ND EARLY FRIENDS

I must return to my school days. After several years spent at Miss
Forbes's my parents decided to afford me greater advantages for study,
and especially for becoming more proficient in the French language, and
I was accordingly sent to Madame Eloise Chegaray's institution, which
for many years was regarded as the most prominent girls' school in the
country. It was a large establishment located on the corner of Houston
and Mulberry Streets, where she accommodated boarding pupils as well as
day scholars. Many years later this building was sold to the religious
order of the _Sacre Coeur_. The school hours were from nine until three,
with an intermission at twelve o'clock. The vacation, as at Miss
Forbes's, was limited to the month of August. The discipline was not so
rigid as at Miss Forbes's, as Madame Chegaray, who, by the way, taught
her pupils to address her as _Tante_, governed almost entirely by
affection. She possessed unusual grace of manner and great kindness of
heart, and her few surviving pupils hold her name and memory in the
highest esteem. Her early history is of exceptional interest. She was a
daughter of Pierre Prosper Desabaye, and came with her father and the
other members of his family from Paris to New York on account of his
straitened circumstances, caused by an insurrection in San Domingo,
where his family owned large estates. Madame Chegaray commenced as a
mere girl to teach French in a school in New Brunswick, New Jersey, kept
by Miss Sophie Hay, and was retained on account of the extreme purity of
her accent.

I chance to have in my possession Madame Chegaray's own account of her
early struggles after leaving Miss Hay, from which I take great pleasure
in quoting:

Among the royal _emigres_ to this country was the Countess
de St. Memin who kept a school. As my brother Marc had
removed to New York we joined him and I was employed as
French governess in the school of Mademoiselle de St. Memin.
But I still knew nothing but to speak my own native tongue.
One day I was bewailing my ignorance in the presence of M.
Felix de Beaujour, Consul General of France to this country.

"Mlle. Eloise," he said, "quand on sait lire on peut
toujours s'istruire."

This gave me a new thought. I set seriously about studying.
I took classes. What I was to teach on the morrow I studied
the night before. I worked early and late. With the re