's system was not bad--let me do her justice. Nothing
could be better than all her arrangements for the physical well-being
of her scholars. No minds were overtasked: the lessons were well
distributed and made incomparably easy to the learner; there was a
liberty of amusement, and a provision for exercise which kept the girls
healthy; the food was abundant and good: neither pale nor puny faces
were anywhere to be seen in the Rue Fossette. She never grudged a
holiday; she allowed plenty of time for sleeping, dressing, washing,
eating; her method in all these matters was easy, liberal, salutary,
and rational: many an austere English school-mistress would do vastly
well to imitate her--and I believe many would be glad to do so, if
exacting English parents would let them.

As Madame Beck ruled by espionage, she of course had her staff of
spies: she perfectly knew the quality of the tools she used, and while
she would not scruple to handle the dirtiest for a dirty
occasion--flinging this sort from her like refuse rind, after the
orange has been duly squeezed--I have known her fastidious in seeking
pure metal for clean uses; and when once a bloodless and rustless
instrument was found, she was careful of the prize, keeping it in silk
and cotton-wool. Yet, woe be to that man or woman who relied on her one
inch beyond the point where it was her interest to be trustworthy:
interest was the master-key of Madame's nature--the mainspring of her
motives--the alpha and omega of her life. I have seen her _feelings_
appealed to, and I have smiled in half-pity, half-scorn at the
appellants. None ever gained her ear through that channel, or swayed
her purpose by that means. On the contrary, to attempt to touch her
heart was the surest way to rouse her antipathy, and to make of her a
secret foe. It proved to her that she had no heart to be touched: it
reminded her where she was impotent and dead. Never was the distinction
between charity and mercy better exemplified than in her. While devoid
of sympathy, she had a sufficiency of rational benevolence: she would
give in the readiest manner to people she had never seen--rather,
however, to classes than to individuals. "Pour les pauvres," she opened
her purse freely--against _the poor man_, as a rule, she kept it
closed. In philanthropic schemes for the benefit of society at large
she took a cheerful part; no private sorrow touched her: no force or
mass of suffering concentrated in one heart h