Page:The Climber (Benson).djvu/50

40 slightest difficulty in giving her aunt certain of the conclusions of her morning walk.

"I had a good long think this morning, Aunt Cathie," she said, "and I should like to tell you about it. I found out that I was an idle, lazy little brute, and that I had been wasting my time most abominably during this last year. Now I'm going to behave differently. I suppose you don't talk French, do you?"

Aunt Cathie dropped her paper at this very surprising question.

"Bless me, no! Haven't looked at a French book since I was a girl," she said. "It's hard enough to say what you want in English, without bothering about other tongues. Besides, what good could French be to me? We had a French governess once at home, but she was sent away for picking out the marks from your grandmamma's linen and putting in her own. Your grandmamma often said she wouldn't wonder if she was a spy."

These almost international complications had led Aunt Cathie away from the original question, and she returned abruptly.

"About French?" she asked.

"Oh, it was only that French was one of the things I was going to work at," said Lucia, "and I thought, if you knew French, we might make a vow only to talk French to each other three days a week or something. But if you don't know it, conversation would be limited."

There was no gainsaying this, but Aunt Cathie wanted to learn now.

"And what else?" she asked. "Sketching, now? I used to sketch. We might go sketching. Your Aunt Elizabeth and I both belonged to a sketching club, and learned touches for trees."

"Touches for trees?" asked Louisa. [sic]

"Yes, different-shaped pencil marks indicating the foliage of various trees. Elizabeth learned seven touches, but I never mastered more than five. So I could never draw plane-trees, of which there were a quantity at home. And singing, too—had you thought about singing? I might help you there. I had what is called a veiled contralto."

Aunt Cathie was getting less brusque and more accessible every moment, but, becoming suddenly conscious of it herself, she withdrew altogether. She must not seem to be forcing herself on Lucia. But she made one more advance before she retired.

"I'll get the piano tuned," she said. "Let me glance through the paper. Hum! Death of Lord Brayton. Serve him right. Drink and smoke."