dull creature who never shone in anything.

"Good heavens!" he had said more than once, as he stared at her,
"there are times when I think she is as stupid as her Aunt
Eliza!"

If her Aunt Eliza had been slow to learn and quick to forget a
thing entirely when she had learned it, Ermengarde was strikingly
like her. She was the monumental dunce of the school, and it
could not be denied.

"She must be MADE to learn," her father said to Miss Minchin.

Consequently Ermengarde spent the greater part of her life in
disgrace or in tears. She learned things and forgot them; or,
if she remembered them, she did not understand them. So it was
natural that, having made Sara's acquaintance, she should sit
and stare at her with profound admiration.

"You can speak French, can't you?" she said respectfully.

Sara got on to the window-seat, which was a big, deep one, and,
tucking up her feet, sat with her hands clasped round her knees.

"I can speak it because I have heard it all my life," she
answered. "You could speak it if you had always heard it."

"Oh, no, I couldn't," said Ermengarde. "I NEVER could speak
it!"