behave like a baby,'
returned Sara, trying to be severe, only her dimples betrayed her. 'Well,
as you are so cross, I shall go away. There is the chocolate I promised
you. Ta-ta.' And Sara put down the _bonbonniere_ on the table and walked
out of the room.

I was not surprised to see Jill push it away. No one understood the poor
child but myself; she was precocious, womanly, for her age; she had
twenty times the amount of brains that Sara possessed, and she was
starving on the education provided for her.

To dance and drill and write dreary German exercises, when one is
thirsting to drink deeply at the well of knowledge; to go round and round
the narrow monotonous course that had sufficed for Sara's moderate
abilities, like the blind horse at the mill, and never to advance an inch
out of the beaten track, this was simply maddening to Jill's sturdy
intellect. She often told me how she longed to attend classes, to hear
lectures, to rub against full-grown minds.

'Now. Me-ess Jocelyn, we will do a little of ze Wallenstein, by the
immortal Schiller. Hold up the head, and leave off striking the table
with your elbows.' Jill would give a droll imitation of Fraeulein, and
end with a groan.

'What does she know-about Schiller? She cannot even comprehend him. She
is dense,--utterly dense and stupid; but because she knows her own
language and has a correct deportment she is fit to teach me.' And Jill
ground her little white teeth in impotent wrath. Jill always appeared to
me like an infant Pegasus in harness; she wanted to soar,--to make use of
her wings,--and they kept her down. She was not naturally gay, like Sara,
though her health was good, and she was as powerful as a young Amazon.
Her nature was more sombre and took colour from her surroundings.

She was like a child in the sunshine; plenty of life and movement
distracted her from interior broodings and made her joyous; when she was
riding with the young ladies from Miss Dugald's, she would be as merry as
the others.

But her dreary schoolroom and Fraeulein's society chafed her nervous
sensibilities dangerously; there were only a few brown sparrows, or
a stray cat intent on game, to be seen from her window. From the
drawing-room, from Sara's boudoir, from her mother's bedroom, there was
a charming view of the Park. In the spring the fresh foliage of the
trees, and the velvety softness of the grass, would be delicious; down
in the broad white road, carriages were pass