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  3 were her propensities -- her abilities were quite as extraordinary.
She never could learn or understand anything before she was taught;
and sometimes not even then, for she was often inattentive, and
occasionally stupid. Her mother was three months in teaching her
only to repeat the "Beggar's Petition"; and after all, her next
sister, Sally, could say it better than she did. Not that Catherine
was always stupid -- by no means; she learnt the fable of "The Hare
and Many Friends" as quickly as any girl in England. Her mother
wished her to learn music; and Catherine was sure she should like
it, for she was very fond of tinkling the keys of the old forlorn
spinner; so, at eight years old she began. She learnt a year,
and could not bear it; and Mrs. Morland, who did not insist on her
daughters being accomplished in spite of incapacity or distaste,
allowed her to leave off. The day which dismissed the music-master
was one of the happiest of Catherine's life. Her taste for drawing
was not superior; though whenever she could obtain the outside of
a letter from her mother or seize upon any other odd piece of paper,
she did what she could in that way, by drawing houses and trees,
hens and chickens, all very much like one another. Writing and
accounts she was taught by her father; French by her mother: her
proficiency in either was not remarkable, and she shirked her
lessons in both whenever she could. What a strange, unaccountable
character! -- for with all these symptoms of profligacy at ten
years old, she had neither a bad heart nor a bad temper, was seldom
stubborn, scarcely ever quarrelsome, and very kind to the little
ones, with few interruptions of tyranny; she was moreover noisy
and wild, hated confinement and cleanliness, and loved nothing so
well in the world as rolling down the green slope at the back of
the house.
Such was Catherine Morland at ten. At fifteen, appearances were
mending; she began to curl her hair and long for balls; her complexion
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