d all sorts of
confidential things. They would all laugh at her--it would be dreadful.
Now, to laugh at Monsieur might be pleasant, but to be laughed at
herself was, Susan felt, a very different matter.

So when the day came, and they were all sitting round the table with
their books ready for the class, she bent her head down as the French
master entered the room, in the faint hope that he would not notice her.
But that was of no use. Monsieur had hardly made his bow and taken his
seat before Aunt Hannah looked round from her arm-chair at the fireside.

"You have a new pupil to-day, Monsieur. My little niece, Miss Susan
Ingram."

His attention thus directed, Monsieur leaned forward, and a kindly smile
of recognition brightened his face as he saw Susan.

"Ah! c'est vrai," he said; "it is my leetle friend, Mees Susanne. We
know ourselves already; is it not so?"

The dreaded moment had come, and it was even more uncomfortable than she
had expected. Everyone was looking at her, and waiting for her to
answer, and she saw a mischievous glitter in Sophia Jane's eyes which
were fixed on her like two blue beads.

Aunt Hannah said, "Indeed, how is that?" and Monsieur still leant
towards her, stroking his short beard and wrinkling up his face with a
pleased smile. But Susan said nothing. She hung down her head, her
cheeks crimsoned, and she looked as guilty and ashamed as though she had
done something wrong; a very different little girl to the one who had
chatted with Monsieur on board the steamboat and shared his biscuit.
She was shy, he thought, as the English miss very often was; and, though
he did not understand the complaint, he was far too good-natured to
lengthen her discomfort. "Nevare mind," he said kindly, "we shall talk
together later." Turning to Aunt Hannah he explained as well as he
could in English how he and Susan had met on the journey, his pupils
listening open-mouthed meanwhile and giggling at his broken attempts to
make his meaning clear. Then to Susan's relief the lesson began, and
she was no longer the object of everyone's attention; but she was
surprised to find how very little trouble they took to learn anything.
Instead of this they seemed to try which could remember least and
pronounce the words worst. When Nanna and Margaretta read aloud they
made the same mistakes a dozen times in one page, pitched their voices
in a high sing-song drawl, and stopped now and then to laugh in a
smothere