s it
proved, with truth.

Eleanor was his favourite pupil. Indeed, she was in favour with all the
teachers.

A certain quaint little German was our arithmetic-master; a very good
one, whose patience was often sorely tried by our stupidity or
frivolity. On such occasions he rained epithets on us, which, from his
imperfect knowledge of English, were often comical, and roused more
amusement than shame. But for Eleanor he never had a harsh word. She was
thoroughly fond of arithmetic, and "gave her mind to it," to use a good
old phrase.

"Ah!" the little man would yell at us. "You are so light-headed!
Sometimes you do do a sum, and sometimes not; but you do never _think_.
There is not one young lady of this establishment who thinks, but Miss
Arkwright alone."

I remember an incident connected with the arithmetic-master which
occurred just after we came, and which roused Eleanor's intense
indignation. It was characteristic, too, of Madame's ideas of propriety.

The weather was warm, and we were in the habit of dressing for tea. Our
toilettes were of the simplest kind. Muslin garibaldis, for coolness,
and our "second-best" skirts.

Eleanor, Matilda, and I shared one room. On the first Wednesday evening
after our arrival at Bush House we were dressing as usual, when Emma ran
in.

"I'm so sorry I forgot to tell you," said she; "you mustn't put on your
muslin bodies to-night. The arithmetic-master is coming after tea."

"I don't understand," said Eleanor, who was standing on one leg as
usual, and who paused in a struggle with a refractory elastic sandal to
look up with a puckered brow, and general bewilderment. "What has the
arithmetic to do with our dresses?"

Emma's saucy mouth and snub nose twitched with amusement, as she replied
in exact mimicry of Madame's broken English: "Have you so little of
delicacy as to ask, mademoiselle? Should the young ladies of this
establishment expose their shoulders in the transparency of muslin to a
professor?"

Matilda and I burst out laughing at Emma's excellent imitation of
Madame; but Eleanor dropped her foot to the floor with a stamp that
broke the sandal, and burst forth into an indignant torrent of words,
which was only stayed by the necessity for resuming our morning dresses,
and hastening down-stairs. There Eleanor swallowed her wrath with her
weak tea; and I remember puzzling myself, to the neglect of mine, as to
the probable connection between arithmetic-masters and tra