Lethbury's satisfaction showed no corresponding advance.
Lethbury, at first, was disposed to add her disappointment to the
long list of feminine inconsistencies with which the sententious
observer of life builds up his favorite induction; but circumstances
presently led him to take a kindlier view of the case.
Hitherto his wife had regarded him as a negligible factor in Jane's
evolution. Beyond providing for his adopted daughter, and effacing
himself before her, he was not expected to contribute to her
well-being. But as time passed he appeared to his wife in a new
light. It was he who was to educate Jane. In matters of the
intellect, Mrs. Lethbury was the first to declare her
deficiencies--to proclaim them, even, with a certain virtuous
superiority. She said she did not pretend to be clever, and there
was no denying the truth of the assertion. Now, however, she seemed
less ready, not to own her limitations, but to glory in them.
Confronted with the problem of Jane's instruction, she stood in awe
of the child.
"I have always been stupid, you know," she said to Lethbury with a
new humility, "and I'm afraid I sha'n't know what is best for Jane.
I'm sure she has a wonderfully good mind, and I should reproach
myself if I didn't give her every opportunity." She looked at him
helplessly. "You must tell me what ought to be done."
Lethbury was not unwilling to oblige her. Somewhere in his mental
lumber-room there rusted a theory of education such as usually
lingers among the impedimenta of the childless.
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