as I liked my pupil Adèle: except that, for a child whom we have watched over and taught, a closer affection is engendered than we can give an equally attractive adult acquaintance.
She had taken an amiable caprice to me. She said I was like Mr. Rivers (only, certainly, she allowed, "not one-tenth so handsome; though I was a nice, neat little soul enough: but he was an angel"). I was, however, good, clever, composed, and firm, like him. I was a lusus naturæ, she affirmed, as a village-schoolmistress: she was sure my previous history, if known, would make a delightful romance.
One evening, while with her usual child-like activity, and thoughtless yet not offensive inquisitiveness, she was rummaging the cupboard and the table-drawer of my little kitchen, she discovered first two French books, a volume of Schiller, a German grammar and dictionary; and then my drawing-materials and some sketches, including a pencil-head of a pretty little cherub-like girl, one of my scholars, and sundry views from nature, taken in the Vale of Morton and on the surrounding moors. She was first transfixed, with surprise, and then electrified with delight.
"Had I done these pictures? Did I know French and German? What a love—what a
