"Did you never have a governess, do you mean? What a fortunate person!" "Never." "I am not sure that the other alternative, going to school, is not worse." "I never went to school." "Is it possible? Do you mean (raising herself, and opening her eyes) that you have never had any education at all?" "I suppose not," answers Esther, reluctantly; regretting having made an admission which evidently tells so much against her. "How very odd!" "What's very odd?" asks her brother, who, with St. John, lounges in from the billiard-room, where they have been knocking the balls about and getting tired of one another. "Miss Craven has just been telling us that she has had no education," answers Constance, in her even voice--perhaps not sorry of an opportunity to let Gerard know his _protégée's_ deficiencies. "I am sure (civilly) that we should never have found it out if she had not told us." The _protégée_ droops her black eyes in mortification over her book, in which she has already found several things that amuse, several things that startle, and several other things that profoundly puzzle her innocent mind. How unnecessary to make the admission of her own illiterateness, and how needless for Constance to be in such a hurry to repeat the confession! "What an awful sensation it must be being such an ignoramus!" says Gerard's voice, low and laughing, as he sits down on the window-seat beside her. "What does it feel like?" She looks up with a re-assured smile. "At all events," continues he, glancing at her book, "you are doing your best to supply your deficiencies, _however late in life_." She colours a little, and involuntarily puts her hand over the title. "What is it? May I see?" She hesitates, and her other hand goes hastily to its fellow's help; then, changing her mind, she offers the book boldly to him. He looks at the title, and a slightly shocked expression dawns on his features: men are always shocked that women should _read about_ the things that _they do_. "Where did you get this?" (quickly). "I climbed up the ladder in the library; pleasant books always rise to top shelves, as the cream rises to the top of the milk." "Will you oblige me by putting it back where you took it from?" "When I have read it? Of course." "_Before_ you have read it." "Why should I?" (rather snappishly). "Why should you," he repeats, impatiently--not much fonder of opposition than are most of his masterful sex. "Why, because it is not a fit book for a--a _child_ like you to read." "A _child_ like me!" (sitting bolt up and reddening). "Do you know what age I am?" "I have not an idea; forty, perhaps." She laughs. "Don't you know that all women are children till they are twenty-one; and you are particularly childish for your age." "I am, am I?" "Child or no child, this is a book that no modest woman ought to read."