he found herself placed in a little dilemma. Mr. Wilson, the
English master, had failed to come at his hour, she feared he was ill;
the pupils were waiting in classe; there was no one to give a lesson;
should I, for once, object to giving a short dictation exercise, just
that the pupils might not have it to say they had missed their English
lesson?

"In classe, Madame?" I asked.

"Yes, in classe: in the second division."

"Where there are sixty pupils," said I; for I knew the number, and with
my usual base habit of cowardice, I shrank into my sloth like a snail
into its shell, and alleged incapacity and impracticability as a
pretext to escape action. If left to myself, I should infallibly have
let this chance slip. Inadventurous, unstirred by impulses of practical
ambition, I was capable of sitting twenty years teaching infants the
hornbook, turning silk dresses and making children's frocks. Not that
true contentment dignified this infatuated resignation: my work had
neither charm for my taste, nor hold on my interest; but it seemed to
me a great thing to be without heavy anxiety, and relieved from
intimate trial: the negation of severe suffering was the nearest
approach to happiness I expected to know. Besides, I seemed to hold two
lives--the life of thought, and that of reality; and, provided the
former was nourished with a sufficiency of the strange necromantic joys
of fancy, the privileges of the latter might remain limited to daily
bread, hourly work, and a roof of shelter.

"Come," said Madame, as I stooped more busily than ever over the
cutting-out of a child's pinafore, "leave that work."

"But Fifine wants it, Madame."

"Fifine must want it, then, for I want _you_."

And as Madame Beck did really want and was resolved to have me--as she
had long been dissatisfied with the English master, with his
shortcomings in punctuality, and his careless method of tuition--as,
too, _she_ did not lack resolution and practical activity, whether _I_
lacked them or not--she, without more ado, made me relinquish thimble
and needle; my hand was taken into hers, and I was conducted
down-stairs. When we reached the carre, a large square hall between the
dwelling-house and the pensionnat, she paused, dropped my hand, faced,
and scrutinized me. I was flushed, and tremulous from head to foot:
tell it not in Gath, I believe I was crying. In fact, the difficulties
before me were far from being wholly imaginary; some of them were