She must gain her point if she
could, and to argue, she knew, was never a road to success.
"I am sure if we could get a really nice English girl," hazarded Miss
Roberta, wishing to propitiate, "it might be company for us all,
Ginevra--but if Mrs. Anderton insists upon sending another foreign
person--"
"And of course she will," interrupted the elder lady; "people of Mrs.
Anderton's class always think it is more genteel to have a smattering of
foreign languages than to know their own mother tongue. We may get
another German--and that I could hardly bear."
"Then do write to my stepfather, please, please," cried Halcyone. "Say I
am going to be splendidly taught--lots of interesting things--and oh--I
will try so hard by myself to keep up what I already know. I will
practice--really, really, Aunt Ginevra--and do my German exercises and
dear Aunt Roberta can talk French to me and even teach me the Italian
songs that she sings so beautifully to her guitar!"
This last won the day as far as Miss Roberta was concerned. Her faded
cheeks flushed pink. The trilling Italian love-songs, learnt some fifty
years ago during a two years' residence in Florence, had always been her
pride and joy.
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