“Then,” said Sophy, smiling, “you should stand a little farther off, both of you. Leave the thermometer to itself a little while. Give it time to cool. It will come down to ‘temperate’ by the time you look again.” “Oh, brother!” cried Marianne, “she’s so good-humoured, don’t tease her any more, and don’t draw heads upon her paper, and don’t stretch her india-rubber, and don’t let us dirty any more of her brushes. See! the sides of her tumbler are all manner of colours.” “Oh, I only mixed red, blue, green and yellow, to show you, Marianne, that all colours mixed together make white. But she is temperate now, and I won’t plague her; she shall chop logic, if she likes it, though she is a woman.” “But that’s not fair, brother,” said Marianne, “to say ‘woman’ in that way. I’m sure Sophy found out how to tie that difficult knot, which papa showed us yesterday, long before you did, though you are a man.” “Not long,” said Frederick. “Besides, that was only a conjuring trick.” “It was very ingenious, though,” said Marianne; “and papa said so. Besides, she understood the ‘Rule of Three,’ which was no conjuring trick, better than you did, though she is a woman; and she can reason, too, mamma says.” “Very well, let her reason away,” said the provoking wit. “All I have to say is, that she’ll never be able to make a pudding.” “Why not, pray, brother?” inquired Sophy, looking up again, very gravely. “Why, you know papa himself, the other day at dinner, said that the woman who talks Greek and Latin as well as I do, is a fool after all; and that she had better have learned something useful; and Mrs. Tattle said, she’d answer for it she did not know how to make a pudding.” “Well! but I am not talking Greek and Latin, am I?” “No, but you are drawing, and that’s the same thing.” “The same thing! Oh, Frederick!” said little Marianne, laughing. “You may laugh; but I say it is the same sort of thing. Women who are always drawing and reasoning, never know how to make puddings. Mrs. Theresa Tattle said so, when I showed her Sophy’s beautiful drawing yesterday.” “Mrs. Theresa Tattle might say so,” replied Sophy, calmly; “but I do not perceive the reason, brother, why drawing should prevent me from learning how to make a pudding.” “Well, I say you’ll never learn how to make a good pudding.” “I have learned,” continued Sophy, who was mixing her colours, “to mix such and such colours together to make the colour that I want; and why should I not be able to learn to mix flour and butter, and sugar and egg, together, to produce the taste that I want.” “Oh, but mixing will never do, unless you know the quantities, like a cook; and you would never learn the right quantities.” “How did the cook learn them? Cannot I learn them as she did?” “Yes, but you’d never do it exactly, and mind the spoonfuls right, by the recipe, like a cook.”