rge portion of each day, arranging,
disarranging, rearranging, and counter-arranging), carry her book to
Robert in the counting-house, and get the rough place made smooth by his
aid. Mr. Moore possessed a clear, tranquil brain of his own. Almost as
soon as he looked at Caroline's little difficulties they seemed to
dissolve beneath his eye. In two minutes he would explain all, in two
words give the key to the puzzle. She thought if Hortense could only
teach like him, how much faster she might learn! Repaying him by an
admiring and grateful smile, rather shed at his feet than lifted to his
face, she would leave the mill reluctantly to go back to the cottage,
and then, while she completed the exercise, or worked out the sum (for
Mdlle. Moore taught her arithmetic too), she would wish nature had made
her a boy instead of a girl, that she might ask Robert to let her be his
clerk, and sit with him in the counting-house, instead of sitting with
Hortense in the parlour.

Occasionally--but this happened very rarely--she spent the evening at
Hollow's Cottage. Sometimes during these visits Moore was away attending
a market; sometimes he was gone to Mr. Yorke's; often he was engaged
with a male visitor in another room; but sometimes, too, he was at home,
disengaged, free to talk with Caroline. When this was the case, the
evening hours passed on wings of light; they were gone before they were
counted. There was no room in England so pleasant as that small parlour
when the three cousins occupied it. Hortense, when she was not teaching,
or scolding, or cooking, was far from ill-humoured; it was her custom to
relax towards evening, and to be kind to her young English kinswoman.
There was a means, too, of rendering her delightful, by inducing her to
take her guitar and sing and play. She then became quite good-natured.
And as she played with skill, and had a well-toned voice, it was not
disagreeable to listen to her. It would have been absolutely agreeable,
except that her formal and self-important character modulated her
strains, as it impressed her manners and moulded her countenance.

Mr. Moore, released from the business yoke, was, if not lively himself,
a willing spectator of Caroline's liveliness, a complacent listener to
her talk, a ready respondent to her questions. He was something
agreeable to sit near, to hover round, to address and look at. Sometimes
he was better than this--almost animated, quite gentle and friendly.

The