But she was a resolute woman and she had the work stopped at once and gave herself time to reflect and let the thing mature within her.

Since she was no longer engaged in this entertaining pastime and the men went about their affairs in closer and closer companionship (they were in particular taking great care of the nursery gardens and glasshouses and also going on with their usual pursuits as horsemen, hunting and buying, exchanging, training and breaking-in horses), Charlotte began to feel more and more lonely as the days went by. She took a more lively interest in her correspondence, also on the Captain’s behalf, but there were many lonely hours. So she found the reports from the boarding-school all the more agreeable and amusing when she received them.

A long letter from the headmistress, which expatiated as usual on the progress her daughter was making, had appended to it a brief postscript and was accompanied by an enclosure in the hand of one of the young schoolmasters. We here reproduce these two documents.

The Headmistress’s Postscript

As for Ottilie, Madam, I can only reiterate what is contained in my previous reports. I know of no reason for reproaching her, and yet I cannot be satisfied with her. She remains, as heretofore, modest and agreeable to others; but I do not find this retirement and humbleness altogether pleasing. Your Ladyship recently sent her money and a variety of material. She has not touched the former, and the material too is still lying undisturbed. It is true she keeps her things very clean and fine, but she seems to change her clothes only for cleanliness’ sake. Neither can I commend her great moderation in eating and drinking. There is no superfluity at our table; but there is nothing I would rather see than the children eating their fill of tasty and nourishing food. What has been prepared and served with care and thought ought to be eaten up. This I can never induce Ottilie to do. Indeed, when there is sometimes an interval in the meal because the maids have been delayed, she invents some task or other to do simply to avoid one of the courses or the dessert. We must, however, take into consideration that, as I have only recently discovered, she sometimes suffers from a headache on the left side, which goes away, it is true, but may nonetheless be painful and significant. So much on this otherwise so dear and lovely child.

The Schoolmaster’s Letter

Our good headmistress usually lets me read the letters in which she communicates her observations on her pupils to their parents and guardians. I always read those directed to your Ladyship with double attention and double pleasure: for while we have to congratulate you on possessing a daughter who unites all those brilliant qualities through which one rises in the world, I at least must think you no less fortunate in having had bestowed upon you in your foster-daughter a child born to promote the well-being and contentment of others, and also surely her own happiness. Ottilie is almost our only pupil over whom our esteemed headmistress and I are not in agreement. I do not in any way blame this industrious lady for wanting to see the fruits of her conscientiousness in clear and visible form; but there also exist hidden fruits which alone are the true substantial ones and which sooner or later develop into vigorous life. Your foster-daughter is undoubtedly of this kind. As long as I have been teaching her I have always seen her proceed at the same pace; slowly, slowly forwards, never back. If it is ever necessary to begin at the beginning with a child, then it certainly is in her case. She cannot understand what does not follow from what has gone before. She stands incapable, indeed obdurate, before something quite easy to grasp if it is not, for her, connected with anything else. But if one can discover the intermediate stages, she is able to understand the most difficult things.

With this slow rate of progress she remains behind her fellow-students who, endowed with quite different capabilities, are ever hurrying on, easily grasping, retaining and again applying everything they learn, even the most disconnected facts. If the teacher too hurries ahead she learns and is capable of nothing whatever, as is the case in certain classes taken by excellent but hasty and impatient teachers. Complaint has been made about her handwriting and about her inability to grasp the rules of grammar. I have gone into these difficulties more closely: it is true her writing is slow and stiff, if you will, but not irresolute or clumsy. What I taught her stage by stage of the French language, which is to be sure not my subject, she easily understood. It is a strange thing, I admit: she knows much and knows it well; only when she is questioned she seems to know nothing.

If I may close with a general observation, I would say: she learns, not as one who is to be educated, but as one who wants to educate; not as a pupil, but as a future teacher.