r absence.

Mr Hintman expressed a desire that Miss Mancel should learn Italian, if
she had no objection to it; for he never dictated to her, but offered
any advice he had to give, or any inclination which he chose to
intimate, with the humility of a dependant, rather than the authority of
a benefactor; and indeed it was sufficient; for the slightest hint that
any thing would be agreeable to him, met with the most impatient desire
in Miss Mancel to perform it: actuated by sincere affection, and the
strongest gratitude, nothing made her so happy as an opportunity to shew
him the readiness of her obedience.

But as they were at a loss for a master to teach her that language, Miss
Melvyn told them she knew an Italian gentleman, who had been at Sir
Charles's house near two months before she had the misfortune of losing
the best of mothers. Lady Melvyn had begun to teach her daughter
Italian, but desirous that she should speak it with great propriety, she
invited this gentleman to her house who was reduced to great distress of
circumstances, and whose person, as well as his many virtues, she had
known from her childhood. He had been a friend of her father's and she
was glad of this excuse for making him a handsome present, which
otherwise it was not easy to induce him to accept.

Mr Hintman was not long before he procured this Italian master for Miss
Mancel; nor did she delay making use of his instructions; but I shall
not describe her progress in the acquisition of this, any more than her
other accomplishments, in all of which she excelled to a surprising
degree; nor did Miss Melvyn fall very short of her, though she was at
such disadvantage in her method of learning many of them, not having the
assistance of a master. Their time was so entirely engrossed by these
employments, that they had little leisure, and still less desire, to
keep company with the rest of the school; but they saved themselves from
the dislike which might naturally have arisen in the minds of the other
scholars, from being thus neglected, by little presents which Miss
Mancel frequently made them.

These two young ladies were very early risers, and the time which was
not taken up by Miss Mancel's masters, and that wherein it was requisite
to practise what they taught her, they employed in reading, wherein Mr
d'Avora, their Italian master, often accompanied them.

Mr d'Avora was a man of excellent understanding, and had an incomparable
heart. Misfor