. "She
then, for the first time, gave me the treat of hearing my native tongue
spoken without accent by an English girl."

"She was as sweet as summer cherries for a month afterwards," struck in
Henry: "a good hearty quarrel always left Shirley's temper better than
it found it."

"You talk of me as if I were not present," observed Miss Keeldar, who
had not yet lifted her face.

"Are you sure you _are_ present?" asked Moore. "There have been moments
since my arrival here when I have been tempted to inquire of the lady of
Fieldhead if she knew what had become of my former pupil."

"She is here now."

"I see her, and humble enough; but I would neither advise Harry nor
others to believe too implicitly in the humility which one moment can
hide its blushing face like a modest little child, and the next lift it
pale and lofty as a marble Juno."

"One man in times of old, it is said, imparted vitality to the statue he
had chiselled; others may have the contrary gift of turning life to
stone."

Moore paused on this observation before he replied to it. His look, at
once struck and meditative, said, "A strange phrase; what may it mean?"
He turned it over in his mind, with thought deep and slow, as some
German pondering metaphysics.

"You mean," he said at last, "that some men inspire repugnance, and so
chill the kind heart."

"Ingenious!" responded Shirley. "If the interpretation pleases you, you
are welcome to hold it valid. _I_ don't care."

And with that she raised her head, lofty in look and statue-like in hue,
as Louis had described it.

"Behold the metamorphosis!" he said; "scarce imagined ere it is
realized: a lowly nymph develops to an inaccessible goddess. But Henry
must not be disappointed of his recitation, and Olympia will deign to
oblige him. Let us begin."

"I have forgotten the very first line."

"Which I have not. _My_ memory, if a slow, is a retentive one. I acquire
deliberately both knowledge and liking. The acquisition grows into my
brain, and the sentiment into my breast; and it is not as the
rapid-springing produce which, having no root in itself, flourishes
verdurous enough for a time, but too soon falls withered away.
Attention, Henry! Miss Keeldar consents to favour you. 'Voyez ce cheval
ardent et impetueux,' so it commences."

Miss Keeldar did consent to make the effort; but she soon stopped.

"Unless I heard the whole repeated I cannot continue it," she said.

"Yet it was quickly lea