It was a trial to Jenny, when they reached Paris, to spend day after day shopping, talking to dressmakers, and driving in the Bois to watch the elegant world on parade, when she longed to be living through the French Revolution with Carlyle, copying the quaint relics at Hotel Cluny, or revelling in the treasures of the Louvre.

“Why do you want to study and poke all the time?” asked Ethel, as they followed Mrs. Homer and a French acquaintance round the Palais Royal one day with its brilliant shops, cafes, and crowds.

“My dream is to be able to take a place as teacher of German and history in a girl’s school next year.  It is a fine chance, and I am promised it if I am fitted; so I must work when I can to be ready.  That is why I like Versailles better than Rue de Rivoli, and enjoy talking with Professor Homer about French kings and queens more than I do buying mock diamonds and eating ices here,” answered Jenny, looking very tired of the glitter, noise, and dust of the gay place when her heart was in the Conciergerie with poor Marie Antoinette, or the Invalides, where lay the great Napoleon still guarded by his faithful Frenchmen.

“What a dismal prospect!  I should think you’d rather have a jolly time while you could, and trust to luck for a place by-and-by, if you must go on teaching,” said Ethel, stopping to admire a window full of distracting bonnets.

“No; it is a charming prospect to me, for I love to teach, and I can’t leave anything to luck.  God helps those who help themselves, mother says, and I want to give the girls an easier time than I have had; so I shall get my tools ready, and fit myself to do good work when the job comes to me,” answered Jenny, with such a decided air that the French lady glanced back at her, wondering if a quarrel was going on between the demoiselles.

“What do you mean by tools?” asked Ethel, turning from the gay bonnets to a ravishing display of bonbons in the next window.

“Professor Homer said one day that a well-stored mind was a tool-chest with which one could carve one’s way.  Now, my tools are knowledge, memory, taste, the power of imparting what I know, good manners, sense, and—­patience,” added Jenny, with a sigh, as she thought of the weary years spent in teaching little children the alphabet.

Ethel took the sigh to herself, well knowing that she had been a trial, especially of late, when she had insisted on Jane’s company because her own French was so imperfect as to be nearly useless, though at home she had flattered herself that she knew a good deal.  Her own ignorance of many things had been unpleasantly impressed upon her lately, for at Madame Dene’s Pension there were several agreeable English and French ladies, and much interesting conversation went on at the table, which Jenny heartily enjoyed, though she modestly said very little.  But Ethel, longing to distinguish herself before the quiet English girls, tried to talk and often made sad mistakes because her head was a jumble of new names and places, and her knowledge of all kinds very superficial.  Only the day before she had said in a patronizing tone to a French lady,—­