Page:Blanchard on L. E. L.pdf/13

Rh to surrender, she threw a tambourine at me; it struck me on the face and brought me to the ground. The hurt was worse than she imagined it to be at the moment, but it brought out her natural disposition—for she petted me more than ever, and I had every thing my own way a long time after. Indeed it was the luckiest hit for me ever made in the nursery." At this school L. E. L. remained only a few months. Hitherto she had not been absent from London but on short visits to a place called Coventry-farm, on the borders of Hertfordshire, in which her father had speculated deeply, confiding the superintendence of the project to the care of a brother. This was, in fact, the source of his subsequent embarrassments. Now, when the young student was scarcely seven years old, the family removed to Trevor-park, East Barnet, where the care of her instruction was undertaken by her cousin, Miss Landon, whose zeal and guidance were repaid with the most constant acknowledgment of her worth. Some passages of a letter from this lady, in which she recalls the hours long past that were beneficially devoted to the interests of her charge, will happily exhibit the spirit of the modest and admiring teacher, while they strikingly exemplify the progress and character of the pupil. "In very many instances," says the writer, "in endeavouring to teach, I have myself been taught, the extraordinary memory and genius of the learner soon leaving the humble abilities of the teacher far behind. Any experienced person used to instruction would have smiled at hearing us. When I asked Letitia any question relating either to history, geography, grammar—to Plutarch's Lives, or to any book we had been reading, I was pretty certain