Chapter 24 - Page 2

continued, rather addressing herself to Osborne 'that her memory for poetry is prodigious. I have heard her repeat the "Prisoner of Chillon" from beginning to end.'

'It would be rather a bore to have to hear her, I think,' said Mr Gibson, smiling at Cynthia, who gave him back one of her bright looks of mutual understanding.

'Ah, Mr Gibson, I have found out before now that you have no soul for poetry; and Molly there is your own child. She reads such deep books - all about facts and figures: she'll be quite a blue-stocking by and by.'

'Mamma,' said Molly, reddening, 'you think it was a deep book because there were the shapes of the different cells of bees in it; but it was not at all deep. It was very interesting.'

'Never mind, Molly,' said Osborne. 'I stand up for blue-stockings!'

'And I object to the distinction implied in what you say,' said Roger. 'It was not deep, ergo, it was very interesting. Now, a book may be both deep and interesting.'

'Oh, if you are going to chop logic and use Latin words, I think it is time for us to leave the room,' said Mrs Gibson.

'Don't let us run away as if we were beaten, mamma,' said Cynthia. 'Though it may be logic, I, for one, can understand what Mr Roger Hamley said just now; and I read some of Molly's book; and whether it was deep or not I found it very interesting - more so than I should think the "Prisoner of Chillon" now-a-days. I've displaced the Prisoner to make room for Johnnie Gilpin as my favourite poem.'

'How could you talk such nonsense, Cynthia?' said Mrs Gibson, as the girls followed her upstairs. 'You know you are not a dunce. It is all very well not to be a blue-stocking, because gentle-people don't like that kind of woman; but running yourself down, and contradicting all I said about your liking for Byron, and poets and poetry - to Osborne Hamley of all men, too!'

Mrs Gibson spoke quite crossly for her.

'But, mamma,' Cynthia replica, 'I am either a dunce, or I am not. If I am, I did right to own it; if I am not, he's a dunce if he doesn't find out I was joking.'

'Well,' said Mrs Gibson, a little puzzled by this speech, and wanting some elucidatory addition.

'Only that if he's a dunce his opinion of me is worth nothing. So, any way, it doesn't signify.'

'You really bewilder me with your nonsense, child. Molly is worth twenty of you.'

'I quite agree with you, mamma,' said Cynthia, turning round to take Molly's hand.

'Yes; but she ought not to be,' said Mrs Gibson, still irritated. 'Think of the advantages you've had.'

'I'm afraid I had rather be a dunce than a blue-stocking,' said Molly; for the term had a little annoyed her, and the annoyance was rankling still.

'Hush; here they are coming: I hear the dining-room door! I never meant you were a blue-stocking, dear, so don't look vexed. - Cynthia, my love, where