a dozen lessons, in school. He explains everything so that you seem to understand it, at once; and he puts things, sometimes, in such a droll way, and brings in such funny comparisons, that you can't help laughing. But you understand it, for all that, and are not likely to forget it. "Don't you be afraid, Carrie. If Dr. Burke teaches me, for the two years that I am going to be here, I shall know more than I should have done if I had stopped at Tulloch's till I was an old man. I used to learn lessons, there, and get through them, somehow, but I don't think I ever understood why things were so; while Dr. Burke explains everything so that you seem to understand all about it, at once. And he is pretty sharp, too. He takes a tremendous lot of pains, himself; but I can see he will expect me to take a tremendous lot of pains, too." At the end of a fortnight, Carrie made no allusion to the subject of a change of masters. The laughing downstairs still scandalized her, a little; but she saw that Bob really enjoyed his lessons and, although she herself could not test what progress he was making, his assurances on that head satisfied her.