could not make herself obeyed by those turbulent little folks on
the days she was condemned to wear a night-cap in the class-room,
or to eat her meals standing up, from a plate turned upside down.

Having secretly admired the punishments devised by the Lady of the
Enchanted Pelerine, I responded:

"Then, if I understand you rightly, Jeanne, you are at once a pupil
here and a mistress? It is a condition of existence very common
in the world. You are punished, and you punish?"

"Oh, Monsieur!" she exclaimed. "No! I never punish!"

"Then, I suspect," said I, "that your indulgence gets you many
scoldings from Mademoiselle Prefere?"

She smiled, and blinked.

Then I said to her that the troubles in which we often involve
ourselves, by trying to act according to our conscience and to do
the best we can, are never of the sort that totally dishearten and
weary us, but are, on the contrary, wholesome trials. This sort
of philosophy touched her very little. She even appeared totally
unmoved by my moral exhortations. But was not this quite natural
on her part?--and ought I not to have remembered that it is only
those no longer innocent who can find pleasure in the systems of
moralists?... I had at least good sense enough to cut short my
sermonising.

"Jeanne," I said, "you were asking a moment ago about Madame de