A piano and a harp were sent to the Elms.
Every week Lady Earle dispatched a large box of books, and the governess was quite content.
Mrs.Vyvian, to whom Lady Earle intrusted every detail of her son's marriage, was well pleased to find that Dora liked her and began to show some taste for study.

Dora, who would dream of other things when Ronald read, now tried to learn herself.

She was not ashamed to sit hour after hour at the piano trying to master some simple little air, or to ask questions when anything puzzled her in her reading.

Mrs.
Vyvian, so calm and wise, so gentle, yet so strong, taught her so cleverly that Dora never felt her own ignorance, nor did she grow disheartened as she had done with Ronald.
The time came when Dora could play pretty simple ballads, singing them in her own bird-like, clear voice, and when she could appreciate great writers, and speak of them without any mistake either as to their names or their works.
It was a simple, pleasant, happy life; the greater part of the day was spent by mother children in study.

In the evening came long rambles through the green woods, where Dora seemed to know the name and history of every flower that grew; over the smiling meadows, where the kine stood knee-deep in the long, scented grass; over the rocks, and down by the sea shore, where the waves chanted their grand anthem, and broke in white foam drifts upon the sands.
No wonder the young girls imbibed a deep warm love for all that was beautiful in Nature.