She consented at once.  He put a volume of Carlyle into her hand.  She had never even tasted a book of his before, yet presently caught the spirit of the passage, and read charmingly.

In the course of a day or two they discovered that she was sadly defective in spelling, a paltry poverty no doubt, yet awkward for one who would teach children.  In grammar and arithmetic also the curate found her lacking.  Going from place to place with her father, she had never been much at school, she said, and no one had ever compelled her to attend to the dry things.  But nothing could be more satisfactory than the way in which she now, with the help of the curate and his wife, set herself to learn; and until she should have gained such proficiency as would enable them to speak of her acquirements with confidence, they persuaded her, with no great difficulty, to continue their guest.  Wingfold, who had been a tutor in his day, was well qualified to assist her, and she learned with wonderful rapidity.

The point that most perplexed Wingfold with her was that, while very capable of perceiving and admiring the good, she was yet capable of admiring things of altogether inferior quality.  What did it mean?  Could it arise from an excess of productive faculty, not yet sufficiently differenced from the receptive?  One could imagine such an excess ready to seize the poorest molds, flow into them, and endow them for itself with attributed life and power.  He found also that she was familiar with the modes of thought and expression peculiar to a certain school of theology—­embodiments from which, having done their good, and long commenced doing their evil, Truth had begun to withdraw itself, consuming as it withdrew.  For the moment the fire ceases to be the life of the bush in which it appears, the bush will begin to be consumed.  At the same time he could perfectly recognize the influence of Faber upon her.  For not unfrequently, the talk between the curate and his wife would turn upon some point connected with the unbelief of the land, so much more active, though but seemingly more extensive than heretofore; when she would now make a remark, now ask a question, in which the curate heard the doctor as plainly as if the words had come direct from his lips:  those who did not believe might answer so and so—­might refuse the evidence—­might explain the thing differently.  But she listened well, and seemed to understand what they said.  The best of her undoubtedly appeared in her music, in which she was fundamentally far superior to Helen, though by no means so well trained, taught or practiced in it; whence Helen had the unspeakable delight, one which only a humble, large and lofty mind can ever have, of consciously ministering to the growth of another in the very thing wherein that other is naturally the superior.  The way to the blessedness that is in music, as to all other blessednesses, lies through weary labors, and the master must suffer with the disciple; Helen took Juliet like a child, set her to scales and exercises, and made her practice hours a day.