on stockings much too large for her, and shoes worn down at the heel;
and a skipping-rope tied round her waist in lieu of a belt,--all
combined to lend Mademoiselle Jeanne an appearance the reverse of
presentable.

"Oh, you crazy girl!" sighed Mademoiselle Prefere, who now seemed no
longer like a mother, but rather like an elder sister.

Then she suddenly left the room, gliding like a shadow over the
polished floor.

I said to Jeanne,

"Sit down, Jeanne, and talk to me as you would to a friend. Are you
not better satisfied here now than you were last year?"

She hesitated; then answered with a good-natured smile of resignation,

"Not much better."

I asked her to tell me about her school life. She began at once to
enumerate all her different studies--piano, style, chronology of the
Kings of France, sewing, drawing, catechism, deportment... I could
never remember them all! She still held in her hands, all
unconsciously, the two ends of her skipping-rope, and she raised and
lowered them regularly while making her enumeration. Then all at
once she became conscious of what she was doing, blushed, stammered,
and became so confused that I had to renounce my desire to know the
full programme of study adopted in the Prefere Institution.