Three generations

"UN COQ GRATTANT" 27
a wonderful tree. The big bird still sits on the
wonderful tree, and hangs where I can see it on my
wall. It was one of the stereotyped examples and
final achievements of a girl's higher education at the
period. The other example was a fruit piece, in
moulded and tinted wax, of apples, pears, cherries, etc.
The last was put into a square wooden box like the
cases which held stuffed birds. The satin piece was
framed behind glass, like a picture. One of these
fruit pieces was the work of my Aunt Helen. These
exploits in handiwork anticipated the thesis in mental
work with which a modern young woman winds up
her college career, and by which she hopes to get her
first class.
I think it must also have been at the Misses McPher-
son's school that my mother was taught to repeat the
solitary fable which marked her attainments in French.
Her children would coax her to say part of it to them
in future years. From the careful, daintily correct
French in which she went through the well-known
Un coq grattant, etc., I fancy words and pronunciation
must have been drilled into her by some emigre.
Though exceedingly fond of music, neither my
mother nor her sisters was taught to play on any
musical instrument. There was no spinet at Balass.
By the time the girls were growing up, their father's
capital was diminishing too rapidly for any likelihood
of a spinet or a piano being bought for their use.
But this deprivation did not interfere with the natural
gift of song which most of the family had in a marked
degree ; nor did it exclude courses of lessons in
dancing, which was then taken up as quite a serious
study in graceful steps and dignified deportment.
My mother arrived at such distinction in this branch