suggesting wanderings from the
beaten track. The Abbe was by no means wanting in goodness of heart,
and his ideas were therefore the more contagious for this high-spirited
girl, in whom they were confirmed by a lonely life. The Abbe Niollant's
pupil learned to be fearless in criticism and ready in judgement; it
never occurred to her tutor that qualities so necessary in a man are
disadvantages in a woman destined for the homely life of a
house-mother. And though the Abbe constantly impressed it upon his
pupil that it behoved her to be the more modest and gracious with the
extent of her attainments, Mlle. de Negrepelisse conceived an excellent
opinion of herself and a robust contempt for ordinary humanity. All
those about her were her inferiors, or persons who hastened to do her
bidding, till she grew to be as haughty as a great lady, with none of
the charming blandness and urbanity of a great lady. The instincts of
vanity were flattered by the pride that the poor Abbe took in his
pupil, the pride of an author who sees himself in his work, and for
her misfortune she met no one with whom she could measure herself.
Isolation is one of the greatest drawbacks of a country life. We lose
the habit of putting ourselves to any inconvenience for the sake of
others when there is no one for whom to make the trifling sacrifices
of personal effort required by dress and manner. And everything in us
shares in the change for the worse; the form and the spirit
deteriorate together.

With no social intercourse to compel self-repression, Mlle. de
Negrepelisse's bold ideas passed into her manner and the expression of
her face. There was a cavalier air about her, a something that seems
at first original, but only suited to women of adventurous life. So
this education, and the consequent asperities of character, which
would have been softened down in a higher social sphere, could only
serve to make her ridiculous at Angouleme so soon as her adorers
should cease to worship eccentricities that charm only in youth.

As for M. de Negrepelisse, he would have given all his daughter's
books to save the life of a sick bullock; and so miserly was he, that
he would not have given her two farthings over and above the allowance
to which she had a right, even if it had been a question of some
indispensable trifle for her education.

In 1802 the Abbe died, before the marriage of his dear child, a
marriage which he, doubtless, would never have advised. Th