ose 'twas her nater to want to look into the world a bit.'

'Father and mother kept Berta to school, you understand, sir,' explained
the more thoughtful Sol, 'because she was such a quick child, and they
always had a notion of making a governess of her. Sums? If you said to
that child, "Berta, 'levenpence-three-farthings a day, how much a year?"
she would tell 'ee in three seconds out of her own little head. And that
hard sum about the herrings she had done afore she was nine.'

'True, she had,' said Dan. 'And we all know that to do that is to do
something that's no nonsense.'

'What is the sum?' Christopher inquired.

'What--not know the sum about the herrings?' said Dan, spreading his gaze
all over Christopher in amazement.

'Never heard of it,' said Christopher.

'Why down in these parts just as you try a man's soul by the Ten
Commandments, you try his head by that there sum--hey, Sol?'

'Ay, that we do.'

'A herring and a half for three-halfpence, how many can ye get for
'levenpence: that's the feller; and a mortal teaser he is, I assure 'ee.
Our parson, who's not altogether without sense o' week days, said one
afternoon, "If cunning can be found in the multiplication table at all,
Chickerel, 'tis in connection with that sum." Well, Berta was so clever
in arithmetic that she was asked to teach summing at Miss Courtley's, and
there she got to like foreign tongues more than ciphering, and at last
she hated ciphering, and took to books entirely. Mother and we were very
proud of her at that time: not that we be stuck-up people at all--be we,
Sol?'

'Not at all; nobody can say that we be that, though there's more of it in
the country than there should be by all account.'

'You'd be surprised to see how vain the girls about here be getting.
Little rascals, why they won't curtsey to the loftiest lady in the land;
no, not if you were to pay 'em to do it. Now, the men be different. Any
man will touch his hat for a pint of beer. But then, of course, there's
some difference between the two. Touching your hat is a good deal less
to do than bending your knees, as Berta used to say, when she was blowed
up for not doing it. She was always one of the independent sort--you
never seed such a maid as she was! Now, Picotee was quite the other
way.'

'Has Picotee left Sandbourne entirely?'

'O no; she is home for the holidays. Well, Mr. Julian, our road parts
from yours just here, unless you walk into the next