The French teacher was a very different type of womanhood. “She was a tall, majestic woman,” writes Mary, “between sixty and seventy, made taller by yellow slippers with long slender heels.... Her face was almost invisible, being concealed between a mannish kind of neck-cloth and an enormous cap, whose wide, flaunting strip hung over her cheeks and eyes;—to say nothing of a huge pair of spectacles. Madame, all Parisian though she was, had the fidgety neatness of a Dutch woman, and was scandalized at our untidy habits. Four days passed in distant murmurs ... but this was only the gathering of the wind before the storm. It was dancing day; we were all dressed and assembled when Madame, provoked by some indications of latent disorder, instituted, much to our consternation, a general rummage through the house for all things out of their places. The collected mass was thrown together in one stupendous pile in the middle of the schoolroom—a pile that defies description or analysis. The whole was to be apportioned amongst the different owners and then affixed to their persons!... Poor Madame! Article after article was held up to be owned in vain: not a soul would claim such dangerous property. Nevertheless, she did succeed by dint of lucky guesses, [and soon] dictionaries were suspended from the necks of the pupils _en médaillon_, shawls tied round the waist _en ceinture_, and unbound music pinned to the frock _en queue_ ... not one of us but had three or four of these appendages; many had five or six. These preparations were intended to meet the eye of Madame’s countryman, the French dancing master, who would doubtless assist in supporting her authority.... She did not know that before his arrival we were to pass an hour in an exercise of another kind, under the command of a drill-sergeant. The man of scarlet was ushered in. It is impossible to say whether the professor of marching or the poor Frenchwoman looked most disconcerted. Madame began a very voluble explanatory harangue; but she was again unfortunate—the sergeant did not understand French. She attempted to translate: ‘It is, Sare, que ces dames, dat dese miss be des traineuses.’ This clear and intelligible sentence producing no other visible effect than a shake of the head, Madame desired the nearest culprit to tell ‘ce soldat là’ what she had said, which caused him of the red coat to declare that ‘it made his blood boil to see so many free-born English girls dominated over by their natural enemy.’ Finally he insisted that we could not march with such incumbrances, which declaration being done into French all at once by half a dozen eager tongues, the trappings were removed and the experiment was ended.”