CHAPTER V.
"Thought would destroy their Paradise."-- GRAY.
MALTRAVERS found Alice as docile a pupil as any reasonable preceptor might have desired.

But still, reading and writing--they are very uninteresting elements! Had the groundwork been laid, it might have been delightful to raise the fairy palace of knowledge; but the digging the foundations and the constructing the cellars is weary labour.

Perhaps he felt it so; for in a few days Alice was handed over to the very oldest and ugliest writing-master that the neighbouring town could afford.
The poor girl at first wept much at the exchange; but the grave remonstrances and solemn exhortations of Maltravers reconciled her at last, and she promised to work hard and pay every attention to her lessons.

I am not sure, however, that it was the tedium of the work that deterred the idealist--perhaps he felt its danger--and at the bottom of his sparkling dreams and brilliant follies lay a sound, generous, and noble heart.

He was fond of pleasure, and had been already the darling of the sentimental German ladies.