that intensity that nearly approached to misery. She
took me by the hand, showed me my nice little bed, the large garden, the
river that ran at the bottom of it, and placed before me fruit and
cakes; I would not be consoled; what business had she to be a
schoolmistress? I had a thousand times rather have had Mrs Brandon for
a mother again--she had never deceived me. But I was soon aware that
this lady, whom I now, for the first time, heard named, as Mrs
Cherfeuil, was as little disposed to grant me the honour of calling her
mother, as I was to bestow it. I was introduced to her husband as the
son of a female friend of hers of early life; that she had stood
godmother to me, that my parentage was respectable; and, as she before
had sufficient references to satisfy him from the agent, who had called
a week before my arrival, the good man thought there was nothing
singular in the affair.

But let us describe this good man, my new pedagogue. In all things he
was the antithesis of Mr Root. The latter was large, florid, and
decidedly handsome--Mr Cherfeuil was little, sallow, and more than
decidedly ugly. Mr Root was worldly wise, and very ignorant; Mr
Cherfeuil, a fool in the world, and very learned. The mind of Mr Root
was so empty, that he found no trouble in arranging his one idea and a
half; Mr Cherfeuil's was so full that there was no room for any
arrangement at all. Mr Root would have thought himself a fool if he
condescended to write poetry; but he supposed he could, for he never
tried. Mr Cherfeuil would have thought any man a fool that did not
perceive at once that he, Cherfeuil, was born a great poet. Shall I
carry, after the manner of Plutarch, the comparison any further? No;
let us bring it to an abrupt conclusion, by saying, in a few words, that
Mr Root was English, Mr Cherfeuil French; that the one had a large
school, and the other a little one and that both were immeasurably great
men in their own estimation--though not universally so in that of
others.

Mr Cherfeuil was ambitious to be thought five feet high, his attitude,
therefore, was always erect; and, to give himself an air of consequence,
he bridled and strutted like a full-breasted pigeon, with his head
thrown back, and was continually in the act of wriggling his long chin
into his ample neckerchief. He could not ask you how do you do, or say
in answer to that question, "I thank you, sare, very well," without
stamping prettily with his fo