Still Margaret persevered, never losing hope, simply because she could not believe that the subject itself could fail to interest any one in his senses. It was her own fault a good deal, she tried to think; she did not tell the story right, or her voice was too monotonous,--Papa was always telling her to put more colour into her reading,--or something. The history itself could not be at fault. "And, Peggy dear; don't think I want to be lecturing you all the time, but--these are things that one _has_ to know something about, or one will appear uneducated, and you don't want to do that." "I don't care. I don't see the use of this kind of education, Margaret, and that is just the truth. Ma never had any of what you call education,--she was a farmer's daughter, you know, and had always lived on the prairie,--and she has always got on well enough. Hugh talks just like you do--" "Please, dear, _as_ you do, not _like_." "Well, _as_ you do, then. He talks William the Conqueror and all those old fuddy-duddies by the yard, but he can't make me see the use of them, and you can't. Now if you would give me some mathematics; _that_ is what I want. If you would give me some solid geometry, Margaret!" But here poor Margaret hung her head and blushed, and confessed that she had no solid geometry to give. Her geometry had been fluid, or rather, vapourous, and had floated away, unthought of and unregretted. "I am sorry and ashamed," she said. "Of course I ought to be able to teach it, and if I go into a school, of course I shall have to study again and make it up, so that I can. But it never can be possible that triangles should be as interesting as human beings, Peggy." "A great deal more interesting," Peggy maintained, "when the human beings are dead and buried hundreds of years." "One word more, and I have done," said poor Margaret. "You used an expression, dear,--old fuddy-duddies, was it? I never heard it before. Do you think it is an elegant expression, Peggy dear?" "It's as good as I am girl!" said Peggy; and Margaret shut her eyes, and felt despair in her heart. But soon she felt a warm kiss on her forehead, and Peggy was promising to be good, and to try harder, and even to do her best to learn the difference between the two Harolds,--Hardrada and Godwinsson. And if she would promise to do that, might she just climb up now and see what that nest was, out on the fork there? Perhaps Rita would come down soon, with her guitar or her embroidery-frame; and they would sing and chatter till the early dinner. Rita's songs were all of love and war, boleros and bull-fights. She sang them with flashing ardour, and the other girls heard with breathless delight, watching the play of colour and feeling, that made her face a living transcript of what she sang. But when she was tired, she would hand the guitar to Margaret, and beg her to sing "something cool, peaceful, sea-green, like yourself, Marguerite!" "Am I sea-green?" asked Margaret.