"My love," said Mad. de Rosier, "ask me as many as you please--I like to think of _her_--I may now speak of her without vanity--her character would have pleased you." "I am sure it would," said Matilda: "do you think she would have liked me or Isabella the best?" "She would have liked each of you for your different good qualities, I think: she would not have made her love an object of competition, or the cause of jealousy between two sisters; she could make herself sufficiently beloved, without stooping to any such mean arts. She had two friends who loved her tenderly; they knew that she was perfectly sincere, and that she would not flatter either of them--you know _that_ is only childish affection which is without esteem. Rosalie was esteemed _autant qu'aimée_." "How I should have liked such a friend! but I am afraid she would have been so much my superior, she would have despised me--Isabella would have had all her conversation, because she knows so much, and I know nothing!" "If you know that you know nothing," said Mad. de Rosier, with an encouraging smile, "you know as much as the wisest of men. When the oracle pronounced Socrates to be the wisest of men, he explained it by observing, 'that he knew himself to be ignorant, whilst other men,' said he, 'believing that they know every thing, are not likely to improve.'" "Then you think I am likely to improve?" said Matilda, with a look of doubtful hope. "Certainly," said Mad. de Rosier: "if you exert yourself, you may be any thing you please." "Not any thing I please, for I should please to be as clever, and as good, and as amiable, and as estimable, too, as your Rosalie--but that's impossible. Tell me, however, what she was at my age--and what sort of things she used to do and say--and what books she read--and how she employed herself from morning till night." "That must be for to-morrow," said Mad. de Rosier; "I must now show Herbert the book of prints that he wanted to see." It was the first time that Herbert had ever asked to look into a book. Mad. de Rosier had taken him entirely out of the hands of Mrs. Grace, and finding that his painful associations with the sight of the syllables in his dog's-eared spelling-book could not immediately be conquered, she prudently resolved to cultivate his powers of attention upon other subjects, and not to return to syllabic difficulties, until the young gentleman should have forgotten his literary misfortunes, and acquired sufficient energy and patience to ensure success. "It is of little consequence," said she, "whether the boy read a year sooner or later; but it is of great consequence that he should love literature."