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Weakness
Giving the book another longing glance, she sat down at her table and pulled out her mathematics book. It was by far her worst subject, but she thought, if she wanted to impress a new governess, she should likely study it a bit more. Young women didn’t have to know nearly as much about calculations and sums as young men, but she’d be expected to know something about how numbers worked. She felt like such a failure every time she attempted to do a simple long division calculation. Whenever she began to court, she would make sure that all the young men she accepted invitations from could do their computations so that she wouldn’t have to.
“That does not look very exciting at all,” Kelly said from just behind her. Meg hadn’t heard her come in and startled a bit at the unfamiliar voice. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“Not at all,” Meg said. Being frightened was a weakness, and she had
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