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shaft of irony. But she tossed her epigrams about with such evident enjoyment, that if
one had the smallest sense of fun, one enjoyed them too, and it was from her that I, for one, learnt to realize the exquisite adaptation of the French tongue to the French wit. But her talk was not all epigrams. One felt it informed by that infectious ardour, that enlivening zest, which were the secret of her success as a schoolmistress. There was nothing into which she could not infuse them. Every subject, however dull it had seemed in the hands of others, became animated in hers. With the traditional culture of a French Protestant family, having contacts with eminent men and women in many countries, she had too a spontaneous and open mind, capable of points of view, fond of the stimulus of paradox. The dullest of her girls was stirred into some sort of life in her presence; to the intelligent, she communicated a Promethean fire which warmed and coloured their whole lives. To sit at table at her right hand was an education itself.

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    B ut it must not be supposed that more orthodox studies were neglected or that companionship was wanting. There were four or five of the elder girls who were congenial and friendly. We made a set apart, we were “the clever ones,” those who spoke up at the classes, those who attended Mlle Julie’s literature lessons and readings, those who were chosen to send in essays to the Paris professors. These essays, or “devoirs” as they were called, were the chief torment and excitement of our lives. After the professor’s lecture, we had to write out a résumé of his discourse, or expand one particular portion of it. We were expected to fill some fifteen or sixteen copy-book pages, had access to a fairly large library, and were supposed to devote the greater part of Thursday and Sunday afternoons to the task, in a small study specially reserved for les grandes. When the devoir was finished it was handed on Friday and Monday mornings to Mlle Julie, who looked it over and, if she thought it
worthy, passed it on to the professor. It was her comments we cared about; the professor was generally, I suppose, a young man fresh from his examinations, cast in a university mould, and very much at sea in talking to this strange collection of jeunes filles from barbarous lands. At any rate, we usually had a supreme contempt for him, and, in truth, he was at an overwhelming disadvantage, obliged in spite of himself to endure the ordeal of comparison with an intellect so alive, so widely experienced as Mlle Julie’s, with a personality so exceptional, a beauty so striking.
    I remember my first devoir. It was on Corneille and the “quarrel of the Cid.” Do what I would, I could not pad it out to more than six pages. Dry facts, jejune statements were all that I could wring from my subject. I had no notion how to work, how to think, how to co-ordinate. I was desperate.
    I remember the night she gave it back to me. Not good enough! It was after dinner. A bevy of us were collected in the long, wide passage, paved with a chequer of black and white marble, which led to the front door, and which we were allowed to use as a kind of promenade deck. It was an evening on which Mlle Julie was going out—to dinner in the town or to an evening party in Paris, somewhere which necessitated evening dress. This was always an occasion, and her devotees would cluster to see her go by in her magnificence and say good night as she passed. She came sweeping down stairs,
Signorina running after her with her fan, her gloves, her handbag. Her evening cloak was thrown back and we could see the shimmer of bare neck and lace and satin.
    “Tiens!” she said as she caught sight of me. “I was looking for you. Here’s your devoir. Un peu pauvre .” She tossed it to me and swept on.
    “Un peu pauvre!” Yes, that was it. That was I. Poor! Poor! It was my first incentive to work, to till my soil, to extract from it all the riches I could, to