ouisa answered, "I don't know that,
Sissy. You are more useful to my mother. You are pleasanter to yourself,
than _I_ am to _myself._"

"But, if you please, Miss Louisa," Sissy pleaded, "I am--Oh so stupid!
All through school hours I make mistakes. To-day for instance, Mr.
M'Choakumchild was explaining to us about Natural Prosperity."

"National, I think it must have been," observed Louisa.

"National Prosperity," corrected Sissy, "and he said, Now, this
schoolroom is a Nation, and in this nation there are fifty millions of
money. Isn't this a prosperous nation? Girl number twenty. Isn't this a
prosperous nation, and a'n't you in a thriving state? Miss Louisa, I
said I didn't know. I thought I couldn't know whether it was a
prosperous nation or not, and whether I was in a thriving state or not,
unless I knew who had got the money, and whether any of it was mine. But
that had nothing to do with it. It was not in the figures at all," said
Sissy, wiping her eyes.

"That was a great mistake of yours," observed Louisa.

"Yes, Miss Louisa, I know it was now. Then Mr. M'Choakumchild said he
would try me again. And he said, This Schoolroom is an immense town, and
in it there are a million inhabitants, and only five-and-twenty are
starved to death in the streets, in the course of a year. What is your
remark on that proportion? And my remark was, that I thought it must be
just as hard upon those who were starved, whether the others were a
million or a million million. And that was wrong too. Then Mr.
M'Choakumchild said he would try me once more. And he said That in a
given time a hundred thousand persons went to sea on long voyages, and
only five hundred of them were drowned or burned to death. What is the
percentage? And I said, Miss;" here Sissy fairly sobbed in confessing to
her great error; "I said it was nothing, Miss--to the relations and
friends of the people who were killed--I shall never learn," said Sissy.
"And the worst of all is, that although my poor father wished me so much
to learn, and although I am so anxious to learn, because he wished me
to, I am afraid I don't like it."

Louisa stood looking at the pretty, modest head, as it drooped abashed
before her, until it was raised again to glance at her face. Then
she asked:

"Did your father know so much himself, that he wished you to be well
taught too?"

Sissy hesitated before replying, for this was forbidden ground, but
Louisa insisted upon continuing th