g the headaches to anything rather than what Keziah briefly
termed "book-larning upon an empty stomach." The matter was compromised,
thanks to Keziah, by that good creature's offering to bring me new milk
and bread-and-butter every morning before I began to work. She really
brought it before I dressed, and my headaches vanished.

Though we did not wish to go back to Bush House, we were not quite
unmindful of our friends there. Eleanor wrote to thank Madame for the
flowers, and received a long and enthusiastic letter in reply--in
French, of course, and pointing out one or two blunders in Eleanor's
letter, which was in French also. She begged Eleanor to continue to
correspond with her, for the improvement of her "composition."

Poor Madame! She was indeed an indefatigable teacher, and had a real
ambition for the success of her pupils, which, in the drudgery of her
life, was almost grand.

Strange to say, she once came to the Vicarage. It was during the summer
succeeding that in which I came to live with the Arkwrights. She had
been in the habit of spending the holidays with a family in the country,
where, I believe, she gave some instruction in French and music in
return for her expenses. That summer she was out of health, and thinking
herself unable to fulfil her part of the bargain, she would not go.
After severe struggles with her sensitive scruples, she was persuaded to
come to us instead, on the distinct condition that she was to do nothing
in the way of "lessons," but talk French with us.

To persuade her to accept any payment for her services was the subject
of another long struggle. The thriftiest of women in her personal
expenditure, and needing money sorely, Madame was not grasping. Indeed,
her scruples on this subject were troublesome. She was for ever pursuing
us, book in hand, and with a sun-veil and umbrella to shield her
complexion, into the garden or the hayfield, imploring us to come in out
of the wind and sun, and do "a little of dictation--of composition," or
even to permit her to hear us play that duet from the 'Semiramide,' of
which the time had seemed to her on the last occasion far from perfect.

Her despair when Mrs. Arkwright supported our refusals was comical, and
she was only pacified at last by having the "scrap-bag" of odds and ends
of net, muslin, lace, and embroidery handed over to her, from which she
made us set after set of dainty collars and sleeves in various "modes,"
sitting well un