Spaniard as you are yourself. She has made me promise to take her
to you for a long visit when the War Office retires me.

I attend to her studies myself; has she told you that? Yes, I am
her school-master, and she makes pretty good progress, I think,
everything considered. Everything considered--being translated--
means holidays. But the fact is, she was not born for study, and
it comes hard. Hard for me, too; it hurts me like a physical pain
to see that free spirit of the air and the sunshine laboring and
grieving over a book; and sometimes when I find her gazing far away
towards the plain and the blue mountains with the longing in her
eyes, I have to throw open the prison doors; I can't help it. A
quaint little scholar she is, and makes plenty of blunders. Once I
put the question:

"What does the Czar govern?"

She rested her elbow on her knee and her chin on her hand and took
that problem under deep consideration. Presently she looked up and
answered, with a rising inflection implying a shade of uncertainty,

"The dative case?"

Here are a couple of her expositions which were delivered with
tranquil confidence:

"CHAPLAIN, diminutive of chap. LASS is masculine, LASSIE is
feminine."

She is not a genius, you see, but just a normal child; they all