tch.
"Canape," cried Celeste, pointing to the ottoman.
"Joli garcon," bawled out Cupidon, coming up to Newton, and pointing to
himself.
This created a laugh, and then the lesson was continued. Every article
in the room was successively pointed out to Newton, and he was obliged
to repeat the name; and afterwards the articles of their dress were
resorted to, much to his amusement. Then, there was a dead stand:--the
fact is that there is no talking with noun substantives only.
"Ah! mon Dieu! il faut envoyer pour Monsieur de Fontanges," cried the
lady; "va le chercher, Louise."
M. de Fontanges soon made his appearance, when the lady explained to him
their dilemma, and requested his assistance. M de Fontanges laughed, and
explained to Newton, and then, by means of his interpretation, connected
sentences were made, according to the fancy of the lady, some of which
were the cause of great merriment. After an hour, the gentlemen made
their bows.
"I think," observed M. de Fontanges, as they walked away, "that if you
really are as anxious to learn our language as madame is to teach you,
you had better come to me every morning for an hour. I shall have great
pleasure in giving you any assistance in my power, and I trust that in a
very short time, with a little study of the grammar and dictionary, you
will be able to hold a conversation with Madame de Fontanges, or even
with her dark-complexioned page."
Newton expressed his acknowledgments, and the next day he received his
first lesson; after which he was summoned to support the theory by
practice in the boudoir of Madame de Fontanges. It is hardly necessary
to observe that each day increased the facility of communication.
For three months Newton was domiciled with Monsieur and Madame
Fontanges, both of whom had gradually formed such an attachment to him,
that the idea of parting never entered their heads. He was now a very
tolerable French scholar, and his narratives and adventures were to his
benefactors a source of amusement, which amply repaid them for the
trouble and kindness which they had shown to him. Newton was, in fact, a
general favourite with every one on the plantation, from the highest to
the lowest; and his presence received the same smile of welcome at the
cottage of the slave as at the boudoir of Madame de Fontanges.
Whatever may have been the result of Newton's observations relative to
slavery in the English colonies, his feelings of dislike ins
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