Aurore set
herself to work to fill up, in secret, the many blanks left by her
preceptresses,--wishing, as she says, to conceal, as far as she could,
their want of faith or of thoroughness. She sat at her books half the
night, being gifted, according to her own account, with a marvellous
power of sacrificing sleep to any other necessity. At this time she
learned to ride on horseback, her first exploit being to tame a colt of
four years, the after-companion of many a wild scramble, who grew old
and died in her service. Her grandmother becoming soon after disabled by
a paralytic stroke, the alternation of this new exercise enabled Aurore
to bear the fatigues of the sick-room without serious inconvenience. Of
this period of her life our heroine speaks as follows:--
"Had my destiny caused me to pass immediately from my grandmother's
control to that of a husband, or of a convent, it is possible that,
subjected always to influences already accepted, I should never have
been myself. But it was decided by Fate that at the age of seventeen
years I should experience a suspension of external authority, and that I
should belong wholly to myself for nearly a year, to become, for good or
evil, what I was to be for nearly all the rest of my life.
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