"Nonsense," Agatha muttered; but Magdalen said, "You can sit in the
drawing-room or your own room. Come, Tick-tick, where's your slate?
Come along."

"Don't sulk, Flapsy," said the elder sister, "it is of no use. The
M.A. means to be minded, and will be, and you know it is all for your
good."

"I hate my good," said naughty Vera.

"So does every one when it is against the grain," said Agatha; "but
remember it is a preparation for a free life of our own."

"It is our cross," said Paula, as she placed herself on the music
stool with a look of resignation almost comical.

Nor did her performance interfere with the equations which Agatha was
diligently working out; but Vera, though refusing to take refuge from
the piano, to which, in fact, she was perfectly inured, worried her
elder as much as she durst, by inquiries after the meaning of words,
or what horrid verb to look out in the dictionary; and it was a
pleasing change when Paula proceeded to work the same scene out for
herself without having recourse to explanations, so that Agatha was
undisturbed except by the careless notes, which almost equally
worried Magdalen in the more distant dining-room.

This was really the crisis of the battle of study. As the girls were
accustomed to it, and knew that they were of an age to be ground
down, they followed Agatha's advice, and submitted without further