Page:Duer Miller--The charm school.djvu/148

 "Eh, what's that?" asked Mr. Johns. "He orders Elise to write to him?"

"Yes," replied George, feeling he was scoring for the first time. "He has her write to him every day."

"And does she?" asked her grandfather.

"You bet she does," answered Austin, who was no coward. "I've been trying to improve her writing and spelling, which aren't much good, you know, Mr. Johns."

"He's right there, George," said Mr. Johns, but Austin could feel that those bright little eyes dwelt contemplatively upon him for an instant.

"Mr. Johns," said George, "you ought to see those letters. What is in them? We—you, I mean, have a right to know."

Austin smiled quite in the grand manner. "You can see them easily enough, if Elise keeps them. I always correct them and give them back to her." And then he remembered that he had one uncorrected in his pocket at that very moment which he would not let them see on any account.

"Well," said Mr. Johns, "suppose we effect a compromise. I have no objection to Mr. Bevans improving her handwriting, and I have no objection to your writing to her now and then, George."