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“Oh! I should like to hear about that old woman’s neat little garden,” cried Herbert.

“And so should I,” said Mrs. Harcourt and Mad. de Rosier. Isabella quickly produced the book after supper, and read the poem.

Herbert and Favoretta liked the old woman and her garden, and they were much interested for the little boy, who was whipped for having been gazing at the pictures on the horn-book, instead of learning his lesson; but, to Isabella’s great mortification, they did not understand above half of what she read–the old English expressions puzzled them.

“You would not be surprised at this, my dear Isabella,” said Mad. de Rosier, “if you had made as many experiments upon children as I have. It is quite a new language to them; and what you have just been reading is scarcely intelligible to me, though you compliment me so much upon my knowledge of the English language.” Mad. de Rosier took the book, and pointed to several words which she had not understood–such as “eftsoons,” ” Dan Phoebus,” and ” ne and y,” which had made many lines incomprehensible.

Herbert, when he heard Mad. de Rosier confess her ignorance, began to take courage, and came forward with his confessions.

” Gingerbread y rare,” he thought, was some particular kind of gingerbread; and ” Apples with cabbage net y covered o’er ” presented no delightful image to his mind, because, as he said, he did not know what the word netycovered could mean.

These mistakes occasioned some laughter; but as Herbert perceived that he was no longer thought stupid, he took all the laughter with good humour, and he determined to follow, in future, Mad. de Rosier’s example, in pointing out the words which were puzzling.

Grace was astonished, at the conclusion of the evening, to find Master Herbert in such high spirits. The next day she heard sounds of woe, sounds agreeable to her wishes–Favoretta crying upon the stairs. It had been a rainy morning: Favoretta and Herbert had been disappointed in not being able to walk out; and after having been amused the preceding evening, they were less disposed to bear disappointment, and less inclined to employ themselves than usual. Favoretta had finished her little basket, and her mother had promised that it should appear at the dessert; but it wanted some hours of dinner-time; and between the making and the performance of a promise, how long the time appears to an impatient child! how many events happen which may change the mind of the promiser!

Mad. de Rosier had lent Favoretta and Herbert, for their amusement, the first number of “The Cabinet of Quadrupeds,” in which there are beautiful prints; but, unfortunately, some dispute arose between the children. Favoretta thought her brother looked too long at the hunchbacked camel; he accused her of turning over leaves before she had half seen the prints; but she listened not to his just reproaches, for she had caught a glimpse of the royal tiger springing upon Mr. Munro, and she could no longer restrain her impatience. Each party began to pull at the book; and the camel and the royal tiger were both in imminent danger of being torn in pieces, when Mad. de Rosier interfered, parted the combatants, and sent them into separate rooms, as it was her custom to do, whenever they could not agree together.

Grace, the moment she heard Favoretta crying, went up to the room where she was, and made her tiptoe approaches, addressing Favoretta in a tone of compassion, which, to a child’s unpractised ear, might appear, perhaps, the natural voice of sympathy. The sobbing child hid her face in Grace’s lap; and when she had told her complaint against Mad. de Rosier, Grace comforted her for the loss of the royal tiger by the present of a queen-cake. Grace did not dare to stay long in the room, lest Mad. de Rosier should detect her; she therefore left the little girl, with a strict charge “not to say a word of the queen-cake to her governess.”