There, if anywhere, I
felt the silent march of the French muses through Time and Space.
V.
A capable journalist named Gregoire, a sickly, prematurely aged, limping
fellow, with alert wits, an Alsatian, who knew Danish and regularly read
Bille's _Daily Paper_, had in many ways taken me up almost from the
first day of my sojourn on French soil. This man recommended me, on my
expressing a wish to meet with a competent teacher, to take instruction
in the language from a young girl, a friend of his sister, who was an
orphan and lived with her aunt. She was of good family, the daughter of
a colonel and the granddaughter of an admiral, but her own and her
aunt's circumstances were narrow, and she was anxious to give lessons.
When I objected that such lessons could hardly be really instructive, I
was told that she was not only in every way a nice but a very gifted and
painstaking young girl.
The first time I entered the house, as a future pupil, I found the young
lady, dressed in a plain black silk dress, surrounded by a circle of
toddlers of both sexes, for whom she had a sort of school, and whom on
my arrival she sent away. She had a pretty figure, a face that was
attractive without being beautiful, a large mouth with good teeth, and
dark brown hair. Her features were a little indefinite, her face rather
broad than oval, her eyes brown and affectionate.
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