ore, and listening moodily
to those people who, although they were his relatives, seemed to be far
removed from him.

As it was barely eleven o'clock they resumed work, but every now and
again there was some merry talk. On one of the servants coming for the
provisions, Marie told the girl to call her as soon as it should be time
to boil the eggs, for she prided herself on boiling them to a nicety, in
such wise as to leave the whites like creamy milk. This gave an
opportunity for a few jests from Francois, who occasionally teased her
about all the fine things she had learnt at the Lycee Fenelon, where her
father had placed her when she was twelve years old. However, she was not
afraid of him, but gave him tit for tat by chaffing him about all the
hours which he lost at the Ecole Normale over a mass of pedagogic trash.

"Ah! you big children!" she exclaimed, while still working at her
embroidery. "You are all very intelligent, and you all claim to have
broad minds, and yet--confess it now--it worries you a little that a girl
like me should have studied at college in the same way as yourselves.
It's a sexual quarrel, a question of rivalry and competition, isn't it?"

They protested the contrary, declaring that they were in favour of girls
receiving as complete an education as possible. She was well aware of
this; however, she liked to tease them in return for the manner in which
they themselves plagued her.

"But do you know," said she, "you are a great deal behind the times? I am
well aware of the reproaches which are levelled at girls' colleges by
so-called right-minded people. To begin, there is no religious element
whatever in the education one receives there, and this alarms many
families which consider religious education to be absolutely necessary
for girls, if only as a moral weapon of defence. Then, too, the education
at our Lycees is being democratised--girls of all positions come to them.
Thanks to the scholarships which are so liberally offered, the daughter
of the lady who rents a first floor flat often finds the daughter of her
door-keeper among her school-fellows, and some think this objectionable.
It is said also that the pupils free themselves too much from home
influence, and that too much opportunity is left for personal initiative.
As a matter of fact the extensiveness of the many courses of study, all
the learning that is required of pupils at the examinations, certainly
does tend to their emancipat