be ready for careless conversation or merry game.  M. Heger, who had done little but observe, during the few first weeks of their residence in the Rue d’Isabelle, perceived that with their unusual characters, and extraordinary talents, a different mode must be adopted from that in which he generally taught French to English girls.  He seems to have rated Emily’s genius as something even higher than Charlotte’s; and her estimation of their relative powers was the same.  Emily had a head for logic, and a capability of argument, unusual in a man, and rare indeed in a woman, according to M. Heger.  Impairing the force of this gift, was a stubborn tenacity of will, which rendered her obtuse to all reasoning where her own wishes, or her own sense of right, was concerned.  “She should have been a man—­a great navigator,” said M. Heger in speaking of her.  “Her powerful reason would have deduced new spheres of discovery from the knowledge of the old; and her strong imperious will would never have been daunted by opposition or difficulty; never have given way but with life.”  And yet, moreover, her faculty of imagination was such that, if she had written a history, her view of scenes and characters would have been so vivid, and so powerfully expressed, and supported by such a show of argument, that it would have dominated over the reader, whatever might have been his previous opinions, or his cooler perceptions of its truth.  But she appeared egotistical and exacting compared to Charlotte, who was always unselfish (this is M. Heger’s testimony); and in the anxiety of the elder to make her younger sister contented she allowed her to exercise a kind of unconscious tyranny over her.

After consulting with his wife, M. Heger told them that he meant to dispense with the old method of grounding in grammar, vocabulary, &c., and to proceed on a new plan—­something similar to what he had occasionally adopted with the elder among his French and Belgian pupils.  He proposed to read to them some of the master-pieces of the most celebrated French authors (such as Casimir de la Vigne’s poem on the “Death of Joan of Arc,” parts of Bossuet, the admirable translation of the noble letter of St. Ignatius to the Roman Christians in the “Bibliotheque Choisie des Peres de l’Eglise,” &c.), and after having thus impressed the complete effect of the whole, to analyse the parts with them, pointing out in what such or such an author excelled, and where were the blemishes.  He believed that he had to do with pupils capable, from their ready sympathy with the intellectual, the refined, the polished, or the noble, of catching the echo of a style, and so reproducing their own thoughts in a somewhat similar manner.

After explaining his plan to them, he awaited their reply.  Emily spoke first; and said that she saw no good to be derived from it; and that, by adopting it, they should lose all originality of thought and expression.  She would have entered into an argument on the subject, but for this, M. Heger had no time.  Charlotte then spoke; she also doubted the success of the plan; but she would follow out M. Heger’s advice, because she was bound to obey him while she was his pupil.  Before speaking of the results, it may be desirable to give an extract from one of her letters, which shows some of her first impressions of her new life.