h you about the Captain. The dear child is
most uncomfortable at the school, and I am thoroughly uneasy about her.
Luciana, my daughter, born as she is for the world, is there training
hourly for the world; languages, history, everything that is taught
there, she acquires with so much ease that, as it were, she learns them
off at sight. She has quick natural gifts, and an excellent memory; one
may almost say she forgets everything, and in a moment calls it all back
again. She distinguishes herself above every one at the school with the
freedom of her carriage, the grace of her movement, and the elegance of
her address, and with the inborn royalty of nature makes herself the
queen of the little circle there. The superior of the establishment
regards her as a little divinity, who, under her hands, is shaping into
excellence, and who will do her honor, gain her reputation, and bring
her a large increase of pupils; the first pages of this good lady's
letters, and her monthly notices of progress, are forever hymns about
the excellence of such a child, which I have to translate into my own
prose; while her concluding sentences about Ottilie are nothing but
excuse after excuse--attempts at explaining how it can be that a girl in
other respects growing up so lovely seems coming to nothing, and shows
neither capacity nor accomplishment. This, and the little she has to say
besides, is no riddle to me, because I can see in this dear child the
same character as that of her mother, who was my own dearest friend; who
grew up with myself, and whose daughter, I am certain, if I had the care
of her education, would form into an exquisite creature.

"This, however, has not fallen in with our plan, and as one ought not to
be picking and pulling, or for ever introducing new elements among the
conditions of our lives, I think it better to bear, and to conquer as I
can, even the unpleasant impression that my daughter, who knows very
well that poor Ottilie is entirely dependent upon us, does not refrain
from flourishing her own successes in her face, and so, to a certain
extent, destroys the little good which we have done for her. Who are
well trained enough never to wound others by a parade of their own
advantages? and who stands so high as not at times to suffer under such
a slight? In trials like these, Ottilie's character is growing in
strength, but since I have clearly known the painfulness of her
situation, I have been thinking over all