"That's about the way it is," he returned, looking at me in pleased
surprise.
He left this morning on an early train, to go back to the peg and grind,
and now the place is slow and lonesome. After all I think it is better
to have to peg and grind; it surely must be the spice of life which rich
people miss. I do not care how quickly the hot months pass, and we can
go back to the city again.
_Sept. 30th, 1----_
We are all back in the city again, and settled into the old routine; but
there is a new excitement in the air. Aunt Gwendolin insists that I
require to go to some fashionable "Young Ladies' Boarding School," to be
"_finished_." She says (but not in grandmother's hearing) that I do not
talk as I should, that my voice is quite ordinary, and I must learn the
tone of society ladies before I can be brought _out_.
"You mean the _artificial_ tone?" said Uncle Theodore, who was present
when I was getting my lecture.
"Call it what you like, Theodore," snapped Aunt Gwendolin, "it is the
tone used by an American society woman; the girl talks yet in the
natural voice of a child."
"Would that she could always keep it," returned Uncle Theodore.
After much talking my aunt persuaded my grandmother that I should go to
some such school.
"My dear," said grandmother timidly, "your aunt seems to think you may
gain much by a period spent in some good school. She may be right. It
certainly cannot hurt you, and if it can be of any benefit there is
nothing to prevent your having it."
To comfort dear grandmother I raised no objection, and it is settled
that I go in the fall term. The choice of a school was left entirely to
Aunt Gwendolin, and she has decided upon the most expensive and most
fashionable one in the country. She has been corresponding with the
lady principal; my rooms have been ordered; and everything is complete.
One day my aunt placed in my hand one of her monogrammed sheets of
writing-paper, pointing to the following paragraph:
"It is the family's wish that much attention be given to preparing the
young girl whom I am sending to you, for Society; heavy or arduous work
in any other line is of secondary consideration. The prestige of your
school could not fail to be enhanced by the presence of a Spanish girl
of good family."
"I am not a Spanish girl, Aunt Gwendolin!" I said.
"I did not say you were," returned my aunt, "I simply said the prestige
of her school could not fail to be enhanced by the presence of one."
Have I got to live up to _that_?