of many things with which they had been long familiar,
they thought her prodigiously stupid, and for the first
two or three weeks were continually bringing some fresh
report of it into the drawing-room. "Dear mama, only think,
my cousin cannot put the map of Europe together--
or my cousin cannot tell the principal rivers in Russia--
or, she never heard of Asia Minor--or she does not know
the difference between water-colours and crayons!--
How strange!--Did you ever hear anything so stupid?"

"My dear," their considerate aunt would reply,
"it is very bad, but you must not expect everybody
to be as forward and quick at learning as yourself."

"But, aunt, she is really so very ignorant!--Do you know,
we asked her last night which way she would go to get
to Ireland; and she said, she should cross to the Isle
of Wight. She thinks of nothing but the Isle of Wight,
and she calls it _the_ _Island_, as if there were no
other island in the world. I am sure I should have been
ashamed of myself, if I had not known better long before I
was so old as she is. I cannot remember the time when I
did not know a great deal that she has not the least
notion of yet. How long ago it is, aunt, since we used
to repeat the chronological order of the kings of England,
with the dates of their accession, and most of the principal
events of their reigns!"

"Yes," added the other; "and of the Roman emperors
as low as Severus; besides a great deal of the heathen