think there is really something very uncommon in that girl."

"Yes, yes, there is certainly something uncommon in her. Her liveliness
and the many games and schemes which she invents--"

"Yes, don't you think they indicate a decided talent for the fine arts?
And then her extraordinary thirst for learning: every morning, between
three and four o'clock, she gets up in order to read or write, or to
work at her compositions. That is not at all a common thing. And may not
her uneasiness, her eagerness to question and dispute, arise from a sort
of intellectual hunger? Ah, from such hunger, which many women must
suffer throughout their lives, from want of literary food,--from such an
emptiness of the soul arise disquiet, discontent, nay, innumerable
faults."

"I believe you are right, Elise," said the Lagman, "and no condition in
life is sadder, particularly in more advanced years. But this shall not
be the lot of our Petrea--that I will promise. What do you think now
would benefit her most?"

"My opinion is that a serious and continued plan of study would assist
in regulating her mind. She is too much left to herself with her
confused tendencies, with her zeal and her inquiry. I am too ignorant
myself to lead and instruct her, you have too little time, and she has
no one here who can properly direct her young and unregulated mind.
Sometimes I almost pity her, for her sisters don't understand at all
what is going on within her, and I confess it is often painful to
myself; I wish I were more able to assist her. Petrea needs some ground
on which to take her stand. Her thoughts require more firmness; from the
want of this comes her uneasiness. She is like a flower without roots,