Towards the close of the speech there came a pleasing diversion. My attention was again amusingly arrested.

Owing to some little accidental movement—I think I dropped my thimble on the floor, and in stooping to regain it, hit the crown of my head against the sharp corner of my desk; which casualties (exasperating to me, by rights, if to anybody) naturally made a slight bustle. M. Paul became irritated, and dismissing his forced equanimity, and casting to the winds that dignity and self-control with which he never cared long to encumber himself, he broke forth into the strain best calculated to give him ease.

I don’t know how, in the progress of his discours, he had contrived to cross the Channel and land on British ground; but there I found him when I began to listen.

Casting a quick cynical glance round the room—a glance which scathed, or was intended to scathe, as it crossed me—he fell with fury upon “les Anglaises.”

Never have I heard English women handled as M. Paul that morning handled them. He spared nothing—neither their minds, morals, manners, nor personal appearance. I specially remember his abuse of their tall stature, their long necks, their thin arms, their slovenly dress, their pedantic education, their impious scepticism, their insufferable pride, their pretentious virtue; over which he ground his teeth malignantly, and looked as if, had he dared, he would have said singular things. Oh! he was spiteful, acrid, savage, and, as a natural consequence, detestably ugly.

“Little, wicked, venomous man!” thought I; “am I going to harass myself with fears of displeasing you, or hurting your feelings? No, indeed; you shall be indifferent to me as the shabbiest bouquet in your pyramid.”

I grieve to say I could not quite carry out this resolution. For some time the abuse of England and the English found and left me stolid. I bore it some fifteen minutes stoically enough; but this hissing cockatrice was determined to sting, and he said such things at last—fastening not only upon our women but upon our greatest names and best men, sullying the shield of Britannia and dabbling the Union Jack in mud—that I was stung. With vicious relish he brought up the most spicy current Continental historical falsehoods, than which nothing can be conceived more offensive. Zélie and the whole class became one grin of vindictive delight, for it is curious to discover how these clowns of Labassecour secretly hate England. At last, I struck a sharp stroke on my desk, opened my lips, and let loose this cry,—

“Vive l’Angleterre, l’Histoire et les Héros! A bas la France, la Fiction et les Faquins!”

The class was struck of a heap. I suppose they thought me mad. The professor put up his handkerchief, and fiendishly smiled into its folds. Little monster of malice! He now thought he had got the victory, since he had made me angry. In a second he became good-humoured. With great blandness he resumed the subject of his flowers; talked poetically and symbolically of their sweetness, perfume, purity, etcetera; made Frenchified comparisons between the “jeunes filles” and the sweet blossoms before him; paid Mademoiselle St. Pierre a very full-blown compliment on the superiority of her bouquet; and ended by announcing that the first really fine, mild, and balmy morning in spring he intended to take the whole class out to breakfast in the country—“such of the class, at least,” he added, with emphasis, “as he could count amongst the number of his friends.”

“Donc je n’y serai pas,” declared I involuntarily.

“Soit!” was his response, and, gathering his flowers in his arms, he flashed out of classe; while I, consigning my work, scissors, thimble, and the neglected little box to my desk, swept upstairs. I don’t know whether he felt hot and angry, but I am free to confess that I did.