"Well, I must say grown-ups are the most tiresome, aggravating, unreasonable creatures that were ever invented! First they want you to work, and urge you to work, and goad you to work, and `Oh, my dear, it would do you all the good in the world to compete with other girls,' and then, the moment you take them at their word and get interested and eager, round they turn, and it's, `Oh the folly of cram! Oh the importance of health!' `Oh what does it matter, my dear good child, if you _are_ a dunce, so long as you keep your complexion!' No, I'm not angry, I'm perfectly calm, but it makes me _ill_! I can't stand being thwarted in my best and noblest ambitions. If I had a daughter, and she wanted to cram in her holidays, I'd be proud of her, and try to help, instead of throwing hindrances in the way. It's very hard, I must say, to get no sympathy from one's nearest and dearest. Even your father looked at me over his spectacles as if I were a wild animal. I thought he would have been pleased with my industry." "He is; I know he is; but he thinks you may overdo it. You know, Rhoda, you _are_ impetuous! When you take up an idea you ride it to death, and in lessons that doesn't pay. Slow and sure wins the--" "Rubbish! Humbug! It will never win my race, for I have a definite time to run it in, and not a day more. It has to be a gallop, and a pretty stiff one at that. For goodness' sake, Ella, don't _you_ begin to preach. You might be grown-up yourself, sitting there prosing in that horribly well-regulated fashion." "I'm not well-regulated!" cried Ella, incensed by the insinuation. "I was only trying to calm you down because you were in such a temper. What is the use of worrying? You have got your own way; why can't you be happy? Leave the wretched old Latin alone, and tell me about school. There are a hundred things I am longing to hear, and we have not had a proper talk yet. Tell me about the girls, and the teachers, and the rules, and the amusements, and what you like best, and what you hate worst." It was a "large order," as Harold would have said, but Rhoda responded with enjoyment, for what can be pleasanter than to expatiate on one's own doings to a hearer with sufficient knowledge to appreciate the points, and sufficient ignorance to prevent criticism or undue sensitiveness as to consistency of detail! Rhoda told of the chill, early breakfasts, of the seven o'clock supper when everything looked so different in the rosy light, especially on Thursdays, when frolics and best clothes were the order of the day; of Miss Mott, with her everlasting "Attention to the board"; the Latin mistress, with her eye-glasses; Fraulein, with a voice described by Tom as sounding "like a gutter on a rainy day"; and of Miss Everett, sweetest and best-loved of all. Lastly she told of the Record Wall, and Ella was fired, as every girl hearer invariably was fired, with interest and emulation.