His little juiceless body was light, but everything else about him was heavy with the somber earnestness of his determination to teach us what he considered the manners of women of the world. Thrice a week we were obliged to begin those lessons by a ceremonious entry into the big salon, four by four, advancing in time to music across the bare shining desert of its waxed floors, counting furtively under our breaths, “one, two, three, four, glide, bend, recover, glide,” as we courtesied to the Directrice, “advance again, one, two, three, four, glide, bend, recover, glide,”--here we saluted the Sous-Directrice--“advance again” (I was always shaking partly with giggles at the absurdity of the whole business, partly with fear of the terrible eye of Professor Delacour), “one, two three, four, glide, bend ...” but usually at this point of my attempted bow to the Professor of Deportment I was harshly told to go back and start the whole agonizing ritual over. That was before the Brodard girls took me in hand and, flanking me on either side, swept me forward on the crest of their perfect advance and genuflection to the coveted place of safety on the other side of the room where, in a black-robed line, the little girls who had made a correct entry awaited further instructions in the manners of the world. The support of the three Brodard girls did not stop short when they had engineered me through the matter of getting into a room. The professor himself was not more steeped in a religious sense of the importance of his instruction than were Madeleine, Lucie, and Clotilde Brodard. The insensate inner laughter which constantly threatened to shake the lid of my decorum, was safely muffled by their whole-souled attention as we stood there, watching the elegant gestures and still more elegant immobilities of Professor Delacour, as he explained the lesson of the day. One day we were taught how to put money into the contribution-box in church, “not with a preoccupied, bored air, nor yet with a complacent smirk, but thus, gravely, with a quiet dignified gesture.” Then he would pass the velvet contribution bag down the line, and forty little girls must each find the right expression, “not bored, or preoccupied, not yet with a complacent, self-conscious look, gravely--quietly--with dignity.” I can still feel in the pit of my stomach the quiver of mingled terror and mirth with which at twelve years of age, I prepared to be, “not bored or preoccupied, nor yet smirking and complacent, but quiet--dignified--” I would never have lived through it if I had not been hypnotized by the Brodard girls.