is absence, should be attended to. This her ladyship promised
cheerfully; nor had she any difficulty in persuading Cadurcis to
consent to the arrangement. He listened with docility and patience to
her representation of the fatal effects, in his after-life, of his
neglected education; of the generous and advantageous offer of Dr.
Masham; and how cheerfully she would exert herself to assist his
endeavours, if Plantagenet would willingly submit to her supervision.
The little lord expressed to her his determination to do all that she
desired, and voluntarily promised her that she should never repent
her goodness. And he kept his word. So every morning, with the full
concurrence of Mrs. Cadurcis, whose advice and opinion on the affair
were most formally solicited by Lady Annabel, Plantagenet arrived
early at the hall, and took his writing and French lessons with
Venetia, and then they alternately read aloud to Lady Annabel from the
histories of Hooke and Echard. When Venetia repaired to her drawing,
Cadurcis sat down to his Latin exercise, and, in encouraging and
assisting him, Lady Annabel, a proficient in Italian, began herself
to learn the ancient language of the Romans. With such a charming
mistress even these Latin exercises were achieved. In vain Cadurcis,
after turning leaf over leaf, would look round with a piteous air to
his fair assistant, 'O Lady Annabel, I am sure the word is not in the
dictionary;' Lady Annabel was in a moment at his side, and, by some
magic of her fair fingers, the word would somehow or other make its
appearance. After a little exposure of this kind, Plantagenet would
labour with double energy, until, heaving a deep sigh of exhaustion
and vexation, he would burst forth, 'O Lady Annabel, indeed there is
not a nominative case in this sentence.' And then Lady Annabel
would quit her easel, with her pencil in her hand, and give all her
intellect to the puzzling construction; at length, she would say,
'I think, Plantagenet, this must be our nominative case;' and so it
always was.

Thus, when Wednesday came, the longest and most laborious morning of
all Lord Cadurcis' studies, and when he neither wrote, nor read, nor
learnt French with Venetia, but gave up all his soul to Dr. Masham, he
usually acquitted himself to that good person's satisfaction, who left
him, in general, with commendations that were not lost on the pupil,
and plenty of fresh exercises to occupy him and Lady Annabel until the
next w