"Don't forget your practising, Isa," said her mother, one evening, as she was going out. "Mr. Harvey tells me you ought to practice at least one hour more every day." "Then I wish Mr. Harvey would mind his business," said Isa, sullenly, as the door closed behind her mother. "I want to learn my Bible-class lessons and to read, and I haven't one minute's time because of Mr. Harvey and that tiresome old piano. I wish they were in the Red Sea together." "Don't wish that. Wish I had them," said Rhoda, who was clearing the tea-table. "I only wish I had your chance, Miss Isa." "I'm sure I wish you had if you want it," answered Isa "perhaps you might make something of it. I know you can sing, for I have heard you, and I dare say you could learn to play, but I never shall. Fathers has spent a great deal on my music already, and I don't play decently." "Oh, you mustn't be discouraged," said Rhoda. "You have come to the hard place, I suppose. Aunt Betsy says there must always be a hard place in everything. Oh, don't cry, please don't," said Rhoda, dismayed, as Isa's head went down on the piano amid a burst of hysterical sobs. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings." "You didn't," sobbed Isa. "But I am so tired and so discouraged, I can't help crying. It is just school, school, lesson, lesson, all the time from year's end to year's end. I detest it all, and I wish I was a Dutch girl working in Uncle John's nursery: so there!" "And I only wish I had your chance to go to school and study," said Rhoda. "I would rather do it than anything else in the world. I wouldn't care how hard I worked." "Wouldn't you?" retorted Isa. "Just look here, Rhoda: do you know any algebra?" "A little. I have been as far as simple equations. I like it too, but I think it is pretty tough, I must say; especially when I have no teacher." "Well, just look at my lessons for to-morrow. Three pages of examples in equations—all new, you see—one hundred and fifty lines of Virgil, besides my exercises and six propositions in geometry, all to be learned to-morrow, besides my music and walking to and from school with all my books, more than a mile each way. What do you think of that?" [Illustration: _Rhoda's Education._ "Just look at my lessons for to-morrow * * * besides my music," said Isa.] "I think it is a shame," said Rhoda, warmly. "I have been studying geometry, and I found one proposition as much as I could very well do in a day. Why don't you tell your mother about it?" "Much use that would be. Besides, it isn't her doing; it's pa. He thinks I can't be overworked because I have only three studies and music. And the worst is, I don't see any end to it," said Isa, who seemed to find comfort in talking. "I shall finish at the academy in a year if I can only keep on, and then papa says he shall send me to a French or German school for two or three years."