"Well, then," said Rhoda, "one of my troubles is about my education. I do so very much want an education, and I don't see how I am ever to get one without going away from Boonville, and I don't see how I go." "What is 'an education,' Rhoda?" asked Aunt Hannah. "What do you mean by it?" "Why, an education is—why, going to school and studying—going through a course of study," answered Rhoda, not very clearly. "I know what I mean, but I can't put it into words." "You don't know whether you know what you mean or not unless you can put your meaning into words," said Aunt Hannah. "Suppose you bring the book on the table and let us see what this same word education really does mean. You will find it in the lower part of the bookcase." Rhoda brought the volume on "Mental Discipline" from the east room, and running over the pages, found what she sought and read aloud: "Education, the act of educating; the act of developing and cultivating the various physical, intellectual, and moral faculties; formation of the manners and improvement of the mind; instruction, tuition, culture, breeding." "There you have it," said Aunt Hannah; "I suppose that is what you want. Now, the question is whether it is necessary to go away from Boonville to obtain it. What do you think?" "Well, as to my physical faculties, they are pretty well developed already," said Rhoda, smiling. "I fancy I can walk and ride and so on, as well as any girl of my age in the county, and I am not very bad at doing housework; only mother says I forget what I am about." "Well, how about the others?" "I think my moral qualities have a good chance enough, considering what a nice home I have and who has always been my Sunday-school teacher," said Rhoda, with a loving glance at Aunt Hannah—"a better chance than they have improved, I am afraid. I wish you were not going away, Aunt Hannah." "It will be only for a few weeks, my dear. Well, now for the intellectual part." "Exactly: and there you must admit, Aunt Hannah, that I have very little chance. There isn't one bit of use in my going to school to Miss Smith any more. I only go round and round like a blind horse in a brickyard; only I don't help to make any bricks, that I see. I thought I had it all arranged so nicely, and then Mr. Maynard must go and get a call somewhere else." "Yes, I was sorry for that. Mrs. Maynard was a very nice woman." "And really, Aunt Hannah, I don't see how that part of my education is to come about. I should like to learn French and German and Latin, and especially music. I don't think I care so much about drawing and rhetoric and moral philosophy, and all the other things that girls learn in school." "And I should like to have you. But, Rhoda, you need not be an uneducated person, even if you have none of these things, and you can have some of them as well out of school as in—not as easily, perhaps, but as well." "How, Aunt Hannah?"