‘But I don’t mean that kind of arithmetic. I knew an English girl a little while ago where we were at Florence. She was spending the winter holidays there, and papa allowed me to go to see her sometimes. She showed me the work she had to do during the holidays, and it made me feel, oh, so fearfully ignorant. One of her sums was, “Find the present value of £760 at four and five-eighths per cent. for eighty days.” That is what _I_ call arithmetic,’ said Avice, despondently. ‘Do you? Well, suppose we look out for a governess for both of us, for I know just as much about it as you do.’ Avice laughed and said: ‘It would have to be a very clever governess, Jerome.’ ‘But not old and ugly, or I could not possibly learn from her; and yet, if she were young and handsome, I might fall in love with her. Upon my word, I think I should like to have a governess, Avice. Shall we see about it?’ ‘How ridiculous you are! Since I have had you, I don’t care so much about a governess. How horribly frightened of you I was, before I saw you. Papa used to pinch my ear sometimes when he wanted to tease me, and say, “I wonder what Hieronymus will say when he first sees you—little interloper!” When I asked what you were like, he said I should have to mind my P’s and Q’s with you. Naturally I trembled at the very idea of beholding you.’ ‘It was too bad to make me out such a bugbear.’ ‘Oh, he did not make you out a bugbear, exactly; but he gave me a fearful idea of you. And one day he told me that you had been sent for—that was when he was ill, and thought he would not get better. And he added that when he was gone, you would have all his authority, and that he advised me to make myself agreeable to you. It was woman’s mission, he said, to make herself agreeable.’ ‘My father has curious ideas upon woman’s mission and place in life, my dear. If he were to come in contact with the world again, he would find that they were out of date. Well?’ ‘I was in the greatest anxiety. I did not know whether to put on my oldest, shabbiest frock, and to go and sit up in my bedroom, and not come down till I was sent for, and not speak till I was spoken to.’ ‘What end did you purpose to serve by such a course?’ ‘I thought you would think, “At least she is quite insignificant, and will not be in my way.” Then I thought it might be better to make myself look as well as I possibly could——’ ‘Which you knew to be very well indeed, Miss Vanity, in your bronze velvet gown with the amber slashings, which makes you look like some picture of Titian or Veronese, but which would not lead anyone to suppose that you were an English school-girl.’ ‘Oh, don’t call me an English school-girl. I think they are horrid. They know so much more than I do. But do you like me in that dress?’ ‘Very much.’ ‘I thought, well, if he sees me in this, he will think, “Ah, after all she is presentable. She might be worse.”’ ‘Preposterous child! Finally, if I remember aright——’