commander's children in a suburban villa, with the manners which adorn a
palace. When they happen to be there. She had a bugbear; Slang. Could not
endure the smart technicalities current; their multitude did not
overpower her distaste; she called them "jargon"--"slang" was too coarse
a word for her to apply to slang: she excluded many a good "racy idiom"
along with the real offenders; and monosyllables in general ran some risk
of' having to show their passports. If this was pedantry, it went no
further; she was open, free, and youthful with her young pupils; and had
the art to put herself on their level: often, when they were quite young,
she would feign infantine ignorance, in order to hunt trite truth in
couples with them, and detect, by joint experiment, that rainbows cannot,
or else will not, be walked into, nor Jack-o'-lantern be gathered like a
cowslip; and that, dissect we the vocal dog--whose hair is so like a
lamb's--never so skilfully, no fragment of palpable bark, no sediment of
tangible squeak, remains inside him to bless the inquisitive little
operator, &c., &c. When they advanced from these elementary branches to
Languages, History, Tapestry, and "What Not," she managed still to keep
by their side learning with them, not just hearing them lessons down from
the top of a high tower of maternity. She never checked their curiosity,
but made herself share it; never gave them, as so many parents do, a
white-lying answer; wooed their affections with subtle though innocent
art, thawed their reserve, obtained their love, and retained their
respect. Briefly, a female Chesterfield; her husband's lover after
marriage, though not before; and the mild monitress the elder sister, the
favourite companion and bosom friend of both her children.

They were remarkably dissimilar; and perhaps I may be allowed to preface
the narrative of their adventures by a delineation; as in country
churches an individual pipes the keynote, and the tune comes raging
after.