Thanks to Aurelia's private assistance, Eugene knew his lessons well
enough for his excitement not to make him stumble so often as to
prevent Betty's pronouncing him a good boy, and dispensing with his
copy, sum, piece, and reading, until the evening. These last were
very tough affairs, the recitation being from Shakespeare, and the
reading from the _Spectator_. There were no children's books,
properly so called, except the ballads, chap-books brought round
by pedlers, often far from edifying, and the plunge from the horn-
book into general literature was, to say the least of it, bracing.

The Delavie family was cultivated for the time. French had been
brought home as a familiar tongue, though _Telemaque_, Racine, and
_Le Grand Cyrus_ were the whole library in that language; and there
was not another within thirty miles. On two days in the week the
sisters became Mesdemoiselles Elisabeth, Henriette, and Aurelie, and
conversed in French over their spinning, seams, lace, or embroidery;
nor was Aurelia yet emancipated from reciting Racine on alternate
days with Milton and Shakespeare.

Betty could likewise talk German with the old Austrian maid, Nannerl,
who had followed the family from Vienna; but the accomplishment was
not esteemed, and the dialect was barbarous. From the time of her
mother's death, Betty had been a strict and careful, though kind, ruler
to her sisters; and the long walk was a greater holiday to Aurelia than
to Eugene, releasing her from her book and work, whereas he would soon
have been trundling his hoop, and haunting the steps of Palmer, who was
gardener as well as valet, butler, and a good deal besides, and moreover
drilled his young master. Thus Eugene carried his head as erect as any
Grenadier in the service, and was a thorough little gentleman in
miniature; a perfect little beau, as his sisters loved to call the