Every morning at this hour they have a weary tussle with the verb "aimer," "to love." It is hard that they should have pitched upon so tender-hearted a verb for the battle-field of so grim a struggle: J'aime, I love.
Tu aimes, Thou lovest.
Il aime, He loves.
Nous aimons, We love.
Vous aimez, You love.
Ils aiment, They love.
This, with endless variations of ingenious and hideous inaccuracies--this, interspersed with foolish laughter and bitter tears, is what I have daily been audience to, for the last two months.

The day before yesterday a great stride was taken; the present tense was pronounced vanquished, and Barbara and her pupil passed on in triumph to the imperfect, "j'aimais, I loved, or was loving." To-day, in order to be quite on the safe side, a return has been made to "j'aime," and it has been discovered that it has utterly disappeared from our young sister's memory.

"J'aimais, I loved, or was loving," has entirely routed and dispersed his elder brother, "j'aime, I love." The old strain is, therefore, desperately resumed: J'aime, I love.
Tu aimes, Thou lovest.
Il aime, He loves, etc.
It is making me drowsy.

Ten minutes more, and I shall be asleep in the sun, with my head down-dropped on the window-sill.

I get up, and, putting on my out-door garments, stray out into the sun, leaving Barbara--her pretty forehead puckered with ineffectual wrath, and Tou Tou blurred with grimy tears, to their death-struggle with the restive verb "to love." It is the end of March, and when one can hide round a corner from the wind, one has a foretaste of summer, in the sun's warm strength.