souliers de silence , and glide ghostlike through the house, watching and spying everywhere, peering through every keyhole, listening behind every door.

After all, Madame’s system was not bad⁠—let me do her justice. Nothing could be better than all her arrangements for the physical well-being of her scholars. No minds were overtasked; the lessons were well distributed and made incomparably easy to the learner; there was a liberty of amusement, and a provision for exercise which kept the girls healthy; the food was abundant and good: neither pale nor puny faces were anywhere to be seen in the Rue Fossette . She never grudged a holiday; she allowed plenty of time for sleeping, dressing, washing, eating; her method in all these matters was easy, liberal, salutary, and rational: many an austere English schoolmistress would do vastly well to imitate her⁠—and I believe many would be glad to do so, if exacting English parents would let them.