the past by a knowledge of his. There was scarcely more than this in her
heart when she allowed herself to drift near Fane's place that night,
that he might speak to her, and tell her what Gregory had said. But he
had apparently forgotten about his letter, and only wished to talk about
himself. He wished to analyze himself, to tell her what sort of person he
was. He dealt impartially with the subject; he did not spare some faults
of his; and after a week, he proposed a correspondence with her, in a
letter of carefully studied spelling, as a means of mutual improvement as
well as further acquaintance.

It cost Clementina a good deal of trouble to answer him as she wished and
not hurt his feelings. She declined in terms she thought so cold that
they must offend him beyond the point of speaking to her again; but he
sought her out, as soon after as he could, and thanked her for her
kindness, and begged her pardon. He said he knew that she was a very busy
person, with all the lessons she was taking, and that she had no time for
carrying on a correspondence. He regretted that he could not write
French, because then the correspondence would have been good practice for
her. Clementina had begun taking French lessons, of a teacher who came
out from Boston. She lunched three times a week with her and Mrs. Lander,
and spoke the language with Clementina, whose accent she praised for its
purity; purity of accent was characteristic of all this lady's pupils;
but what was really extraordinary in Mademoiselle Claxon was her sense of
grammatical structure; she wrote the language even more perfectly than
she spoke it; but beautifully, but wonderfully; her exercises were
something marvellous.

Mrs. Lander would have liked Clementina to take all the lessons that she
heard any of the other young ladies in the hotel were taking. One of them
went in town every day, and studied drawing at an art-school, and she