Mary has other amusing recollections of this time of her early girlhood, and tells them in her own charming way; but we must pass on to her school life, which is bound to interest her readers of to-day, so many of whom go to school. It was the summer of 1790. Mr. Butt had been taking his turn of duty at the Chapel Royal, St. James's, being by this time one of the chaplains to the King. On his way home he stopped at Reading to visit his friend Dr. Valpy, in whose school Marten had for a time been educated.
During this visit Dr. Valpy took him to see "a sort of exhibition" got up by the "young ladies" of M. and Mme. de St. Quentin's school. This famous school, which was afterwards removed to London, was held then in the old Abbey at Reading. "This," thought Mr. Butt, "is the very place for Mary"; and to the Abbey School it was decided that she should go.
Marten was now at Westminster School. When the time came for him to return after the holidays, Mary had a seat in the chaise, and drove with him and her father as far as Reading. You will be amused by her description of her school and schoolmistresses, and of her first introduction to them.
"The house--or, rather, the Abbey itself--was exceedingly interesting; and though I know not its exact history, yet I knew every hole and corner of what remained of the ancient building, which consisted of a gateway with rooms above, and on each side of it a vast staircase, of which the balustrades had originally been gilt. Then, too, there were many little nooks and round closets, and many larger and smaller rooms and passages, which appeared to be rather more modern; whilst the gateway itself stood without the garden walls upon the Forbury or open green, which belonged to the town, and where Dr. Valpy's boys played after school hours. The best part of the house was encompassed by a beautiful old-fashioned garden, where the young ladies were allowed to wander under tall trees in hot summer evenings."
When Mary arrived at the Abbey the holidays were not quite over, and she was the first of the sixty pupils to present herself. The school was kept by Mme. de St. Quentin and a Mrs. Latournelle, who were partners. "Madame," as the girls always called her, was an Englishwoman by birth, but had married a French refugee whom circumstances had obliged to become French teacher in the school. Madame was a handsome woman, with bright eyes and a very dignified presence. Mary tells us that she danced remarkably well, played and sang and did fine needlework, and "spoke well and agreeably in English and in French without fear." Mrs. Latournelle was a funny, old-fashioned body, whose chief concern was with the housekeeping, tea-making, and other domestic duties. She had a cork leg, and her dress had never been known to change its fashion. "Her white muslin handkerchief was always pinned with the same number of pins; her muslin apron always hung in the same form; she always wore the same short sleeves, cuffs, and ruffles, with a breast-bow to answer the bow on her cap, both being flat with two notched ends."