And soon after we were busy at work, going over the irregular verbs, and I could see Achille's eyes wandering from face to face, as if to see whether there were any suspicion attaching to him. Then followed the reading and exercise correcting, while I could see plainly enough that he was terribly agitated--so much so, that he made at lest four mistakes himself, and passed over several in the pupils. And when he found that I did not give him a note with my exercise--one that should explain, I suppose, all that had since passed--when I had not had the eighth part of a chance to write one, he turned quite cross and pettish, and snapped one, and snubbed another. As for poor me, I could have cried, I could, only that all the teachers and Mrs Blunt were there, and Miss Furness looking triumphant. As a rule, all the teachers did not stay in the room while the French lessons were progressing, and this all tended towards making poor Achille fidgety and cross; but he need not have behaved quite so unkindly to me, for I'm sure I had been suffering quite enough upon his account, and so I should have liked to have told him if I had had the opportunity; while now that all this upset had come, I felt quite sorry for the disloyal thought that I had had, and should have been ready to do anything for his sake. The lessons were nearly over, when all at once the door opened suddenly, and I saw poor Achille jump so that the pen with which he was correcting Patty Smith's exercise made a long scrawling tail to one of the letters; but he recovered himself directly. Well, the door opened suddenly, and the cook stood there, wiping her floury hands, for it was pasty-waster day, and she exclaimed loudly,-- "O'm! please'm! the little passage is all in a swim." "C-o-o-o-k!" exclaimed Mrs Blunt, in a dreadful voice, as if she meant to slay her upon the spot. "O'm! please'm!" cried the cook again. "Why, where is James, cook?" said Mrs Blunt, sternly. "Cleaning hisself, mum," said cook; "and as Hann's gone, mum, I was obliged to come--not as I wanted to, I'm sure," and cook looked very much ill-used. Mrs Blunt jumped up, as much to get rid of the horrible apparition as anything; while cook continued,-- "There, do come, mum; it's perfeckly dreadful!" and they went off together; when such a burst of exclamations followed that the three lady teachers rose and left the room, and I took the opportunity of Miss Murray's back being turned to exchange glances with poor Achille, who had, at the least, been wet; while I longed, for poor Clara's sake, to ask him about the Signor. But to speak was impossible, and there were too many eyes about for the glance to be long. So I let mine drop to my exercise, and then sat, with a strange, nervous sensation that I could not explain creeping over me, and it seemed like the forerunner of something about to happen.