had done, the clouds were dispersed and the sun shining out--tears were
exchanged for smiles.

In quitting the room he paused once more at my desk.

"And your letter?" said he, this time not quite fiercely.

"I have not yet read it, Monsieur."

"Ah! it is too good to read at once; you save it, as, when I was a boy,
I used to save a peach whose bloom was very ripe?"

The guess came so near the truth, I could not prevent a suddenly-rising
warmth in my face from revealing as much.

"You promise yourself a pleasant moment," said he, "in reading that
letter; you will open it when alone--n'est-ce pas? Ah! a smile answers.
Well, well! one should not be too harsh; 'la jeunesse n'a qu'un temps.'"

"Monsieur, Monsieur!" I cried, or rather whispered after him, as he
turned to go, "do not leave me under a mistake. This is merely a
friend's letter. Without reading it, I can vouch for that."

"Je concois, je concois: on sait ce que c'est qu'un ami. Bonjour,
Mademoiselle!"

"But, Monsieur, here is your handkerchief."

"Keep it, keep it, till the letter is read, then bring it me; I shall
read the billet's tenor in your eyes."

When he was gone, the pupils having already poured out of the
schoolroom into the berceau, and thence into the garden and court to
take their customary recreation before the five-o'clock dinner, I stood
a moment thinking, and absently twisting the handkerchief round my arm.
For some reason--gladdened, I think, by a sudden return of the golden
glimmer of childhood, roused by an unwonted renewal of its buoyancy,
made merry by the liberty of the closing hour, and, above all, solaced
at heart by the joyous consciousness of that treasure in the case, box,
drawer up-stairs,--I fell to playing with the handkerchief as if it
were a ball, casting it into the air and catching it--as it fell. The
game was stopped by another hand than mine-a hand emerging from a
paletot-sleeve and stretched over my shoulder; it caught the
extemporised plaything and bore it away with these sullen words:

"Je vois bien que vous vous moquez de moi et de mes effets."

Really that little man was dreadful: a mere sprite of caprice and,
ubiquity: one never knew either his whim or his whereabout.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE LETTER.

When all was still in the house; when dinner was over and the noisy
recreation-hour past; when darkness had set in, and the quiet lamp of
study was lit in the refectory; when the externes were gone ho