"I got on abominably," said Kathleen.

"What class are you in?"

"I don't know. I am with a lot of babies; I suppose I am to be a sort of
caretaker to them. There wasn't anything to learn. I am going to write
to father. I can't stay in that horrid school."

"Oh, yes, you can. You will get to like it very much after a time. You
have never been at school before, and of course you find it irksome."

"Is it irksome?" cried Kathleen. "Is it that she calls it? Oh, glory!
It's purgatory, my dear, that's what it is--purgatory--and I haven't
done anything to deserve it."

"But you want to learn; you don't want to be always ignorant."

"Bedad, then, darling, I don't want to learn at all. What do I want to
know your sort of things for? I could beat you, every one of you, and
the teachers, too, in some accomplishments. Put me on a horse, darling,
and see what I can do; and put me in a boat, pet, and find out where I
can take you. And set me swimming in the cold sea; I can turn
somersaults and dive and dance on the waves, and do every mortal thing
as though I were a fish, not a girl. And give me a gun and see me bring
down a bird on the wing. Ah! those things ought to be counted in the
education of a woman. I can do all those things, and I can mix whisky
punch, and I can sing songs to the dear old dad, and I can comfort my
mother when her rheumatics are bad. And I can love, love, love! Oh, no,
Alice, I am not ignorant in the true sense; but I hate French, and I
hate arithmetic, and I hate all your horrid school work. And I never