es off her whole mind from her proper
occupations, unsettles her, and I do think it is beyond what befits a
young lady of her age."

Margaret was silent.

"In addition," said Miss Winter, "she is at every spare moment busy
with Latin and Greek, and I cannot think that to keep pace with a boy of
Norman's age and ability can be desirable for her."

"It is a great deal," said Margaret, "but--"

"I am convinced that she does more than is right," continued Miss
Winter. "She may not feel any ill effects at present, but you may depend
upon it, it will tell on her by-and-by. Besides, she does not attend to
anything properly. At one time she was improving in neatness and orderly
habits. Now, you surely must have seen how much less tidy her hair and
dress have been."

"I have thought her hair looking rather rough," said Margaret
disconsolately.

"No wonder," said Miss Winter, "for Flora and Mary tell me she hardly
spends five minutes over it in the morning, and with a book before her
the whole time. If I send her up to make it fit to be seen, I meet with
looks of annoyance. She leaves her books in all parts of the school-room
for Mary to put away, and her table drawer is one mass of confusion. Her
lessons she does well enough, I own, though what I should call much too
fast; but have you looked at her work lately?"

"She does not work very well," said Margaret, who was at that moment,
though Miss Winter did not know it, re-gathering a poor child's frock
that Ethel had galloped through with more haste than good speed.

"She works a great deal worse than little Blanche," said Miss Winter,
"and though it may not be the fashion to say so in these days, I
consider good needlework far more important than accomplishments. Well,
then, Margaret, I should wish you only just to look at her writing."

And Miss Winter opened a French exercise-book, certainly containing
anything but elegant specimens of penmanship. Ethel's best writing was
an upright, disjointed niggle, looking more like Greek than anything
else, except where here and there it made insane efforts to become
running-hand, and thereby lost its sole previous good quality of
legibility, while the lines waved about the sheet in almost any
direction but the horizontal. The necessity she believed herself under
of doing what Harry called writing with the end of her nose, and
her always holding her pen with her fingers almost in the ink, added
considerably to the difficulty of