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"Well, it belongs to your mother, and so you may say it belongs to your father; but it is yours for all that. The arrangement was, as I know," my aunt went on, addressing Miss Pinshon, "the arrangement in the marriage settlements was, that the sons should have the father's property, and the daughters the mother's. There is one son and one daughter; so they will each have enough."
"Daisy," said Preston, you are just as fond of having your own way as " "As what? I do not think I am, Preston." "I suppose nobody thinks he is," grumbled Preston, following me, "except the fellows who can't get it." I had by this time almost forgotten Miss Pinshon. I had almost come to think that Magnolia might be a pleasant place.
The day was less weary than the day before, only I think because I was tired beyond impatience or nervous excitement. Not much was done; for though I was very willing I had very little power. But the multiplication table, Miss Pinshon said, was easy work; and at that and reading and writing, the morning crept away.
I never saw such a change in a child in four weeks never!" "Try a different regimen to-morrow, I think," said my governess, whose lustrous black eyes looked at me sick, exactly as they had looked at me well. "I shall send for a doctor, if she isn't better," said my aunt. "She's feverish now." "Keeping her bed all day," said Miss Pinshon. "Do you think so?" said my aunt.
The soup ladle seemed to be by mistake in the wrong hands; Preston seemed to have no business with my father's carving knife and fork; the sense of desolation pressed upon me everywhere. After dinner the ladies went upstairs to choose their rooms, and Miss Pinshon avowed that she wished to have mine within hers; it would be proper and convenient, she said.
Preston turned to leave the room with his candy, and in turning gave me a look of such supreme fun and mischief that at another time I could hardly have helped laughing. But Miss Pinshon was asking me if I understood arithmetic? "I think I know very little about it," I said hesitating. "I can do a sum." "In what?" "On the slate, ma'am." "Yes, but in what?"
My aunt and Miss Pinshon came and went and were busy about me; making me drink negus and putting hot bricks to my feet. Preston stole in to look at me; but I gathered that neither then nor afterwards did he reveal to any one the matter of our conversation the hour before. "Wearied" "homesick" "feeble" "with no sort of strength to bear anything" they said I was.
My hand was trembling, my voice was faint, my memory grasped nothing so clearly as Margaret's tears that morning, and Preston's behaviour the preceding day. My cheeks were pale, of course. Miss Pinshon said we would begin to set that right with a walk after dinner. The walk was had; but with my hand clasped in Miss Pinshon's I only wished myself at home all the way.
Somehow, I do not think the crops were heavy. I tried my best, and Miss Pinshon certainly tried her best. I went through and over immense fields of figures; but I fancy the soil did not suit the growth.
"Oh, it was not here," said my aunt; "it was at the North, where the roads are not like our pine forest. However the roads were not dangerous there, that I know of; not for anybody but a child. But horses and carriages are always dangerous." Miss Pinshon next applied herself to me. What did I know? "beside this whip accomplishment," as she said. I was tongue-tied.
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