s
permission, she might tell her friends about seeing him. She felt sure
they would explain the puzzling change in his appearance, and tell when
she would see him again. Now, after all, they were not going to Nantes,
and she must keep her secret alone, forever and forever. It was too
dreadful!

CHAPTER VIII

Pat was sent to a boarding-school near Paris, and it was decided that
Anne should attend St. Cecilia's School, a select institution where
American girls continued their studies in English and had lessons in
French and music. Mrs. Patterson herself went to enter Anne as a pupil.

St. Cecilia's School faced a little park on a quiet street. It was a
red-brick building, with balconies set in recesses between white
stuccoed pillars. Everything about the place was formal and dignified.
The lower floor was occupied by parlors, offices, class-rooms, and
dining-rooms. Through wide-open doors at the end of the hall, Mrs.
Patterson and Anne had a pleasant view of the long piazza at the back of
the house. It opened on a grass-plot edged with flowerbeds. The neat
gravel paths ended in short flights of steps, under rose-covered
archways, that led down a terrace to the playground.

While they waited in a handsome, formal parlor for Mademoiselle Duroc,
Mrs. Patterson chatted pleasantly to Anne about the swings and arbors
and pear-trees on the playground. But Anne sat silent, with a lump in
her throat, and clutched her friend's hand tighter and tighter, while
she watched for the principal's entrance as she would have watched for
an ogre in whose den she had been trapped. At last--it was really in a
very few minutes--Mademoiselle Duroc entered the room. While she talked
with Mrs. Patterson, Anne regarded her with awe.

Like her surroundings, Mademoiselle was formal and handsome. She was of
middle height, but she carried herself with such stately grace that she
impressed Anne as being very tall. Her glossy hair, of which no one
ever saw a strand out of place, was arranged in elaborate waves and
coils supported by a tall shell comb. She wore a very long, very stiff
black silk gown trimmed with beads and lace, and she had a purple silk
shawl around her shoulders. When she moved, her skirts rustled in a
stately fashion and sent forth a stately odor of sandalwood.

"I shall have to do whatever she tells me," Anne knew at once. "If she
tells me to walk in the fire, I shall have to go."

That was the impression Mademoiselle