"Where shall I go?"

"Why read, Stupid! Look at it."

She bent over and gazed earnestly where the end of his finger touched
the book. "I look and look," she said, shaking her head, "but I do
not see the pretty stories that you do. They seem quite gone away, and
nothing is left but little crooked marks."

"I do believe you can't read."

"I do believe it too," said Nellie.

"But you must try; such a big girl as you are getting to be!"

"I try and I look, but it don't come to me."

"You must learn."

"Yes."

"Do you intend to do it?"

"Why should I? You can read to me."

"You will never know anything," exclaimed the boy severely. "How do
you spend your time in the morning, when I am not here?"

"I do nothing."

"Nothing?"

"That is, I wait until you come," in an explanatory tone.

"What do you do while you are waiting?"

"I think about you, and wonder how soon you will be here; and I walk
about, or lie on the grass and look at the clouds."

"Well, did I ever hear of such an idle girl? I shall not come again
if you don't learn to read." Nellie was not much given to laughter
or tears. She had lived too much alone for such outward appeals for
sympathy. Why laugh when there is no one near to smile in return? Why
weep when there is no one to give comfort? She only regarded him with
a world of reproach in her large eyes.

"Nellie," he said, in reply to her eyes, "you ought to learn to read,
and you _must_. Did no one ever try to teach you?"

She shook her head.

"Have you no books?"

Again a negative shake.

"Just come along with me to the house. I'll see about this thing: it
must be stopped." And Danby rose and walked off with a determined air,
while the girl, abashed and wondering, followed him. When they arrived
he plunged into the subject at once: "Nurse Bridget, can you read?"

"An' I raly don't know, as I niver tried."

"Fiddlesticks! Of course Maurice is too blind, and very likely he
never tried either. Are there no books in the house?"

"An' there is, then--a whole room full of them, Master Danby. We are
not people of no larnin' here, I can tell you. There is big books,
an' little books, an' some awful purty books, an' some," she added
doubtfully, "as is not so purty."

"You know a great deal about books!" said the boy sarcastically.

"An' sure I do. Haven't I dusted them once ivery year since I came to
this blessed place? And tired enough they made me, too. I ain't likely
to forgit