FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   >>  
of all this lady's pupils; but what was really extraordinary in Mademoiselle Claxon was her sense of grammatical structure; she wrote the language even more perfectly than she spoke it; but beautifully, but wonderfully; her exercises were something marvellous. Mrs. Lander would have liked Clementina to take all the lessons that she heard any of the other young ladies in the hotel were taking. One of them went in town every day, and studied drawing at an art-school, and she wanted Clementina to do that, too. But Clementina would not do that; she had tried often enough at home, when her brother Jim was drawing, and her father was designing the patterns of his woodwork; she knew that she never could do it, and the time would be wasted. She decided against piano lessons and singing lessons, too; she did not care for either, and she pleaded that it would be a waste to study them; but she suggested dancing lessons, and her gift for dancing won greater praise, and perhaps sincerer, than her accent won from Mademoiselle Blanc, though Mrs. Lander said that she would not have believed any one could be more complimentary. She learned the new steps and figures in all the fashionable dances; she mastered some fancy dances, which society was then beginning to borrow from the stage; and she gave these before Mrs. Lander with a success which she felt herself. "I believe I could teach dancing," she said. "Well, you won't eve' haf to, child," returned Mrs. Lander, with an eye on the side of the case that seldom escaped her. In spite of his wish to respect these preoccupations, Fane could not keep from offering Clementina attentions, which took the form of persecution when they changed from flowers for Mrs. Lander's table to letters for herself. He apologized for his letters whenever he met her; but at last one of them came to her before breakfast with a special delivery stamp from Boston. He had withdrawn to the city to write it, and he said that if she could not make him a favorable answer, he should not come back to Woodlake. She had to show this letter to Mrs. Lander, who asked: "You want he should come back?" "No, indeed! I don't want eva to see him again." "Well, then, I guess you'll know how to tell him so." The girl went into her own room to write, and when she brought her answer to show it to Mrs. Lander she found her in frowning thought. "I don't know but you'll have to go back and write it all over again, Cleme
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   >>  



Top keywords:

Lander

 

Clementina

 

lessons

 
dancing
 
answer
 

letters

 
Mademoiselle
 

dances

 

drawing

 

escaped


preoccupations
 

offering

 

attentions

 

seldom

 

respect

 
thought
 

returned

 

brought

 

persecution

 
Boston

withdrawn

 
delivery
 

breakfast

 

special

 

frowning

 

favorable

 

Woodlake

 
letter
 

flowers

 

changed


apologized

 

taking

 

ladies

 

studied

 

brother

 

school

 

wanted

 

Claxon

 

grammatical

 

structure


extraordinary

 

pupils

 

language

 

exercises

 

marvellous

 

wonderfully

 
beautifully
 

perfectly

 

father

 

designing