I returned to it with the same avidity that a cow, that has long been kept on dry hay, returns to fresh grass.

Don't laugh at my simile.

It is natural to me to submit, and very unnatural to command.
"This is a large school, in which there are about forty externes, or day pupils, and twelve pensionnaires, or boarders.

Madame Heger, the head, is a lady of precisely the same cast of mind, degree of cultivation, and quality of intellect as Miss -- -.

I think the severe points are a little softened, because she has not been disappointed, and consequently soured.
In a word, she is a married instead of a maiden lady.