rms of some of
her pupils?"

The question discomposed me, but I now felt plainly that my principal
was endeavouring (for reasons best known to himself--at that time I
could not fathom them) to excite ideas and wishes in my mind alien to
what was right and honourable. The iniquity of the instigation proved
its antidote, and when he further added:--

"Each of those three beautiful girls will have a handsome fortune; and
with a little address, a gentlemanlike, intelligent young fellow like
you might make himself master of the hand, heart, and purse of any one
of the trio."

I replied by a look and an interrogative "Monsieur?" which startled him.

He laughed a forced laugh, affirmed that he had only been joking, and
demanded whether I could possibly have thought him in earnest. Just then
the bell rang; the play-hour was over; it was an evening on which M.
Pelet was accustomed to read passages from the drama and the belles
lettres to his pupils. He did not wait for my answer, but rising, left
the room, humming as he went some gay strain of Beranger's.

CHAPTER XII.

DAILY, as I continued my attendance at the seminary of Mdlle. Reuter,
did I find fresh occasions to compare the ideal with the real. What
had I known of female character previously to my arrival at Brussels?
Precious little. And what was my notion of it? Something vague, slight,
gauzy, glittering; now when I came in contact with it I found it to be
a palpable substance enough; very hard too sometimes, and often heavy;
there was metal in it, both lead and iron.

Let the idealists, the dreamers about earthly angel and human flowers,
just look here while I open my portfolio and show them a sketch or
two, pencilled after nature. I took these sketches in the second-class
schoolroom of Mdlle. Reuter's establishment, where about a hundred
specimens of the genus "jeune fille" collected together, offered a
fertile variety of subject. A miscellaneous assortment they were,
differing both in caste and country; as I sat on my estrade and glanced
over the long range of desks, I had under my eye French, English,
Belgians, Austrians, and Prussians. The majority belonged to the class
bourgeois; but there were many countesses, there were the daughters of
two generals and of several colonels, captains, and government EMPLOYES;
these ladies sat side by side with young females destined to be
demoiselles de magasins, and with some Flamandes, genuine aborigines of
the co