“And they have no games worth playing at,” said Jim. “They can neither throw nor leap. I don’t wonder at Mary’s not liking it.”
“What is that Mary doesn’t like, eh?” said the father, looking over his spectacles and pausing before he opened his next letter.
“Being among a lot of nincompoop girls,” said Alfred.
“Is it the situation you had heard of, Mary?” said Caleb, gently, looking at his daughter.
“Yes, father: the school at York. I have determined to take it. It is quite the best. Thirty-five pounds a-year, and extra pay for teaching the smallest strummers at the piano.”
“Poor child! I wish she could stay at home with us, Susan,” said Caleb, looking plaintively at his wife.
“Mary would not be happy without doing her duty,” said Mrs. Garth, magisterially, conscious of having done her own.
“It wouldn’t make me happy to do such a nasty duty as that,” said Alfred—at which Mary and her father laughed silently, but Mrs. Garth said, gravely—
“Do find a fitter word than nasty, my dear Alfred, for everything that you think disagreeable. And suppose that Mary could help you to go to Mr. Hanmer’s with the money she gets?”
“That seems to me a great shame. But she’s an old brick,” said Alfred, rising from his chair, and pulling Mary’s head backward to kiss her.
Mary colored and laughed, but could not conceal that the tears were coming. Caleb, looking on over his spectacles, with the angles of his eyebrows falling, had an expression of mingled delight and sorrow as he