ies; they all call it politeness to profess friendship where they feel
hatred."

"All?" said I; "you mean the pupils--the mere children--inexperienced,
giddy things, who have not learnt to distinguish the difference between
right and wrong?"

"On the contrary, monsieur--the children are the most sincere; they have
not yet had time to become accomplished in duplicity; they will tell
lies, but they do it inartificially, and you know they are lying; but
the grown-up people are very false; they deceive strangers, they deceive
each other--"

A servant here entered:--

"Mdlle. Henri--Mdlle. Reuter vous prie de vouloir bien conduire la
petite de Dorlodot chez elle, elle vous attend dans le cabinet
de Rosalie la portiere--c'est que sa bonne n'est pas venue la
chercher--voyez-vous."

"Eh bien! est-ce que je suis sa bonne--moi?" demanded Mdlle. Henri; then
smiling, with that same bitter, derisive smile I had seen on her lips
once before, she hastily rose and made her exit.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE young Anglo-Swiss evidently derived both pleasure and profit from
the study of her mother-tongue. In teaching her I did not, of course,
confine myself to the ordinary school routine; I made instruction in
English a channel for instruction in literature. I prescribed to her a
course of reading; she had a little selection of English classics, a
few of which had been left her by her mother, and the others she had
purchased with her own penny-fee. I lent her some more modern works; all
these she read with avidity, giving me, in writing, a clear summary of
each work when she had perused it. Composition, too, she delighted in.
Such occupation seemed the very breath of her nostrils, and soon her
improved productions wrung from me the avowal that those qualities in
her I had termed taste and fancy ought rather to have been denominated
judgment and imagination. When I intimated so much, which I did as usual
in dry and stinted phrase, I looked for the radiant and exulting smile
my one word of eulogy had elicited before; but Frances coloured. If she
did smile, it was very softly and shyly; and instead of looking up to me
with a conquering glance, her eyes rested on my hand, which, stretched
over her shoulder, was writing some directions with a pencil on the
margin of her book.

"Well, are you pleased that I am satisfied with your progress?" I asked.

"Yes," said she slowly, gently, the blush that had half subsided
returning.

"But