or sway in her character. She delighted in
the homage of those about her, and seldom failed to win it from any one
with whom she came in contact. Mademoiselle, who did all the hard work
of the teaching, and was only half paid for it, wore out her strength
and energy and youth day by day at her desk in the middle of the
school-room, and thought Madame the perfection of women; and her sallow,
thin face would flush with pleasure, if Madame gave her a look or one of
her soft smiles in passing.

At half-past seven that evening we were seated round the table with our
work, awaiting the entrance of Madame. Presently she glided in, holding
in her arms a bureau-drawer filled with piles of letters.

"I propose to tell you a story, _mes cheres_," she said, as she seated
herself and folded her white hands over one of the thick bundles that
she had taken from the drawer.

"You have all heard me speak of Lina Dale, my English governess before I
had Mary Gibson. Mary Gibson is an excellent girl, but she has not the
talent that Lina had. Lina's father was a Captain Dale, a half-pay
officer, whom I had once seen on business about a pupil of mine who had
crossed the Channel under his care. A surly, morose man he appeared to
me, rough towards his wife, a meek, worn-out looking old lady, who spoke
with a hesitating, apologetic manner and a nervous movement of the
head,--a habit I thought she must have contracted from a constant fear
of being pounced upon, as you say, by her husband. I always pitied her
_de tout mon coeur_, but she possessed neither tact nor intellect, and
was _tres ennuyeuse_.

"It was one cold day in winter that Justine told me there was a
_demoiselle au salon_ who wished to see me. I found standing by the
table a young lady,--a figure that would strike you at once. She turned
as I entered the room, and her manner was dignified and self-possessed.
She was not pretty, but her face was a remarkable one: thick dark hair
above a low forehead, the eyelids somewhat too drooping over the
singular dark eyes, that looked out beneath them with an expression of
concentrated thought. 'That girl is like Charlotte Corday,' I said to
Monsieur afterwards: 'it is a character of great energy and enthusiasm,
frozen by the hardness and uncongeniality of her fate.' For in this
interview she told me that she sought a situation in my school, and that
she felt confidence in offering herself,--that the state of her father's
affairs did not re