ly for the
children breakfast and dinner; they were to sup and sleep at their
respective homes. Their parents were to take them to Sister Frances
every morning when they went out to work, and to call for them upon their
return home every evening. By this arrangement, the natural ties of
affection and intimacy between the children and their parents would not
be loosened; they would be separate only at the time when their absence
must be inevitable. Madame de Fleury thought that any education which
estranges children entirely from their parents must be fundamentally
erroneous; that such a separation must tend to destroy that sense of
filial affection and duty, and those principles of domestic
subordination, on which so many of the interests and much of the virtue
and happiness of society depend. The parents of these poor children were
eager to trust them to her care, and they strenuously endeavoured to
promote what they perceived to be entirely to their advantage. They
promised to take their daughters to school punctually every morning--a
promise which was likely to be kept, as a good breakfast was to be ready
at a certain hour, and not to wait for anybody. The parents looked
forward with pleasure, also, to the idea of calling for their little
girls at the end of their day's labour, and of taking them home to their
family supper. During the intermediate hours the children were
constantly to be employed, or in exercise. It was difficult to provide
suitable employments for their early age; but even the youngest of those
admitted could be taught to wind balls of cotton, thread, and silk for
haberdashers; or they could shell peas and beans, &c., for a neighbouring
_traiteur_; or they could weed in a garden. The next in age could learn
knitting and plain work, reading, writing, and arithmetic. As the girls
should grow up, they were to be made useful in the care of the house.
Sister Frances said she could teach them to wash and iron, and that she
would make them as skilful in cookery as she was herself. This last was
doubtless a rash promise; for in most of the mysteries of the culinary
art, especially in the medical branches of it, in making savoury messes
palatable to the sick, few could hope to equal the neat-handed Sister
Frances. She had a variety of other accomplishments; but her humility
and good sense forbade her upon the present occasion to mention these.
She said nothing of embroidery, or of painting, or of