I was overwhelmed, and appealed to Sir Henry for advice in such a crisis.
'Well,' he said, 'you see the ladies are here, ain't they?
If we sent them away, don't you think it might hurt their feelings, eh?
One doesn't like to be rough, you see; and they look regular _blues_, don't they, eh ?' By this time Good had already begun his lessons with the handsomest of the three, and so with a sigh I yielded.

That day everything went very well: the young ladies were certainly very clever, and they only smiled when we blundered.

I never saw Good so attentive to his books before, and even Sir Henry appeared to tackle Zu-Vendi with a renewed zest.

'Ah,' thought I, 'will it always be thus ?' Next day we were much more lively, our work was pleasingly interspersed with questions about our native country, what the ladies were like there, etc., all of which we answered as best as we could in Zu-Vendi, and I heard Good assuring his teacher that her loveliness was to the beauties of Europe as the sun to the moon, to which she replied with a little toss of the head, that she was a plain teaching woman and nothing else, and that it was not kind 'to deceive a poor girl so'.

Then we had a little singing that was really charming, so natural and unaffected.