“Jane, what are you doing?”

“Learning German.”

“I want you to give up German and learn Hindostanee.”

“You are not in earnest?”

“In such earnest that I must have it so:  and I will tell you why.”

He then went on to explain that Hindostanee was the language he was himself at present studying; that, as he advanced, he was apt to forget the commencement; that it would assist him greatly to have a pupil with whom he might again and again go over the elements, and so fix them thoroughly in his mind; that his choice had hovered for some time between me and his sisters; but that he had fixed on me because he saw I could sit at a task the longest of the three.  Would I do him this favour?  I should not, perhaps, have to make the sacrifice long, as it wanted now barely three months to his departure.

St. John was not a man to be lightly refused:  you felt that every impression made on him, either for pain or pleasure, was deep-graved and permanent.  I consented.  When Diana and Mary returned, the former found her scholar transferred from her to her brother:  she laughed, and both she and Mary agreed that St. John should never have persuaded them to such a step.  He answered quietly —

“I know it.”

I found him a very patient, very forbearing, and yet an exacting master:  he expected me to do a great deal; and when I fulfilled his expectations, he, in his own way, fully testified his approbation.  By degrees, he acquired a certain influence over me that took away my liberty of mind:  his praise and notice were more restraining than his indifference.  I could no longer talk or laugh freely when he was by, because a tiresomely importunate instinct reminded me that vivacity (at least in me) was distasteful to him.  I was so fully aware that only serious moods and occupations were acceptable, that in his presence every effort to sustain or follow any other became vain:  I fell under a freezing spell.  When he said “go,” I went; “come,” I came; “do this,” I did it.  But I did not love my servitude:  I wished, many a time, he had continued to neglect me.

One evening when, at bedtime, his sisters and I stood round him, bidding him good-night, he kissed each of them, as was his custom; and, as was equally his custom, he gave me his hand.  Diana, who chanced to be in a frolicsome humour (she was not painfully controlled by his will; for hers, in another way, was as strong), exclaimed —

“St. John! you used to call Jane your third sister, but you don’t treat her as such:  you should kiss her too.”