The Fortunes of Philippa — Angela Brazil

"When we two parted In silence and tears, Half broken-hearted To sever for years." MUST I really go?" "I'm afraid it has come to that, Philippa I believe I have kept you here too long already. You're ten years old now, growing a tall girl, and not learning half the things you ought to. I feel there's something wrong about you, but I don't know quite how to set it right. After all, I suppose a man can't expect to bring up a girl entirely by himself." My father looked me up and down with a glance of despair which would have been comical if it had not seemed at the same time somewhat pathetic. "I can do the fifth proposition in Euclid," I objected, "and the Latin Grammar as far as irregular verbs." My father shook his head. "That might help you a little if you were a boy in a public school, but it's not all that your mother would have wished. You've not been taught a note of music, you can't speak French or dance a quadrille, and if it came to a question of fine sewing, I'm afraid you'd scarcely know which was the right end of your needle " The list of my deficiencies was so dreadfully true that I had no excuse to bring forward, and my father continued.