“It is now more than twenty years since I, a petted child of ten years old, born and bred in the country, and as shy as a hare, was sent to that scene of bustle and confusion, a London school. Oh, what a change it was! What a terrible change!... To leave my own dear home for this strange new place and these strange new people ... and so many of them!... I shall never forget the misery of the first two days, blushing to be looked at, dreading to be spoken to, shrinking like a sensitive plant from the touch, ashamed to cry, and feeling as if I could never laugh again. “These disconsolate feelings are not astonishing ... the wonder is that they so soon passed away. But everybody was good and kind. In less than a week the poor wild bird was tamed. I could look without fear on the bright, happy faces; listen without starting to the clear, high voices, even though they talked in French; began to watch the ball and the battledore; and felt something like an inclination to join in the sports. In short, I soon became an efficient member of the commonwealth; made a friend, provided myself with a school-mother, a fine, tall, blooming girl ... under whose protection I began to learn and unlearn, to acquire the habits and enter into the views of my companions, as well disposed to be idle as the best of them.” M. St. Quintin taught the pupils French, history and geography, also as much science as he was master of or as he thought it requisite for a young lady to know. Madame St. Quintin did but little teaching at this period, but used to sit in the drawing-room with a book in her hand to receive visitors. After M. St. Quintin the mainstay of the school was the English teacher, Miss Rowden, an accomplished young lady of good birth, who was assisted by finishing masters for Italian, music, dancing and drawing. She was admired and loved by the whole school, and especially by Mary Mitford, over whom she exercised an excellent influence. “To fill up any nook of time,” writes Mary, “which the common demands of the school might leave vacant, we used to read together, chiefly poetry. With her I first became acquainted with Pope’s Homer, Dryden’s Virgil and the _Paradise Lost_. She read capitally, and was a most indulgent hearer of my remarks and exclamations;—suffered me to admire Satan and detest Ulysses, and rail at the pious Æneas as long as I chose.” [Illustration: HANS PLACE]