what was your aunt about? She is very much to blame."
"No, monsieur, no—my aunt is good—she is not to blame—she does what she can; she lodges and nourishes me" (I report Mdlle. Henri's phrases literally, and it was thus she translated from the French). "She is not rich; she has only an annuity of twelve hundred francs, and it would be impossible for her to send me to school."
"Rather," thought I to myself on hearing this, but I continued, in the dogmatical tone I had adopted:—
"It is sad, however, that you should be brought up in ignorance of the most ordinary branches of education; had you known something of history and grammar you might, by degrees, have relinquished your lace-mending drudgery, and risen in the world."
"It is what I mean to do."
"How? By a knowledge of English alone? That will not suffice; no respectable family will
