October A Young Abbe. 237 



day a young abb arrived, who knew, I suppose, what 

 every abb knows, but who was utterly incapable of 

 conversation, and replied always in monosyllables, with a 

 modesty that was perfectly irritating. My dinner-table 

 had been tolerable with Alexis, when I did not put him 

 out of humor by attempting to convey instruction to 

 his mind ; but it was not tolerable with the abb<, and 

 the long spaces of silence must have been as uncomfort- 

 able to him as to me, for he made a request that he 

 might be served in his own apartments, a relief both 

 to him and me. He had not been accustomed, how- 

 ever, to solitude, so that the silence of the big house, 

 where we never heard any thing but the whistling of the 

 wind, or the cry of a bird or wild animal in the forest, 

 ended by preying upon his mind ; and one day, pale with 

 terror, he declared he had seen a ghost, and announced 

 his sudden departure. From a malicious look of Alexis, 

 I suspected that he knew more about the ghost than 

 he chose to tell ; however, the abb left us with an un- 

 earthly expression on his otherwise not very interesting 

 physiognomy, and when he was gone I attempted to 

 resume my former office of pedagogue. My young pu- 

 pil, however, affirmed that it was now the long vaca- 

 tion, when nobody learned any thing ; and no sooner had 

 the shooting season begun than he got himself invited 

 to a chateau twenty miles off, where, with a merry party 

 of young gentlemen, he did nothing but shoot from 

 morning till night. I was vexed with him at first 

 for his indifference to learning, his insensibility to the 

 melancholy events which had happened in our family, 



