“Progressing with such slow steps, she remains behind her companions, who, with capacities of quite a different kind, hurry on and on, learn everything readily, connected or unconnected, recollect it with ease, and apply it with correctness.  And again, some of the lessons here are given by excellent, but somewhat hasty and impatient teachers, who pass from result to result, cutting short the process by which they are arrived at; and these are not of the slightest service to her; she learns nothing from them.  There is a complaint of her handwriting.  They say she will not, or cannot, understand how to form her letters.  I have examined closely into this.  It is true she writes slowly, stiffly, if you like; but the hand is neither timid nor without character.  The French language is not my department, but I have taught her something of it, in the step-by-step fashion; and this she understands easily.  Indeed, it is singular that she knows a great deal, and knows it well, too; and yet when she is asked a question, it seems as if she knew nothing.

“To conclude generally, I should say she learns nothing like a person who is being educated, but she learns like one who is to educate—­not like a pupil, but like a future teacher.  Your ladyship may think it strange that I, as an educator and a teacher, can find no higher praise to give to any one than by a comparison with myself.  I may leave it to your own good sense, to your deep knowledge of the world and of mankind, to make the best of my most inadequate, but well-intended expressions.  You may satisfy yourself that you have much happiness to promise yourself from this child.  I commend myself to your ladyship, and I beseech you to permit me to write to you again as soon as I see reason to believe that I have anything important or agreeable to communicate.”

This letter gave Charlotte great pleasure.  The contents of it coincided very closely with the notions which she had herself conceived of Ottilie.  At the same time, she could not help smiling at the excessive interest of the Assistant, which seemed greater than the insight into a pupil’s excellence usually calls forth.  In her quiet, unprejudiced way of looking at things, this relation, among others, she was contented to permit to lie before her as a possibility; she could value the interest of so sensible a man in Ottilie, having learnt, among the lessons of her life, to see how highly true regard is to be prized in a world where indifference or dislike are the common natural residents.

CHAPTER IV

The topographical chart of the property and its environs was completed.  It was executed on a considerable scale; the character of the particular localities was made intelligible by various colors; and by means of a trigonometrical survey the Captain had been able to arrive at a very fair exactness of measurement.  He had been rapid in his work.  There was scarcely ever any one who could do with less sleep than this most laborious man; and, as his day was always devoted to an immediate purpose, every evening something had been done.