e or habits, to have the charge of a young girl.
He had taken little trouble about her education; probably he would have
taken none if she, finding herself neglected, had not grown anxious on
her own account, and asked, every now and then, for a little attention,
and for the means of acquiring such amount of knowledge as could not be
dispensed with. Still, she had a depressing feeling that she was
inferior, that her attainments were fewer than were usually possessed by
girls of her age and station; and very glad was she to avail herself of
the kind offer made by her cousin Hortense, soon after the arrival of
the latter at Hollow's Mill, to teach her French and fine needle-work.
Mdlle. Moore, for her part, delighted in the task, because it gave her
importance; she liked to lord it a little over a docile yet quick pupil.
She took Caroline precisely at her own estimate, as an
irregularly-taught, even ignorant girl; and when she found that she made
rapid and eager progress, it was to no talent, no application, in the
scholar she ascribed the improvement, but entirely to her own superior
method of teaching. When she found that Caroline, unskilled in routine,
had a knowledge of her own, desultory but varied, the discovery caused
her no surprise, for she still imagined that from her conversation had
the girl unawares gleaned these treasures. She thought it even when
forced to feel that her pupil knew much on subjects whereof she knew
little. The idea was not logical, but Hortense had perfect faith in it.

Mademoiselle, who prided herself on possessing "un esprit positif," and
on entertaining a decided preference for dry studies, kept her young
cousin to the same as closely as she could. She worked her unrelentingly
at the grammar of the French language, assigning her, as the most
improving exercise she could devise, interminable "analyses logiques."
These "analyses" were by no means a source of particular pleasure to
Caroline; she thought she could have learned French just as well without
them, and grudged excessively the time spent in pondering over
"propositions, principales, et incidents;" in deciding the "incidente
determinative," and the "incidente applicative;" in examining whether
the proposition was "pleine," "elliptique," or "implicite." Sometimes
she lost herself in the maze, and when so lost she would, now and then
(while Hortense was rummaging her drawers upstairs--an unaccountable
occupation in which she spent a la