‘After all,’ said she, throwing down her pen, and opening and shutting her weary, cramped hand, ’I see no good in tiring myself wi’ learning for t’ write letters when I’se never got one in a’ my life.  What for should I write answers, when there’s niver a one writes to me? and if I had one, I couldn’t read it; it’s bad enough wi’ a book o’ print as I’ve niver seen afore, for there’s sure to be new-fangled words in ’t.  I’m sure I wish the man were farred who plagues his brains wi’ striking out new words.  Why can’t folks just ha’ a set on ’em for good and a’?’

‘Why! you’ll be after using two or three hundred yoursel’ every day as you live, Sylvie; and yet I must use a great many as you never think on about t’ shop; and t’ folks in t’ fields want their set, let alone the high English that parsons and lawyers speak.’

’Well, it’s weary work is reading and writing.  Cannot you learn me something else, if we mun do lessons?’

‘There’s sums—­and geography,’ said Hepburn, slowly and gravely.

‘Geography!’ said Sylvia, brightening, and perhaps not pronouncing the word quite correctly, ‘I’d like yo’ to learn me geography.  There’s a deal o’ places I want to hear all about.’

’Well, I’ll bring up a book and a map next time.  But I can tell you something now.  There’s four quarters in the globe.’

‘What’s that?’ asked Sylvia.

‘The globe is the earth; the place we live on.’

‘Go on.  Which quarter is Greenland?’

‘Greenland is no quarter.  It is only a part of one.’

‘Maybe it’s a half quarter.’

‘No, not so much as that.’

‘Half again?’

‘No!’ he replied, smiling a little.

She thought he was making it into a very small place in order to tease her; so she pouted a little, and then said,—­

‘Greenland is all t’ geography I want to know.  Except, perhaps, York.  I’d like to learn about York, because of t’ races, and London, because King George lives there.’

’But if you learn geography at all, you must learn ’bout all places:  which of them is hot, and which is cold, and how many inhabitants is in each, and what’s the rivers, and which is the principal towns.’

’I’m sure, Sylvie, if Philip will learn thee all that, thou’lt be such a sight o’ knowledge as ne’er a one o’ th’ Prestons has been sin’ my great-grandfather lost his property.  I should be main proud o’ thee; ‘twould seem as if we was Prestons o’ Slaideburn once more.’

‘I’d do a deal to pleasure yo’, mammy; but weary befa’ riches and land, if folks that has ’em is to write “Abednegos” by t’ score, and to get hard words int’ their brains, till they work like barm, and end wi’ cracking ’em.’