s and staircases, and cleaned stoves and locks, in
peace and independence. Rather than be a companion, I would have made
shirts and starved.

I was no bright lady's shadow--not Miss de Bassompierre's. Overcast
enough it was my nature often to be; of a subdued habit I was: but the
dimness and depression must both be voluntary--such as kept me docile
at my desk, in the midst of my now well-accustomed pupils in Madame
Beck's fist classe; or alone, at my own bedside, in her dormitory, or
in the alley and seat which were called mine, in her garden: my
qualifications were not convertible, nor adaptable; they could not be
made the foil of any gem, the adjunct of any beauty, the appendage of
any greatness in Christendom. Madame Beck and I, without assimilating,
understood each other well. I was not _her_ companion, nor her
children's governess; she left me free: she tied me to nothing--not to
herself--not even to her interests: once, when she had for a fortnight
been called from home by a near relation's illness, and on her return,
all anxious and full of care about her establishment, lest something in
her absence should have gone wrong finding that matters had proceeded
much as usual, and that there was no evidence of glaring neglect--she
made each of the teachers a present, in acknowledgment of steadiness.
To my bedside she came at twelve o'clock at night, and told me she had
no present for me: "I must make fidelity advantageous to the St.
Pierre," said she; "if I attempt to make it advantageous to you, there
will arise misunderstanding between us--perhaps separation. One thing,
however, I _can_ do to please you--leave you alone with your liberty:
c'est-ce que je ferai." She kept her word. Every slight shackle she had
ever laid on me, she, from that time, with quiet hand removed. Thus I
had pleasure in voluntarily respecting her rules: gratification in
devoting double time, in taking double pains with the pupils she
committed to my charge.

As to Mary de Bassompierre, I visited her with pleasure, though I would
not live with her. My visits soon taught me that it was unlikely even
my occasional and voluntary society would long be indispensable to her.
M. de Bassompierre, for his part, seemed impervious to this conjecture,
blind to this possibility; unconscious as any child to the signs, the
likelihoods, the fitful beginnings of what, when it drew to an end, he
might not approve.

Whether or not he would cordially approve, I