uld not be scolding in such gentle whispers,
and with so equable a mien; no, it was presently proved that her
discourse had been of the most friendly tendency, for I heard the
closing words--

"C'est assez, ma bonne amie; a present je ne veux pas vous retenir
davantage."

Without reply, Mdlle. Henri turned away; dissatisfaction was plainly
evinced in her face, and a smile, slight and brief, but bitter,
distrustful, and, I thought, scornful, curled her lip as she took her
place in the class; it was a secret, involuntary smile, which lasted but
a second; an air of depression succeeded, chased away presently by one
of attention and interest, when I gave the word for all the pupils to
take their reading-books. In general I hated the reading-lesson, it
was such a torture to the ear to listen to their uncouth mouthing of
my native tongue, and no effort of example or precept on my part ever
seemed to effect the slightest improvement in their accent. To-day,
each in her appropriate key, lisped, stuttered, mumbled, and jabbered as
usual; about fifteen had racked me in turn, and my auricular nerve was
expecting with resignation the discords of the sixteenth, when a full,
though low voice, read out, in clear correct English.

"On his way to Perth, the king was met by a Highland woman, calling
herself a prophetess; she stood at the side of the ferry by which he was
about to travel to the north, and cried with a loud voice, 'My lord the
king, if you pass this water you will never return again alive!'"--(VIDE
the HISTORY OF SCOTLAND).

I looked up in amazement; the voice was a voice of Albion; the accent
was pure and silvery; it only wanted firmness, and assurance, to be the
counterpart of what any well-educated lady in Essex or Middlesex might
have enounced, yet the speaker or reader was no other than Mdlle. Henri,
in whose grave, joyless face I saw no mark of consciousness that she had
performed any extraordinary feat. No one else evinced surprise either.
Mdlle. Reuter knitted away assiduously; I was aware, however, that at
the conclusion of the paragraph, she had lifted her eyelid and honoured
me with a glance sideways; she did not know the full excellency of the
teacher's style of reading, but she perceived that her accent was not
that of the others, and wanted to discover what I thought; I masked my
visage with indifference, and ordered the next girl to proceed.

When the lesson was over, I took advantage of the confusion c