“No, I am only very hungry, so you will excuse me if I swallow a few mouthfuls before we discuss that subject,” said Harry, applying himself to the plate of chicken and ham which the footman had just placed before him. “I’m afraid that you think I have forgotten my manners as well as the French you taught me before I went to sea. But I hope to prove to you that I retain a fair amount of both,” and Harry began to address the lady in French. When he mispronounced a word and she corrected him he bowed his thanks, repeating it after her.
“Ah, you are charmant, Monsieur Harry, you have not forgotten your manners any more than the language of La Belle France, which I will continue to teach you whenever you will come and take a lesson with Mademoiselle Julia. When will you come?”
“Every day that I am at home till my country requires my services,” answered Harry.
“I never learned French, but I should think it must be a very difficult language to acquire,” observed a pale middle-aged lady of slight figure who sat opposite Harry, turning her eyes towards him, but those orbs were of a dull leaden hue, the eyelids almost closed. She was totally blind.
Her features were beautifully formed, and had a peculiarly sweet and gentle expression, though the pallor of her cheeks betokened ill-health.
“I will help you to begin, Miss Mary, while you are here, and then you can go on by yourself,” said Madame De La Motte, in her usual sprightly way.
“I thank you, madame,” answered Miss Mary Pemberton, “but I am dependent on others. Jane has no fancy for languages, and her time is much occupied in household matters and others of still higher importance.”
“Yes, indeed, Mary speaks truly,” observed Miss Pemberton, a lady of a somewhat taller and not quite so slight a figure as her sister, and who, though her features had a pleasant expression, could not, even in her youth, have possessed the same amount of beauty. She always took her seat next to Mary, that she might give her that attention which her deprivation of sight required. “While we have such boundless stores of works on all important subjects in our own language, we waste our time by spending it in acquiring another.”
“Very right, my good cousin, very right,” exclaimed Sir Reginald; “stick to our good English books, for at the present day, what with their republicanism, their infidelity, and their abominable notions, we can expect nothing but what is bad from French writers.”
“Pardonnez moi, Sir Reginald,” exclaimed Madame De La Motte, breaking off the conversation in which she was engaged with Harry, and looking up briskly. “Surely la pauvre France has produced some pure and religious writers, and many works on science worthy of perusal.”