look at me.

"Have you and your mother been quarreling?" I asked.

"Oh, no!"

She denied it with such evident sincerity that I could not for a
moment suspect her of deceiving me. Whatever the cause of her
distress might be, it was plain that she had her own reasons for
keeping it a secret.

Her French books were on the table. I tried a little allusion to
her lessons.

"I hope you will go on regularly with your studies ," I said.

"I will do my best, sir--without you to help me."

She said it so sadly that I proposed--purely from the wish to
encourage her--a continuation of our lessons through the post.

"Send your exercises to me once a week," I suggested; "and I will
return them corrected "

She thanked me in low tones, with a shyness of manner which I had
never noticed in her before. I had done my best to cheer her--and
I was conscious, as we shook hands at parting, that I had failed.
A feeling of disappointment overcomes me when I see young people
out of spirits. I was sorry for Susan.