to be married. I am too young.«
    »But if he loves you as much as you say, and yet it comes to nothing in the
end, he will be made miserable.«
    »Of course he will break his heart. I should be shocked and disappointed if
he did n't.«
    »I wonder whether this M. Isidore is a fool?« said I.
    »He is, about me; but he is wise in other things, à ce qu' on dit. Mrs.
Cholmondeley considers him extremely clever: she says he will push his way by
his talents; all I know is, that he does little more than sigh in my presence,
and that I can wind him round my little finger.«
    Wishing to get a more definite idea of this love-stricken M. Isidore, whose
position seemed to me of the least secure, I requested her to favour me with a
personal description; but she could not describe: she had neither words, nor the
power of putting them together so as to make graphic phrases. She even seemed
not properly to have noticed him: nothing of his looks, of the changes in his
countenance, had touched her heart or dwelt in her memory - that he was »beau,
mais plutôt bel homme, que joli garçon,« was all she could assert. My patience
would often have failed, and my interest flagged, in listening to her, but for
one thing. All the hints she dropped, all the details she gave, went
unconsciously to prove, to my thinking, that M. Isidore's homage was offered
with great delicacy and respect. I informed her very plainly that I believed him
much too good for her, and intimated with equal plainness my impression that she
was but a vain coquette. She laughed, shook her curls from her eyes, and danced
away as if I had paid her a compliment.
    Miss Ginevra's school-studies were little better than nominal; there were
but three things she practised in earnest, viz., music, singing, and dancing;
also embroidering the fine cambric handkerchiefs, which she could not afford to
buy ready-worked: such mere trifles as lessons in history, geography, grammar,
and arithmetic, she left undone, or got others to do for her. Very much of her
time was spent in visiting. Madame, aware that her stay at school was now
limited to a certain period which would not be extended whether she made
progress or not, allowed her great license in this particular. Mrs. Cholmondeley
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