"She's a curious child," he explained; which was true in any sense you chose to take it, and all the way back to the Latin _curiosus_, "careful, diligent, thoughtful; from _cura_, care," and so on.... "I've never seen much of children," Phil continued; "never had many chances, as it happens. My sister has three boys, but she's married to a narrow-gauge missionary, and lives--to call it that--in Ping Lung, or some such place. I've the right address somewhere, I think--in a notebook. Bertha sends me snapshots of the boys from time to time, but I can't say I've ever felt lonely because of their exile. Funny. Perhaps it's because I never liked Bertha much. Bertha has a sloppy mind--you know, with chance scraps of things floating round in it. Nothing coheres. But you take this youngster of yours, now--I call her yours----" "Do!" I interjected. "Well, there's the opposite extreme! Susan links everything up, everything she gets hold of--facts, fancies, guesses, feelings; the whole psychic menagerie. Chains them all together somehow, and seems to think they'll get on comfortably in the same tent. Of course they won't--can't--and that's the danger for her! But she's stimulating, Hunt"--Phil always called me Hunt, as if just failing whole-heartedly to accept me--"she's positively stimulating! A mind like that must be trained; thoroughly, I mean. We must do our best for her." The "we" amused me and--yes, I confess it--nettled me a little. "Don't worry about that," I said, and more dryly than I had meant to; "I'm combing the country now for a suitable governess." "Governess!" Phil snorted. "You don't want a governess for Susan. You want, for this job," he insisted, "a male intellect--a vigorous, disciplined male intellect. Music, dancing, water colors--pshaw! Deportment--how to enter a drawing-room! Fiddle-faddle! How to enter the Kingdom of God! That's more Susan's style," cried Phil, with a most unaccustomed heat. I laughed at him. "Are you willing to take her on, Phil?" I asked. "I believe it's been done; Epicurus had a female pupil or two." "I have taken her on," Phil replied, quite without resentment. "Hadn't you noticed it?" "Yes," I said; "only, it's the other way round." "I've been appropriated, is that it?" "Yes; by Susan. We all have, Phil. That vampire child is simply draining us, my dear fellow." "All right," said Phil, after a second's pause, "if she's a _spiritual_ vampire, so much the better. Only, she'll need a firm hand. We must give her suck at regular hours; draw up a plan. You can tackle the languages, if you like--æsthetics, and all that. I'll pin her down to math and logic--teach her to _think_ straight. We can safely leave her to pick up history and sociology and such things for herself. You've a middling good library, and she'll browse." "Oh, she'll browse! She's browsing now."