But I took other tasks in hand. Good Father Bonneville resumed his lessons to me; but they were not very burdensome, and I began to teach Mariette. How this came about I must explain. Madame de Salins, who had borne up so well in times of danger and active exertion, became languid, inactive, sorrowful in the time of repose. She was evidently exceedingly anxious about something—often in tears—and often returned from the neighboring city where she went almost every day to seek for letters, with a look of gloom and disappointment. She began to teach Mariette something herself, however; for from various circumstances the dear child’s instruction had been neglected. It was always a task to her, however, and her mind seemed wandering away to other things, till at length good Father Bonneville suggested that I would teach Mariette, and Mariette was delighted, and I rejoiced; and Madame de Salins, too, was very well satisfied at heart, I believe. Every thing was speedily arranged, but Mariette and I set to work formally and in good order. The books, and the slate, and the pen and ink were produced at a fixed hour, and if it were fine weather, we sat in the little shabby porch—if it were raining, in the little room that looked upon it. Dear, stupid little thing! What a world of trouble she gave me. She did not half know her letters when I began to teach her, and was continually mistaking the P’s and B’s, and Q’s and D’s. R and S, too, were sad stumbling-blocks, and the putting letters together into syllables, together with pricking the page with a pin occupied a long time. Then she was so volatile too. When I was pouring forth my young philosophy upon her, and laboring hard to teach her the sounds produced by different combinations of letters, she would start up and dart out into the garden in chase of a butterfly, or tempted by a flower. Then, when she came back and was scolded, how she would coax and wheedle her soft young tutor, and kiss his cheek and pat his hair, and one way or another contrive to get the words “good Mariette” written at the end of every lesson to show her mother. I have got the book still, all full of pin holes, and strange figures scribbled on it with a pen; but not one lesson in it has not “good Mariette” written at the end, though Heaven knows she was often naughty enough to merit another comment. But I was a true lover even then, and perhaps loved the dear child’s faults.