head small, hair smoothed, braided, oiled, and
gummed to perfection; very low forehead, very diminutive and vindictive
grey eyes, somewhat Tartar features, rather flat nose, rather high-cheek
bones, yet the ensemble not positively ugly; tolerably good complexion.
So much for person. As to mind, deplorably ignorant and ill-informed:
incapable of writing or speaking correctly even German, her native
tongue, a dunce in French, and her attempts at learning English a mere
farce, yet she has been at school twelve years; but as she invariably
gets her exercises, of every description, done by a fellow pupil, and
reads her lessons off a book; concealed in her lap, it is not wonderful
that her progress has been so snail-like. I do not know what Aurelia's
daily habits of life are, because I have not the opportunity of
observing her at all times; but from what I see of the state of her
desk, books, and papers, I should say she is slovenly and even dirty;
her outward dress, as I have said, is well attended to, but in passing
behind her bench, I have remarked that her neck is gray for want of
washing, and her hair, so glossy with gum and grease, is not such as
one feels tempted to pass the hand over, much less to run the fingers
through. Aurelia's conduct in class, at least when I am present, is
something extraordinary, considered as an index of girlish innocence.
The moment I enter the room, she nudges her next neighbour and indulges
in a half-suppressed laugh. As I take my seat on the estrade, she
fixes her eye on me; she seems resolved to attract, and, if possible,
monopolize my notice: to this end she launches at me all sorts of looks,
languishing, provoking, leering, laughing. As I am found quite proof
against this sort of artillery--for we scorn what, unasked, is lavishly
offered--she has recourse to the expedient of making noises; sometimes
she sighs, sometimes groans, sometimes utters inarticulate sounds, for
which language has no name. If, in walking up the schoolroom, I pass
near her, she puts out her foot that it may touch mine; if I do not
happen to observe the manoeuvre, and my boot comes in contact with her
brodequin, she affects to fall into convulsions of suppressed laughter;
if I notice the snare and avoid it, she expresses her mortification in
sullen muttering, where I hear myself abused in bad French, pronounced
with an intolerable Low German accent.

Not far from Mdlle. Koslow sits another young lady by name Adele