"Yes; and I don't know longitude from latitude now; and I'm always
puzzled as to which is perpendicular and which is horizontal."
"Yet, I do assure you," her mother continued, rather addressing
herself to Osborne, "that her memory for poetry is prodigious. I have
heard her repeat the 'Prisoner of Chillon' from beginning to end."
"It would be rather a bore to have to hear her, I think," said Mr.
Gibson, smiling at Cynthia, who gave him back one of her bright looks
of mutual understanding.
"Ah, Mr. Gibson, I have found out before now that you have no soul
for poetry; and Molly there is your own child. She reads such deep
books--all about facts and figures: she'll be quite a blue-stocking
by-and-by."
"Mamma," said Molly, reddening, "you think it was a deep book because
there were the shapes of the different cells of bees in it! but it
was not at all deep. It was very interesting."
"Never mind, Molly," said Osborne. "I stand up for blue-stockings."
"And I object to the distinction implied in what you say," said
Roger. "It was not deep, _ergo_, it was very interesting. Now, a book
may be both deep and interesting."
"Oh, if you are going to chop logic and use Latin words, I think it
is time for us to leave the room," said Mrs. Gibson.
"Don't let us run away as if we were beaten, mamma," said Cynthia.
"Though it may be logic, I, for one, can understand what Mr. Roger
Hamley said just now; and I read some of Molly's books; and whether
it was deep or not I found it very interesting--more so than I should
think the 'Prisoner of Chillon' now-a-days. I've displaced the
Prisoner to make room for Johnnie Gilpin as my favourite poem."
"How could you talk such nonsense, Cynthia!" said Mrs. Gibson, as the
girls followed her upstairs. "You know you are not a dunce. It is all
very well not to be a blue-stocking, because gentle-people don't like
that kind of woman; but running yourself down, and contradicting all
I said about your liking for Byron, and poets and poetry--to Osborne
Hamley of all men, too!"
Mrs. Gibson spoke quite crossly for her.
"But, mamma," Cynthia replied, "I am either a dunce, or I am not. If
I am, I did right to own it; if I am not, he's a dunce if he doesn't
find out I was joking."
"Well," said Mrs. Gibson, a little puzzled by this speech, and
wanting some elucidatory addition.
"Only that if he's a dunce his opinion of me is worth nothing. So,
any way, it doesn't signify."