likely to take in enough to upset his balance. At that time the
Captain was quite evidently enjoying being educated by Florence.
She used to do it about three or four times a week under the
approving eyes of Leonora and myself. It wasn't, you understand,
systematic. It came in bursts. It was Florence clearing up one of
the dark places of the earth, leaving the world a little lighter than
she had found it. She would tell him the story of Hamlet; explain
the form of a symphony, humming the first and second subjects to
him, and so on; she would explain to him the difference between
Arminians and Erastians; or she would give him a short lecture on
the early history of the United States. And it was done in a way
well calculated to arrest a young attention. Did you ever read Mrs
Markham? Well, it was like that. . . .

But our excursion to M---- was a much larger, a much more full
dress affair. You see, in the archives of the Schloss in that city
there was a document which Florence thought would finally give
her the chance to educate the whole lot of us together. It really
worried poor Florence that she couldn't, in matters of culture, ever
get the better of Leonora. I don't know what Leonora knew or
what she didn't know, but certainly she was always there
whenever Florence brought out any information. And she gave,
somehow, the impression of really knowing what poor Florence
gave the impression of having only picked up. I can't exactly
define it. It was almost something physical. Have you ever seen a
retriever dashing in play after a greyhound? You see the two
running over a green field, almost side by side, and suddenly the
retriever makes a friendly snap at the other. And the greyhound
simply isn't there. You haven't observed it quicken its speed or
strain a limb; but there it is, just two yards in front of the