salary to come and teach me how to live. Sometimes he gave a
random sigh of which the essence might have been: "Give me even
such a bare old-barrack as this, and I'd do something with it!"
When I wanted to use him he came alone; which was an illustration
of the superior courage of women. His wife could bear her solitary
second floor, and she was in general more discreet; showing by
various small reserves that she was alive to the propriety of
keeping our relations markedly professional--not letting them slide
into sociability. She wished it to remain clear that she and the
Major were employed, not cultivated, and if she approved of me as a
superior, who could be kept in his place, she never thought me
quite good enough for an equal.

She sat with great intensity, giving the whole of her mind to it,
and was capable of remaining for an hour almost as motionless as
before a photographer's lens. I could see she had been
photographed often, but somehow the very habit that made her good
for that purpose unfitted her for mine. At first I was extremely
pleased with her ladylike air, and it was a satisfaction, on coming
to follow her lines, to see how good they were and how far they
could lead the pencil. But after a little skirmishing I began to
find her too insurmountably stiff; do what I would with it my
drawing looked like a photograph or a copy of a photograph. Her
figure had no variety of expression--she herself had no sense of
variety. You may say that this was my business and was only a
question of placing her. Yet I placed her in every conceivable
position and she managed to obliterate their differences. She was
always a lady certainly, and into the bargain was always the same
lady. She was the real thing, but always the same thing. There
were moments when I rather writhed under the serenity of her