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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
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