efly studied; the majority of the narratives were perfectly
unintelligible; those of Sylvie and Leonie Ledru alone pretended to
anything like sense and connection. Eulalie, indeed, had hit, upon a
clever expedient for at once ensuring accuracy and saving trouble; she
had obtained access somehow to an abridged history of England, and had
copied the anecdote out fair. I wrote on the margin of her production
"Stupid and deceitful," and then tore it down the middle.

Last in the pile of single-leaved devoirs, I found one of several
sheets, neatly written out and stitched together; I knew the hand, and
scarcely needed the evidence of the signature "Frances Evans Henri" to
confirm my conjecture as to the writer's identity.

Night was my usual time for correcting devoirs, and my own room the
usual scene of such task--task most onerous hitherto; and it seemed
strange to me to feel rising within me an incipient sense of interest,
as I snuffed the candle and addressed myself to the perusal of the poor
teacher's manuscript.

"Now," thought I, "I shall see a glimpse of what she really is; I shall
get an idea of the nature and extent of her powers; not that she can be
expected to express herself well in a foreign tongue, but still, if she
has any mind, here will be a reflection of it."

The narrative commenced by a description of a Saxon peasant's hut,
situated within the confines of a great, leafless, winter forest; it
represented an evening in December; flakes of snow were falling, and
the herdsman foretold a heavy storm; he summoned his wife to aid him in
collecting their flock, roaming far away on the pastoral banks of the
Thone; he warns her that it will be late ere they return. The good woman
is reluctant to quit her occupation of baking cakes for the evening
meal; but acknowledging the primary importance of securing the herds and
flocks, she puts on her sheep-skin mantle; and, addressing a stranger
who rests half reclined on a bed of rushes near the hearth, bids him
mind the bread till her return.

"Take care, young man," she continues, "that you fasten the door well
after us; and, above all, open to none in our absence; whatever sound
you hear, stir not, and look not out. The night will soon fall; this
forest is most wild and lonely; strange noises are often heard therein
after sunset; wolves haunt these glades, and Danish warriors infest the
country; worse things are talked of; you might chance to hear, as it
were, a c