as an irregularly taught, even ignorant girl; and
when she found that she made rapid and eager progress, it was to no talent, no
application in the scholar, she ascribed the improvement, but entirely to her
own superior method of teaching; when she found that Caroline, unskilled in
routine, had a knowledge of her own - desultory but varied, the discovery caused
her no surprise, for she still imagined that from her conversation had the girl
unawares gleaned these treasures: she thought it even when forced to feel that
her pupil knew much on subjects whereof she knew little: the idea was not
logical, but Hortense had perfect faith in it.
    Mademoiselle, who prided herself on possessing »un esprit positif,« and on
entertaining a decided preference for dry studies, kept her young cousin to the
same as closely as she could. She worked her unrelentingly at the grammar of the
French language, assigning her, as the most improving exercise she could devise,
interminable »analyses logiques.« These analyses were by no means a source of
particular pleasure to Caroline; she thought she could have learned French just
as well without them, and grudged excessively the time spent in pondering over
»propositions, principales, et incidentes;« in deciding the »incidente
determinative« and the »incidente applicative;« in examining whether the
proposition was »pleine,« »elliptique,« or »implicite.« Sometimes she lost
herself in the maze, and when so lost, she would, now and then (while Hortense
was rummaging her drawers up-stairs, - an unaccountable occupation in which she
spent a large portion of each day, arranging, disarranging, rearranging and
counter-arranging) - carry her book to Robert in the counting-house, and get the
rough place made smooth by his aid. Mr. Moore possessed a clear, tranquil brain
of his own; almost as soon as he looked at Caroline's little difficulties they
seemed to dissolve beneath his eye: in two minutes he would explain all; in two
words give the key to the puzzle. She thought if Hortense could only teach like
him, how much faster she might learn! Repaying him by an admiring and grateful
smile, rather shed at his feet than lifted to his face, she would leave the mill
reluctantly to go back to the cottage, and then, while she completed the
exercise, or worked out the sum (for Mdlle Moore taught her arithmetic, too,)
she would wish nature had made her a boy instead of a girl, that she might ask
Robert to let her be his clerk,