Fanny was building castles--in all of which Mr. Wilmot and Julia were the
hero and heroine. She gazed admiringly at her sister, whose face grew
handsomer each moment as she became more animated, and she thought, "What
a nice-looking couple Julia and Mr. Wilmot would make! And they would be
so happy, too--that is if sister didn't get angry, and I am sure she
wouldn't with Mr. Wilmot. Then they would have a nicer house than this old
shell, and perhaps they would let me live with them!"
Here her reverie was interrupted by Mr. Wilmot, who asked her if she ever
studied Latin. Fanny hesitated; she did not wish to confess that she had
once studied it six months, but at the end of that time she was so
heartily tired of its "long-tailed verbs," as she called them, that she
had thrown her grammar out of the window and afterward given it to Aunt
Judy to start the oven with!
This story was told, however, by Julia, with many embellishments, for she
delighted in making Fanny appear ridiculous. She was going on swimmingly
when she received a drawback from her mother, who said: "Julia, what do you want to talk so for? You know that while Fanny studied
Latin, Mr. Miller said she learned her lessons more readily than you did
and recited them better, and he said, too, that she was quite as good a
French scholar as you."
Julia curled her lip scornfully and said, "she didn't know what her mother
knew about Fanny's scholarship." Meantime Fanny was blushing deeply and
thinking that she had appeared to great disadvantage in Mr. Wilmot's eyes;
but he very kindly changed the conversation by asking who Mr. Miller was,
and was told that he was a young man from Albany, New York, who taught in
their neighborhood the winter before.
The appearance of some nice red apples just then turned the attention of
the little company in another channel and before they were aware of it the
clock struck ten. Mr. Middleton had not returned and as it was doubtful
whether he came at all that night, Julia went into the kitchen for Luce,
to show Mr. Wilmot to his room. She was gone some time, and when she
returned was accompanied by a bright-looking mulatto girl, who, as soon as
she had conducted Mr. Wilmot into his room, commenced making excuses about
"marster's old house! Things was drefful all round it, but 'twasn't Miss
Julia's fault, for if she could have her way 'twould be fixed up, sartin.
She was a born'd lady, anybody could see; so different from Miss Fanny,
who cared nothing how things looked if she could go into the kitchen and
turn hoe cakes for Aunt Judy, or tend the baby!"