he women's-rights fads and other advanced opinions of the day.
These, however, affected mainly the region of her intellect; in her
nature she was a simple, affectionate, straightforward American maiden,
with the little weaknesses and foibles appertaining to that estate;
and it was curious to observe the frequent conflicts between these
spontaneous characteristics and her determination to live up to her
acquired views. But she was fresh-hearted and happy then, full of
interest in the wonders and beauties of the Old World; she wrote,
weekly, long, criss-crossed letters, in a running hand, home to
"Clay," the king of men; and periodically received, with an illuminated
countenance, thick letters with an American foreign postage-stamp on
them, which she would shut herself into her chamber to devour in secret.
She was a little over the medium height, with a blue-eyed face, not
beautiful, but gentle and expressive, and wearing her flaxen hair in
long curls on each side of her pale cheeks. She entered upon her duties
as governess with energy and good-will, and we soon found that an
American governess was a very different thing from an English one
(barring the Rhoda Broughton sort). Her special aim at present was to
bring us forward in the French and Italian languages. We had already,
in Manchester, made some acquaintance with the books of the celebrated
Ollendorff; and my father, who knew Latin well, had taught me something
of Latin grammar, which aided me in my Italian studies. I liked Latin,
particularly as he taught it to me, and it probably amused him, though
it must also often have tried his patience to teach me. I had a certain
aptitude for the spirit of the language, but was much too prone to leap
at conclusions in my translations. I did not like to look out words
in the lexicon, and the result was sometimes queer. Thus, there was
a sentence in some Latin author describing the manner in which the
Scythians were wont to perform their journeys; relays of fresh horses
would be provided at fixed intervals, and thus they were enabled to
traverse immense distances at full speed. The words used were, I think,
as follows: "Itaque conficiunt iter continuo cursu." When I translated
these, "So they came to the end of their journey with continual
cursing," I was astonished to see my father burst into inextinguishable
laughter, falling back in his chair and throwing up his feet in the
ebullience of his mirth. I heard a good deal of tha