_A New Pupil_.
One day, exactly three weeks after her last visit to my room, as I was
sitting with my three pupils in the schoolroom, Lady Alice entered, and
began to look on the bookshelves as if she wanted some volume. After a
few moments, she turned, and, approaching the table, said to me, in an
abrupt, yet hesitating way.
“Mr. Campbell, I cannot spell. How am I to learn?”
I thought for a moment, and replied: “Copy a passage every day, Lady
Alice, from some favourite book. Then, if you allow me, I shall be most
happy to point out any mistakes you may have made.”
“Thank you, Mr. Campbell, I will; but I am afraid you will despise me,
when you find how badly I spell.”
“There is no fear of that,” I rejoined. “It is a mere peculiarity. So
long as one can _think_ well, spelling is altogether secondary.”
“Thank you; I will try,” she said, and left the room. Next day, she
brought me an old ballad, written tolerably, but in a school-girl’s
hand. She had copied the antique spelling, letter for letter.
“This is quite correct,” I said; “but to copy such as this will not
teach you properly; for it is very old, and consequently old-fashioned.”
“Is it old? Don’t we spell like that now? You see I do not know anything
about it. You must set me a task, then.”
This I undertook with more pleasure than I dared to show. Every day she
brought me the appointed exercise, written with a steadily improving
hand. To my surprise, I never found a single error in the spelling. Of
course, when, advancing a step in the process, I made her write from my
dictation, she did make blunders, but not so many as I had expected; and
she seldom repeated one after correction.
This new association gave me many opportunities of doing more for her
than merely teaching her to spell. We talked about what she copied; and
I had to explain. I also told her about the writers. Soon she expressed
a desire to know something of figures. We commenced arithmetic. I
proposed geometry along with it, and found the latter especially fitted
to her powers. One by one we included several other necessary branches;
and ere long I had four around the schoolroom table--equally my pupils.
Whether the attempts previously made to instruct her had been
insufficient or misdirected, or whether her intellectual powers had
commenced a fresh growth, I could not tell; but I leaned to the latter
conclusion, especially after I began to observe that her peculiar
remarks had become modified in form, though without losing any of their
originality. The unearthliness of her beauty likewise disappeared, a
slight colour displacing the almost marbly whiteness of her cheek.
Long before Lady Alice had made this progress, my nightly struggles
began to diminish in violence. They had now entirely ceased. The
temptation had left me. I felt certain that for weeks she had never
walked in her sleep. She was beyond my power, and I was glad of it.
I was, of course, most careful of my behaviour during all this period. I
strove to pay Lady Alice no more attention than I paid to the rest of my
pupils; and I cannot help thinking that I succeeded. But now and then,
in the midst of some instruction I was giving Lady Alice, I caught the
eye of Lady Lucy, a sharp, common-minded girl, fixed upon one or the
other of us, with an inquisitive vulgar expression, which I did not
like. This made me more careful still. I watched my tones, to keep them
even, and free from any expression of the feeling of which my heart was
full. Sometimes, however, I could not help revealing the gratification I
felt when she made some marvellous remark--marvellous, I mean, in
relation to her other attainments; such a remark as a child will
sometimes make, showing that he has already mastered, through his
earnest simplicity, some question that has for ages perplexed the wise
and the prudent. On one of these occasions, I found the cat eyes of Lady
Lucy glittering on me. I turned away; not, I fear, without showing some
displeasure.
Whether it was from Lady Lucy’s evil report, or that the change in Lady
Alice’s habits and appearance had attracted the attention of Lady
Hilton, I cannot tell; but one morning she appeared at the door of the
study, and called her. Lady Alice rose and went, with a slight gesture
of impatience. In a few minutes she returned, looking angry and
determined, and resumed her seat. But whatever it was that had passed
between them, it had destroyed that quiet flow of the feelings which was
necessary to the working of her thoughts. In vain she tried: she could
do nothing correctly. At last she burst into tears and left the room. I
was almost beside myself with distress and apprehension. She did not
return that day.
Next morning she entered at the usual hour, looking composed, but paler
than of late, and showing signs of recent weeping. When we were all
seated, and had just commenced our work, I happened to look up, and
caught her eyes intently fixed on me. They dropped instantly, but
without any appearance of confusion. She went on with her arithmetic,
and succeeded tolerably. But this respite was to be of short duration.
Lady Hilton again entered, and called her. She rose angrily, and my
quick ear caught the half-uttered words, “That woman will make an idiot
of me again!” She did not return; and never from that hour resumed her
place in the schoolroom.
The time passed heavily. At dinner she looked proud and constrained; and
spoke only in monosyllables.
For two days I scarcely saw her. But the third day, as I was busy in the
library alone, she entered.
“Can I help you, Mr. Campbell?” she said.
I glanced involuntarily towards the door.
“Lady Hilton is not at home,” she replied to my look, while a curl of
indignation contended with a sweet tremor of shame for the possession of
her lip.--“Let me help you.”
“You will help me best if you sing that ballad I heard you singing just
before you came in. I never heard you sing before.”
“Didn’t you? I don’t think I ever did sing before.”
“Sing it again, will you, please?”
“It is only two verses. My old Scotch nurse used to sing it when I was a
little girl-oh, so long ago! I didn’t know I could sing it.”
She began without more ado, standing in the middle of the room, with her
back towards the door.
Annie was dowie, an’ Willie was wae:
What can be the matter wi’ siccan a twae?
For Annie was bonnie’s the first o’ the day,
And Willie was strang an’ honest an’ gay.
Oh! the tane had a daddy was poor an’ was proud;
An’ the tither a minnie that cared for the gowd.
They lo’ed are anither, an’ said their say--
But the daddy an’ minnie hae pairtit the twae.
Just as she finished the song, I saw the sharp eyes of Lady Lucy peeping
in at the door.
“Lady Lucy is watching at the door, Lady Alice,” I said.
“I don’t care,” she answered; but turned with a flush on her face, and
stepped noiselessly to the door.
“There is no one there,” she said, returning.
“There was, though,” I answered.
“They want to drive me mad,” she cried, and hurried from the room.
The next day but one, she came again with the same request. But she had
not been a minute in the library before Lady Hilton came to the door and
called her in angry tones.
“Presently,” replied Alice, and remained where she was.
“Do go, Lady Alice,” I said. “They will send me away if you refuse.”
She blushed scarlet, and went without another word.
She came no more to the library.