"Won't you take me to walk on the piazza?" I asked, for everybody else
was walking there. He was only too happy; and so the evening ended
commonplace enough.
CHAPTER X.
EVERY DAY FROM SIX TO SEVEN.
She wanted years to understand
The grief that he did feel.
_Surrey_.
Love is not love
That alters where it alteration finds.
This was how the German class was formed.
The next day, as we were leaving the dinner-table, Mr. Langenau paused a
few moments by Sophie, in the hall, and talked with her about the boys.
"Charley gets on very well with his German," he observed, "but Benny
doesn't make much progress. He is too young to study much, and acquires
chiefly by the ear. If you only had a German maid, or if you could speak
with him yourself, he would make much better progress."
"Yes, I wish I had more knowledge of the language," she replied; "I read
it very easily, but cannot speak with any fluency."
"Why will you never speak it with me?" he said. "And if you will permit
me, I shall be very glad to read with you an hour a day. I have much
leisure, and it would be no task to me."
"I should like it very much, and you are very kind. But it is so hard
to find an hour unoccupied, particularly with so many people in the
house, whom I ought to entertain."
"That is very true, unless you can make it a source of entertainment to
them. Miss Benson--is she not a German scholar? She might like to
join you."
Then, I think, the clever Sophie's mind was illuminated, and the tutor's
little scheme was revealed to her clear eye; she embraced it with
effusion. "An admirable idea," she said, "and the others, too, perhaps,
would join us if you would not mind. It would be one hour a day at least
secure from _ennui:_ I shall have great cause to thank you, if we can
arrange it. For these girls get so tired of doing nothing; my mind is
always on the strain to think of an amusement. Charlotte! Come here, I
want to ask you something."
Charlotte Benson came, and with her came Henrietta. I was sitting on the
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