They have already won golden opinions at the college, by their rare aptitude in acquiring all that is taught them, and by their docility and manly characters.
The masters paid the Duchesse the highest compliments on the progress her sons had made previously to their entrance at Ste.-Barbe, and declared that they had never met any children so far advanced for their age.

I shared the triumph of this admirable mother, whose fair cheeks glowed, and whose beautiful eyes sparkled, on hearing the eulogiums pronounced on her boys.

Her observation to me was, "How pleased their father will be!" Ste.-Barbe is a little world in itself, and a very different world to any I had previously seen.

In it every thing smacks of learning, and every body seems wholly engrossed by study.
The spirit of emulation animates all, and excites the youths into an application so intense as to be often found injurious to health.

The ambition of surpassing all competitors in their studies operates so powerfully on the generality of the _eleves_, that the masters frequently find it more necessary to moderate, than to urge the ardour of the pupils.