28 THE BOY FROM GREEN GINGER LAND

Unfortunately they could not spend as much
time in the Feudal Castle as they would have
liked, for lessons began again the very day after
it was discovered. In themselves lessons were
pleasanter than they had ever been before, for
Miss Miller, their new governess, who bicycled
over each morning from one of the neighbouring
villages, was brighter and more interesting than
old-fashioned Miss Rogers. To be sure, Emmeline
was at first inclined to resent it as a slight to
Miss Rogers when she found herself expected to
do by short division sums she had ‘always been
taught’ to do by long; but she was a sensible girl
on the whole, and when once she had thoroughly
mastered the new method, and found out how
much quicker and neater it was than the old one,
she began to take quite a pride in working her
sums by it, and altogether became so docile and
well-behaved a pupil that Miss Miller soon shared
the general opinion that she was a model child.

To Emmeline’s relief, and possibly also a little
to her disappointment, she was not required to
depart from the ways in which she had been
brought up in any more important respects than
that question of short division versus long. So far
from amusing herself all Sunday, as Emmeline
had a vague impression that fashionable people
did, Aunt Grace attended more services than
Mary herself had done, and was certainly just as