Thank you, Charles, for your letter! I was beginning to think my
invitation to Dayton inexplicable, when that letter arrived. I cannot
but deem it an unworthy baseness to entrap a girl to study her without a
warning to her. I went up to my room after I had read it, and wrote in
reply till the breakfast-bell rang. I resumed my occupation an hour
later, and wrote till one o'clock. In all, fifteen pages of writing,
which I carefully folded and addressed to Charles; sealed the envelope,
stamped it, and destroyed it. I went to bed. 'No, I won't ride out to-
day, I have a headache!' I repeated this about half-a-dozen times to
nobody's knocking on the door, and when at last somebody knocked I tried
to repeat it once, but having the message that Mr. Pollingray
particularly wished to have my company in a ride, I rose submissively
and cried. This humiliation made my temper ferocious. Mr. Pollingray
observed my face, and put it down in his notebook. 'A savage
disposition,' or, no, 'An untamed little rebel'; for he has hopes of me.
He had the cruelty to say so.

'What I am, I shall remain,' said I.

He informed me that it was perfectly natural for me to think it; and on
my replying that persons ought to know themselves best: 'At my age,
perhaps,' he said, and added, 'I cannot speak very confidently of my
knowledge of myself.'

'Then you make us out to be nothing better than puppets, Mr. Pollingray.'

'If we have missed an early apprenticeship to the habit of self-command,
ma filleule.'

'Merci, mon parrain.'