Читать книгу Cathalina at Greycliff онлайн

24 страница из 47

Mr. and Mrs. Van Buskirk were both very sober. “A maid dresses her, picks up after her and brings her meals when she is either too miserable or too lazy to go down to the dining room. The child reads, draws and paints a little and rides around in the car to shop. She has practically no young companions except her cousins,—though in some respects that is just as well here.”

“When I suggested tennis or riding or swimming lessons, she just begged me not to make her,” said Sylvia, “and I knew she was not fit for any real strain.”

“O, it is always ‘lessons,’ in this, that or the other,” laughed Aunt Katherine. “I don’t know that I blame her. Perhaps you can get her to swim if you are on the coast this summer. But I have been observing that aside from her health you have a real problem to solve. I rather particularly love Cathalina,—and when I received the letter from my old friend, Ellen Randolph, with the catalogue I sent you this morning, it occurred to me that perhaps a complete change would rouse Cathalina. If she could see, for instance, that most girls do without many of the luxuries which she takes for granted, it would do her good. She has had private teaching enough, in my opinion.”