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“And I shall give you the real Parisien tone, Mees Lucinda!” said he proudly.”I shall be as if it were no more an exile when I repeat my tongue to you!”

And so it was settled. Why Miss Lucinda should learn French any more than dancing was not a question in Monsieur Leclerc’s mind. It is true, that Chaldaic would, in all probability, be a
s useful to our friend as French; and the flying over poles and hanging by toes and fingers, so eloquently described by the Apostle of the Body in these “Atlantic” pages; would have been as well adapted to her style and capacity as dancing;—but his own language, and his own profession! what man would not have regarded these as indispensable to improvement, particularly when they paid his board?

During the latter three weeks of Monsieur Leclerc’s stay with Miss Lucinda he made himself surprisingly useful. He listed the doors against approaching winter breezes,—he weeded in the garden,—trimmed, tied, trained, wherever either good office was needed,—mended china with an infallible cement, and rickety chairs with the skill of a cabinet-maker; and whatever hard or dirty work he did, he always presented himself at table in a state of scrupulous neatness: his long brown hands showed no trace of labor; his iron-gray hair was reduced to smoothest order; his coat speckless, if threadbare; and he ate like a gentleman, an accomplishment not always to be found in the “best society,” as the phrase goes,—whether the best in fact ever lacks it is another thing. Miss Lucinda appreciated these traits,—they set her at ease; and a pleasanter home-life could scarce be painted than now enlivened the little wooden house. But three weeks pass away rapidly; and when the rusty portmanteau was gone from her spare chamber, and the well-worn boots from the kitchen-corner, and the hat from its nail, Miss Lucinda began to find herself wonderfully lonely. She missed the armfuls of wood in her wood-box, that she had to fill laboriously, two sticks at a time; she missed the other plate at her tiny round table, the other chair beside her fire; she missed that dark, thin, sensitive face, with its rare and sweet smile; she wanted her story-teller, her yarn-winder, her protector, back again. Good gracious! to think of an old lady of forty-seven entertaining such sentiments for a man!

Presently the dancing-lessons commenced. It was thought advisable that Miss Manners should enter a class, and, in the fervency of her good intentions, she did not demur. But gratitude and respect had to strangle with persistent hands the little serpents of the ridiculous in Monsieur Leclerc’s soul, when he beheld his pupil’s first appearance. What reason was it, O rose of seventeen, adorning thyself with cloudy films of lace and sparks of jewelry before the mirror that reflects youth and beauty, that made Miss Lucinda array herself in a brand-new dress of yellow muslin-de-laine strewed with round green spots, and displace her customary handkerchief for a huge tamboured collar, on this eventful occasion? Why, O why did she tie up the roots of her black hair with an unconcealable scarlet string? And most of all, why was her dress so short, her slipper-strings so big and broad, her thick slippers so shapeless by reason of the corns and bunions that pertained to the feet within? The “instantaneous rush of several guardian angels” that once stood dear old Hepzibah Pynchon in good stead was wanting here,—or perhaps they stood by all-invisible, their calm eyes softened with love deeper than tears, at this spectacle so ludicrous to man, beholding in the grotesque dress and adornments only the budding of life’s divinest blossom, and in the strange skips and hops of her first attempts at dancing only the buoyancy of those inner wings that goodness and generosity and pure self-devotion were shaping for a future strong and stately flight upward. However, men, women, and children do not see with angelic eyes, and the titterings of her fellow-pupils were irrepressible: one bouncing girl nearly choked herself with her handkerchief trying not to laugh, and two or three did not even try. Monsieur Leclerc could not blame them,—at first he could scarce control his own facial muscles; but a sense of remorse smote him, as he saw how unconscious and earnest the little woman was, and remembered how often those knotty hands and knobbed feet had waited on his need or his comfort. Presently he tapped on his violin for a few moments’ respite, and approached Miss Lucinda as respectfully as if she had been a queen.