whether you keep up your studies at all."

She shrugged her pretty shoulders playfully, looking up in my face again.

"I don't like dry things, papa."

"Nobody does."

"Nobody!" she exclaimed. "How do the grammars and history-books come to be
written then?"

In talking to me, somehow, the child always put on a more childish tone
than when she talked to anyone else. I am certain there was no affection in
it, though. Indeed, how could she be affected with her fault-finding old
father?

"No. Those books are exceedingly interesting to the people that make them.
Dry things are just things that you do not know enough about to care for
them. And all you learn at school is next to nothing to what you have to
learn."

"What must I do then?" she asked with a sigh. "Must I go all over my French
Grammar again? O dear! I do hate it so!"

"If you will tell me something you like, Connie, instead of something you
don't like, I may be able to give you advice. Is there nothing you are fond
of?" I continued, finding that she remained silent.

"I don't know anything in particular--that is, I don't know anything in the
way of school-work that I really liked. I don't mean that I didn't try