"Mother says," mumbled John-James, "that happen later Vassie could go to
what they do call a boarding school to Plymouth church town, seen' as
the money won't be Ishmael's yet awhile.... Only she must learn to
cipher and make nadlework flowers afore go, or the other maids'll mock
at she."

"I can teach the ciphering but not the needlework flowers, I fear," said
the Parson, laughing; "my housekeeper will have to be called in over
that. Well, you tell Vassie to be here by nine in the morning and she
shall begin her education. Whether she sticks to it is her own affair."

"She'll stick to it," prophesied John-James. "She'm terrible proud, is
Vassie."

That was how it came about that Vassilissa Beggoe, half pouting
defiance, half eager, began to pull herself out of the slough into which
her race had slipped. There were difficulties perpetually
arising--Ishmael had to be snubbed for sneering at her abysmal
ignorance; and a course more adapted to her needs and temperament than
the classic one the Parson was unfolding before the boy had to be
arrived at; and her own recurring fits of suspicion and obstinacy had to
be overcome. The intimacy between brother and sister did not deepen
perceptibly, for the three years between them made too wide a gulf at
that period in life, and to counter Ishmael's scorn of her as a girl and
far more ignorant than himself, was her scorn of him as younger, less
daring, much less swift of apprehension, though keener of application.
Each began to have a certain respect for the other, nevertheless--she in
his superiority over the other boys she knew, he in her splendour that
made the other boys' sisters seem dim. These two were laying the