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Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn, 1810-1865

"ë — Volume 1"

Don't laugh at my
simile. It is natural to me to submit, and very unnatural to command.
"This is a large school, in which there are about forty externes, or day
pupils, and twelve pensionnaires, or boarders. Madame Heger, the head,
is a lady of precisely the same cast of mind, degree of cultivation, and
quality of intellect as Miss ---. I think the severe points are a little
softened, because she has not been disappointed, and consequently soured.
In a word, she is a married instead of a maiden lady. There are three
teachers in the school--Mademoiselle Blanche, Mademoiselle Sophie, and
Mademoiselle Marie. The two first have no particular character. One is
an old maid, and the other will be one. Mademoiselle Marie is talented
and original, but of repulsive and arbitrary manners, which have made the
whole school, except myself and Emily, her bitter enemies. No less than
seven masters attend, to teach the different branches of
education--French, Drawing, Music, Singing, Writing, Arithmetic, and
German. All in the house are Catholics except ourselves, one other girl,
and the gouvernante of Madame's children, an Englishwoman, in rank
something between a lady's maid and a nursery governess. The difference
in country and religion makes a broad line of demarcation between us and
all the rest.


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