“Lor’ bless me, child!” responded the lady, holding up her thick, red hands, and making the diamonds flash in the sunlight; “Lor’ bless me! them fingers is too stiff to play the pianner now.  I’ve got a splendid pianner, though, with an oleon ’tachment, three pedals, and pearl keys—­cost eight hundred dollar; and a nice piece of furniture it is, you may believe.  I let it be out of tune all the time.  That’s an excuse for not playing when anybody asks me to, ye know.  I don’t mind tellin’ you this, because you’ll be sure to find it out.”  And the lady laughed very loudly at the confession of this small deceit, which Miss Pillbody assured her was by no means confined to herself, but had been adopted by her ingenious sex from time immemorial.

When the middle-aged pupil and her young teacher separated, as they did on the arrival of the stage at an up-town jeweller’s, where the former got out to make a few purchases, Miss Pillbody felt as if she had known her patroness for years, and that, in that coarse, showy, good-hearted woman, she had found a true friend.

And so it turned out.  However dull Mrs. Crull might be as a scholar, she was quick-witted as a friend, and was constantly bestowing unexpected kindnesses upon Miss Pillbody.  Scarcely a day passed that the young teacher did not receive from her pupil some little present—­at times rising to the value of a bonnet or a shawl.  Mrs. Crull’s all-embracing kindness would have extended to the widow Pillbody too (in whom she was much interested from the daughter’s accounts of her), but for the shrewd objection which she entertained against intrusting any one with the secret of her pupilage.  Miss Pillbody was often and particularly enjoined by her not to tell any one—–­ not even her mother—­of it; and she saw the advantages of carefully observing the request.  Great pains were taken to keep Mr. Crull, and the housemaid, cook, and coachman, from a knowledge of the mystery.

On Miss Pillbody’s arrival daily at ten A.M., she was ushered into the drawing room, where Mrs. Crull was always anxiously awaiting her.  The servant was told to say to callers that “Mistress is out” (Mrs. Crull bolted at this trifling deception at first, but soon got used to it), and the lesson began.

Mrs. Crull at first thought she was competent to learn her native tongue and French together, in a series of half-hour lessons; but she soon found out that the latter language had some eccentric peculiarities quite beyond her powers of articulation, and that the spelling of a word did not afford the slightest clue to the method of pronouncing it.  After floundering about heroically but hopelessly through the introductory chapter of the first French grammar, she gave up the polite tongue in despair, consoling herself with the reflection, that speaking bad French was worse than speaking no French at all.

Miss Pillbody, who did not venture to advise her pupil on her choice of studies, but left her to consult her own fancies undisturbed, heartily approved of Mrs. Crull’s conclusion, though she acknowledged that New York society by no means took that view of the case, but tolerated bad French with a courtesy worthy of France itself.