ntina could not wait for him to come back; she had to go to Mrs.
Lander, and get her ready for breakfast; Ellida had taught Mrs. Lander a
luxury of helplessness in which she persisted after the maid's help was
withdrawn.

Clementina went about the whole day with the wonder what Gregory had said
about Middlemount filling her mind. It must have had something to do with
her; he could not have forgotten the words he had asked her to forget.
She remembered them now with a curiosity, which had no rancor in it, to
know why he really took them back. She had never blamed him, and she had
outlived the hurt she had felt at not hearing from him. But she had never
lost the hope of hearing from him, or rather the expectation, and now she
found that she was eager for his message; she decided that it must be
something like a message, although it could not be anything direct. No
one else had come to his place in her fancy, and she was willing to try
what they would think of each other now, to measure her own obligation to
the past by a knowledge of his. There was scarcely more than this in her
heart when she allowed herself to drift near Fane's place that night,
that he might speak to her, and tell her what Gregory had said. But he
had apparently forgotten about his letter, and only wished to talk about
himself. He wished to analyze himself, to tell her what sort of person he
was. He dealt impartially with the subject; he did not spare some faults
of his; and after a week, he proposed a correspondence with her, in a
letter of carefully studied spelling, as a means of mutual improvement as
well as further acquaintance.

It cost Clementina a good deal of trouble to answer him as she wished and
not hurt his feelings. She declined in terms she thought so cold that
they must offend him beyond the point of speaking to her again; but he
sought her out, as soon after as he could, and thanked her for her
kindness, and begged her pardon. He said he knew that she was a very busy
person, with all the lessons she was taking, and that she had no time for
carrying on a correspondence. He regretted that he could not write
French, because then the correspondence would have been good practice for
her. Clementina had begun taking French lessons, of a teacher who came
out from Boston. She lunched three times a week with her and Mrs. Lander,
and spoke the language with Clementina, whose accent she praised for its
purity; purity of accent was characteristic