le blood she loved
dearly--a young Irish baroness--lady Catherine ----; but it was for her
enthusiastic heart and clever head, for her generosity and her genius,
the title and rank went for nothing.

My afternoons were spent also in college, with the exception of an hour
that my wife daily exacted of me for her establishment, and with which
she would not dispense. She said that I must spend that time amongst her
pupils to learn their characters, to be AU COURANT with everything that
was passing in the house, to become interested in what interested her,
to be able to give her my opinion on knotty points when she required it,
and this she did constantly, never allowing my interest in the pupils
to fall asleep, and never making any change of importance without
my cognizance and consent. She delighted to sit by me when I gave my
lessons (lessons in literature), her hands folded on her knee, the most
fixedly attentive of any present. She rarely addressed me in class; when
she did it was with an air of marked deference; it was her pleasure, her
joy to make me still the master in all things.

At six o'clock P.M. my daily labours ceased. I then came home, for
my home was my heaven; ever at that hour, as I entered our private
sitting-room, the lady-directress vanished from before my eyes, and
Frances Henri, my own little lace-mender, was magically restored to my
arms; much disappointed she would have been if her master had not been
as constant to the tryste as herself, and if his truthfull kiss had not
been prompt to answer her soft, "Bon soir, monsieur."

Talk French to me she would, and many a punishment she has had for
her wilfulness. I fear the choice of chastisement must have been
injudicious, for instead of correcting the fault, it seemed to encourage
its renewal. Our evenings were our own; that recreation was necessary to
refresh our strength for the due discharge of our duties; sometimes we
spent them all in conversation, and my young Genevese, now that she was
thoroughly accustomed to her English professor, now that she loved
him too absolutely to fear him much, reposed in him a confidence so
unlimited that topics of conversation could no more be wanting with him
than subjects for communion with her own heart. In those moments, happy
as a bird with its mate, she would show me what she had of vivacity, of
mirth, of originality in her well-dowered nature. She would show, too,
some stores of raillery, of "malice," and wo