I said to him."

"Oh! then you do care for me, George," cried the girl enthusiastically,
"an' we ken be happy again. I've been real miserable since last night; I
cried myself to sleep, so I did. Now I know you love me I'll do anythin'
you wish, anythin'. I'll learn to play the pianner; you see if I don't."

"Perhaps," he replied harshly, the old anger growing bitter in him at
the mention of the "pianner"--"perhaps it would be better if you gave up
the idea of the piano; that _costs_ too much," he added significantly,
"far too much. If you'd read good books and try to live in the thought
of the time, it would be better. Wisdom is to be won cheaply and by all,
but success in an art depends upon innate qualities."

"I see," she exclaimed, flaming up, "you think I can't learn to play
like your sister, and I'm very ignorant, and had better read and get
to know all other people have said, and you call that wisdom. I don't.
Memory ain't sense, I guess; and to talk like you ain't everythin'."

The attack pricked his vanity. He controlled himself, however, and took
up the argument: "Memory is not sense, perhaps; but still one ought to
know the best that has been said and done in the world. It is easier to
climb the ladder when others have shown us the rungs. And surely to talk
correctly is better than to talk incorrectly."

"It don't matter much, I reckon, so long as one gets your meanin', and
as for the ladder, a monkey could do that."

The irrelevant retort puzzled him, and her tone increased his annoyance.
But why, he asked himself, should he trouble to lift her to a higher
level of thought? He relapsed into silence.

With wounded heart the girl waited; she was hurt, afraid he did not care
for her, could not even guess how she had offended him; but, as he would
not speak, her pride came to her aid, and she remarked:

"I'm asked out this evenin', so I'll have to get ready and go. Good
night, George Bancroft."

"Good night, Miss Loo," he replied calmly, though the pain he suffered
proved that jealousy may outlive love. "I think I shall go to this
meeting at the school-house."

They parted. Loo went upstairs to her room to cry over her misery and
George's coldness; to wish she had been better taught, and had learned
her lessons in school carefully, for then he might have been kinder. She
wondered how she should get books to read. It was difficult. Besides,
couldn't he see that she was quick and would learn every-thin'