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
