“You have already spent much time over it, and have passed the worst of the drudgery; it would be folly to lose all you have learnt,” he said. “You may not wish to perform in public, but there are many other ways in which your music may be useful. In time to come you would be sorry if you could not read an accompaniment to a song, play bright airs to amuse children, or hymn tunes to help in a service. Half an hour a day will keep up what you have learned, and so much time you must manage to spare.” With Mellicent the case was almost exactly opposite. It was a waste of time trying to teach her mathematics, she had not sufficient brain power to grasp them, and if she succeeded in learning a proposition by heart like a parrot, it was only to collapse into helpless tears and protestations when the letters were altered, and, as it seemed to her, the whole argument changed thereby. Fräulein protested that it was impossible to teach Mellicent to reason, but the Vicar was loath to give up his pet theory that girls should receive the same hard mental training as their brothers. He declared that if the girl were weak in this direction, it was all the more necessary that she should be trained, and volunteered to take her in hand for half an hour daily to see what could be done. Fräulein accepted this offer with a chuckle of satisfaction, and the Vicar went on with the lessons several weeks, patiently plodding over the same ground without making the least impression on poor Mellicent’s brain, until there came one happy never-to-be-forgotten morning when Algebra and Euclid went spinning up to the ceiling, and he jumped from the table with a roar of helpless laughter. “Oh, baby! baby! this is past all bearing! We might try for a century, and never get any further. I cannot waste any more time.” Then, seeing the large tears gathering, he framed the pretty face in his hands, and looked at it with a tender smile. “Never mind, darling! there are better things in this world than being clever and learned. You will be our little house-daughter; help mother with her work, and play and sing to father when he is tired in the evening. Work hard at your music, learn how to manage a house, to sew and mend, and cook, and you will have nothing to regret. A woman who can make a home has done more than many scholars.” So it came to pass that Mellicent added the violin to her accomplishments, and was despatched to her own room to practise exercises, while her elder sister wrestled with problems and equations.