exquisite; were there ever
such delicious veal cutlets, such fresh French beans?

"Indeed they were very good," said Miss Ethel, "I am so glad you like the
house, and Clive, and Miss Honeyman."

Ethel's mother was constantly falling in love with new acquaintances; so
these raptures were no novelty to her daughter. Ethel had had so many
governesses, all darlings during the first week, and monsters afterwards,
that the poor child possessed none of the accomplishments of her age.
She could not play on the piano; she could not speak French well; she
could not tell you when gunpowder was invented; she had not the faintest
idea of the date of the Norman Conquest, or whether the earth went round
the sun, or vice versa. She did not know the number of counties in
England, Scotland and Wales, let alone Ireland; she did not know the
difference between latitude and longitude. She had had so many
governesses; their accounts differed; poor Ethel was bewildered by a
multiplicity of teachers, and thought herself a monster of ignorance.
They gave her a book at a Sunday school, and little girls of eight years
old answered questions of which she knew nothing. The place swam before
her. She could not see the sun shining on their fair flaxen heads and
pretty faces. The rosy little children, holding up their eager hands and
crying the answer to this question and that, seemed mocking her. She
seemed to read in the book, "Oh, Ethel, you dunce, dunce, dunce!" She
went home silent in the carriage, and burst into bitter tears on her bed.
Naturally a haughty girl of the highest spirit, resolute and imperious,
this little visit to the parish school taught Ethel lessons more valuable
than ever so much arithmetic and geography.

When Ethel was thirteen years old she had grown to be such a tall girl
that she overtopped her companions by a head or more, and morally
perhaps, also, felt herself too tall for their society. "Fancy myself,"
she thought, "dressing a doll like Lily Putland, or wearing a pinafore
like Lucy Tucker!" She did not care for their sports. She could not walk
with them; it seemed as if everyone stared; nor dance with them at the
academy; nor attend the _Cours de Litterature Universelle et de Science
Comprehensive_ of the professor then the mode. The smallest girls took
her up in the class. She was bewildered by the multitude of things they
bade her learn. At the youthful little assemblies of her sex, when, under
the guide of their