He obeyed with alacrity and soon the brown head and the fair one were bent together over the scrawled sheet. Isobel, who had really a budding talent for mathematics, worked out the sum, or rather the sums, without difficulty and then, with guile acquired under the governess régime, made him copy them and destroyed all traces of her own handiwork. 

 “Are you as stupid at everything as you are at sums?” she asked when he had finished, rising from the chair and seating herself on the edge of the table. 

 “What a rude thing to ask! Of course not,” he replied indignantly. “I am very good at Latin and history, which I like. But you see father doesn’t care much for them. He was a Wrangler, you know.” 

 “A Wrangler! How dreadful. I suppose that is why he argues so much in his sermons. I hate history. It’s full of dates and the names of kings who were all bad. I can’t make out why people put up with kings,” she added reflectively. 

 “Because they ought to, ‘God bless our gracious Queen,’ you know.” 

 “Well, God may bless her but I don’t see why I should as she never did anything for me, though Father does hope she will make him something one day. I’d like to be a Republican with a President as they have in America.” 

 “You must be what father calls a wicked Radical,” said Godfrey staring at her, “one of those people who want to disestablish the Church.” 

 “I daresay,” she replied, nodding her head. “That is if you mean making clergymen work like other people, instead of spying and gossiping and playing games as they do about here.” 

 Godfrey did not pursue the argument, but remarked immorally: 

 “It’s a pity you don’t come to our class, for then I could do your history papers and you could do my sums.” 

 She started, but all she said was: 

 “This would be a good place to learn history. Now I must be going. Don’t forget to give the note. I shall have to say that I waited a long while before I found anyone. Goodbye, Godfrey.” 

 “Goodbye, Isobel,” he answered, but she was gone. 

 “I hope he did dream that it was his mother who kissed him,” Isobel reflected to herself, for now the full enormity of her performance came home to her. Young as she was, a 

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