It is but fair to say that the other masters--there were but two--were singularly forbearing and indulgent. Monsieur Gervois, who “taught” the little boys, was a quaint-looking, venerable old gentleman, with a queue, and who wore on fête-days a ribbon in his button-hole. He was, it was said, originally a French noble of large fortune, but who had lost everything by the extravagance of an only son, and had sought out, in voluntary exile, this remote spot to end his days in. His manners were always marked with a tinge of proud reserve which none ever infringed upon, nor, out of school-hours, did any one ever presume to obtrude upon his retirement. The classical teacher was a foreigner, we knew not of what nation; we called him sometimes a Pole, now a Spaniard, now an Irishman,--for all these nationalities only to us expressed distant and unknown lands. He was small almost to dwarfishness, and uniformly dressed in a suit of peculiarly colored brown cloth; his age might have been fifty, sixty, or even more, for there was little means of deciphering the work of time in a face sad and careworn, but yet un wrinkled, and where sorrow had set its seal in early life, but without having worn the impress any deeper by time. Large spectacles of blue glass concealed his eyes, of which, the story ran, one was sightless; and his manner was uniformly quiet and patient,--extending to every one the utmost limit of forbearance, and accepting the slightest efforts to learn, as evidences of a noble ambition. To myself he was more than generous,--he was truly and deeply affectionate. I was too young to be one of his class, but he came for me each morning to fetch me to the school; for I did not live at the château, but at a small two-storied house abutting against the base of the mountain. There we lived; and now let me explain who we were. But a peep within our humble sitting-room will save both of us much time. I have called it humble,--I might have used a stronger word; for it was poor almost to destitution. The wooden chairs and tables; the tiled floor; the hearth, on which some soaked branches of larch are smoking; the curtainless window; as well as the utter absence of even the very cheapest appliances of comfort,--all show indigence; while a glance at the worn form and hollow cheek of her who now bends over the embroidery-frame attests that actual want of sustenance is there written. Haggard and thin as the features are, it needs no effort to believe that they once constituted beauty of a high order. The eye, now sunken and almost colorless, was once flashing in its brilliancy; and that lip, indrawn and bloodless, was full and rounded like that of a Grecian statue. Even yet, amidst all the disfigurement of a coarse dress, the form is graceful, and every motion and gesture indicate a culture that must have been imbibed in a very different sphere.