ad power to pierce hers.
Not the agony in Gethsemane, not the death on Calvary, could have wrung
from her eyes one tear.

I say again, Madame was a very great and a very capable woman. That
school offered her for her powers too limited a sphere; she ought to
have swayed a nation: she should have been the leader of a turbulent
legislative assembly. Nobody could have browbeaten her, none irritated
her nerves, exhausted her patience, or over-reached her astuteness. In
her own single person, she could have comprised the duties of a first
minister and a superintendent of police. Wise, firm, faithless; secret,
crafty, passionless; watchful and inscrutable; acute and
insensate--withal perfectly decorous--what more could be desired?

The sensible reader will not suppose that I gained all the knowledge
here condensed for his benefit in one month, or in one half-year. No!
what I saw at first was the thriving outside of a large and flourishing
educational establishment. Here was a great house, full of healthy,
lively girls, all well-dressed and many of them handsome, gaining
knowledge by a marvellously easy method, without painful exertion or
useless waste of spirits; not, perhaps, making very rapid progress in
anything; taking it easy, but still always employed, and never
oppressed. Here was a corps of teachers and masters, more stringently
tasked, as all the real head-labour was to be done by them, in order to
save the pupils, yet having their duties so arranged that they relieved
each other in quick succession whenever the work was severe: here, in
short, was a foreign school; of which the life, movement, and variety
made it a complete and most charming contrast to many English
institutions of the same kind.

Behind the house was a large garden, and, in summer, the pupils almost
lived out of doors amongst the rose-bushes and the fruit-trees. Under
the vast and vine-draped berceau, Madame would take her seat on summer
afternoons, and send for the classes, in turns, to sit round her and
sew and read. Meantime, masters came and went, delivering short and
lively lectures, rather than lessons, and the pupils made notes of
their instructions, or did _not_ make them--just as inclination
prompted; secure that, in case of neglect, they could copy the notes of
their companions. Besides the regular monthly _jours de sortie_, the
Catholic fete-days brought a succession of holidays all the year round;
and sometimes on a bright summer mor