"At my uncle's, we always give a silver threepence for three dozen.
You know what a silver threepence is, don't you, dear Miss Gibson?"
"The three classes are published in the Senate House at nine o'clock
on the Friday morning, and you can't imagine--"
"I think it will be thought rather shabby to play at anything less
than sixpence. That gentleman" (this in a whisper) "is at Cambridge,
and you know they always play very high there, and sometimes ruin
themselves, don't they, dear Miss Gibson?"
"Oh, on this occasion the Master of Arts who precedes the candidates
for honours when they go into the Senate House is called the Father
of the College to which he belongs. I think I mentioned that before,
didn't I?"
So Cynthia was hearing all about Cambridge, and the very examination
about which Molly had felt such keen interest, without having ever
been able to have her questions answered by a competent person;
and Roger, to whom she had always looked as the final and most
satisfactory answerer, was telling the whole of what she wanted to
know, and she could not listen. It took all her patience to make up
little packets of counters, and settle, as the arbiter of the game,
whether it would be better for the round or the oblong counters to be
reckoned as six. And when all was done, and every one sate in their
places round the table, Roger and Cynthia had to be called twice
before they came. They stood up, it is true, at the first sound of
their names; but they did not move--Roger went on talking, Cynthia
listening till the second call; when they hurried to the table and
tried to appear, all on a sudden, quite interested in the great
questions of the game--namely, the price of three dozen counters, and
whether, all things considered, it would be better to call the round
counters or the oblong half-a-dozen each. Miss Browning, drumming the
pack of cards on the table, and quite ready to begin dealing, decided
the matter by saying, "Rounds are sixes, and three dozen counters
cost sixpence. Pay up, if you please, and let us begin at once."
Cynthia sate between Roger and William Orford, the young schoolboy,
who bitterly resented on this occasion his sisters' habit of calling
him "Willie," as he thought it was this boyish sobriquet which
prevented Cynthia from attending as much to him as to Mr. Roger
Hamley; he also was charmed by the charmer, who found leisure to
give him one or two of her sweet smiles. On his return home to his
grand-mamma's, he gave out one or two very decided and rather original
opinions, quite opposed--as was natural--to his sisters'. One was--