"Yes; but it would be almost better, perhaps, if you did not. I will tell you how I feel, Pauline. I know nothing of building, but I feel as though I had been placed before a heap of marble, porphyry, and granite, of wood, glass, and iron, and then told from those materials to shape a magnificent palace. I am at a loss what to do." Miss Darrell laughed with the glee of a child. Her governess, repressing her surprise, continued: "You know more in some respects than most educated women; in other and equally essential matters you know less than a child. You speak French fluently, perfectly; you have read a large number of books in the French language--good, bad, and indifferent, it appears to me; yet you have no more idea of French grammar or of the idiom or construction of the language than a child." "That, indeed, I have not; I consider grammar the most stupid of all human inventions." Miss Hastings offered no comment. "Again," she continued, "you speak good English, but your spelling is bad, and your writing worse. You are better acquainted with English literature than I am--that is, you have read more. You have read indiscriminately; even the titles of some of the books you have read are not admissible." The dark eyes flashed, and the pale, grand face was stirred as though by some sudden emotion. "There was a large library in the house where we lived," she explained, hurriedly, "and I read every book in it. I read from early morning until late at night, and sometimes from night until morning; there was no one to tell me what was right and what was wrong, Miss Hastings." "Then," continued the governess, "you have written a spirited poem on Anne Boleyn, but you know nothing of English history--neither the dates nor the incidents of a single reign. You have written the half of a story, the scene of which is laid in the tropics, yet of geography you have not the faintest notion. Of matters such as every girl has some idea of--of biography, of botany, of astronomy--you have not even a glimmer. The chances are, that if you engaged in conversation with any sensible person, you would equally astonish, first by the clever things you would utter, and then by the utter ignorance you would display." "I cannot be flattered, Miss Hastings," Pauline put in, "because you humiliate me; nor can I be humiliated, because you flatter me." But Miss Hastings pursued her criticisms steadily. "You have not the slightest knowledge of arithmetic. As for knowledge of a higher class, you have none. You are dreadfully deficient. You say that you have read Auguste Comte, but you do not know the answer to the first question in your church catechism. Your education requires beginning all over again. You have never had any settled plan of study, I should imagine." "No. I learned drawing from Jules Lacroix. Talk of talent, Miss Hastings. You should have known him--he was the handsomest artist I ever saw. There was something so picturesque about him."