her French. The
lessons were arranged for then and there, at so many kisses an hour,
payable by quarterly instalments, if desired. And for several evenings
(sitting very close together, as persons must sit who are looking over
the same book) they read, translating turn by turn, the delicious
_Livre de Mon Ami_, until Flossie's interest was exhausted.

"Come, I'm not going on with any more of that stuff, so you needn't
think it. I've no time to waste, if you have; and I haven't come
across one word in that book yet that'll be any use to me."

"What a utilitarian Beaver!" He lay back in his chair laughing at her,
as he might have laughed at the fascinating folly of a child.

"I'll tell you what it is, Mr. Savage; I'll get another French master,
if you don't look out. Some one who'll teach me the way I want to
learn."

"I'll teach you any way you like, Floss, on any system; if you'll only
explain what you want. What's your idea?"

"My idea's this. How would it be if you and me were to write French
letters to each other?"

"Rather! The Beaver's intelligence is going to its head. That's the
way to learn, Floss; you'll get over the ground like winking. But you
know--I shall have to raise my terms."

"All right. We'll see about that."

He was delighted with her idea. That Flossie should have an idea at
all was something so deliciously new and surprising; and what could be
more heartrending than these prodigious intellectual efforts, her
evident fear that her limitations constituted a barrier between them?
As if it mattered! As if he wanted a literary critic for his wife. And
how brutally he had criticized _her_--as if it mattered! Still, in
spite of his compunction, the French lessons were not altogether a
success. There was too much disagreement and discussion about terms;
for the master became more and more exorbitant in his charges as the
days went on, and the pupil still complained that she was learning
nothing. She was thoroughly dissatisfied with his method. He would
break off at the most interesting, the most instructive point, and let
loose his imagination in all sorts of ridiculous histories that
followed from the idea of her being a Beaver; and when she desired him
to tell her such simple things as the French for "Your esteemed favour
to hand," "Cheque enclosed," "We have forwarded to you to-day as per
invoice," he wanted to know what on earth a beaver had to do with
invoices.

It was Spinks who explaine