One Saturday afternoon, when we were busily scrubbing the floor and all the different meat-boards in the kitchen, the cook noticed my swollen eyelids again. "What is the matter with you, I should like to know," she said. "You are home-sick perhaps." I shook my head slowly and thoughtfully. "I don't think I am home-sick, but I believe I am unhappy because I can't go and learn anything." "Can't go and learn anything!" she repeated. "What on earth do you want to learn?" I hesitated a little. "I am sure I don't know. All I know is that I am frightfully silly." "Well, I shouldn't say that," she replied good-naturedly. "I quite like the way you help me in the kitchen." "Oh well, yes; but I mean that I don't know how to play the piano, nor how to speak French." "But you do not need such things in service." "Quite so; but I don't want to be in service." "Oh!" she exclaimed, and then there was a long silence. After we had done our work we took off our wet overalls, and put on clean pinafores. The cook reached down one of the shining saucepans hanging on the walls, and began to make the coffee, while I went into the dining-room to lay the table. After I had taken in the tray with the hot milk, the steaming coffee, and the cups of white porcelain, the cook and I sat down in the kitchen to take our coffee also. The cook poured out the coffee, and I noticed that her hands trembled a little. She did not speak, and I was silent too, but I could feel that our previous conversation occupied her thoughts. When her cup was empty she put her head into her hands, and looked me straight in the face. "Then you want to know French?" she asked abruptly. "Well, it need not be exactly French." "What else, then?" "I don't know." "That's silly. You must know your own mind, to be sure." "I believe that I should like to learn English," I confessed, much embarrassed and ashamed. "I have never heard of a person learning English. Why would you not rather learn French?" "No," I said slowly but decisively, "I would much rather learn English." "I have thought of everything," she continued after a pause; "the mistress must not know about it. She herself has never learnt anything of that sort, and would consider it to be nothing but pride on your part. But it might be managed, nevertheless, if you would learn only in the evening after you have put the children to bed." "Of course," I cried delightedly; "I would not dream of doing it during the daytime. There is only one thing," I added thoughtfully: "where shall I be able to find a teacher in the evening?" "A teacher!" cook exclaimed in utter surprise; "do you mean to say that you want a teacher?" I lost heart considerably at her question. "Of course, I am sure it is impossible without a teacher." "But won't that be too expensive?" I assumed great indifference at her remark. "I don't think that it could cost much," I said. "How much do you think he would charge you?"