The interruption came from Miss Johnstone, who had approached, looking keenly at the gentleman. The latter, with scant courtesy to the governess, made no reply: he was too much occupied in assisting Miss Chandos up the landing-steps. Miss Chandos turned her head when she reached the top. "Be so good as to look in the cabin, Miss Johnstone; I have left a hundred things there, odds and ends. My warm cloak is somewhere." Miss Johnstone appeared anything but pleased. It is not usual for pupils to order their teachers to look after their things; and Miss Chandos was of somewhat imperious manner: not purposely: it was her nature. I turned with Miss Johnstone, and we collected together the items left by Miss Chandos. By the time we got to the custom-house, she had disappeared. Twenty minutes after, when we and our luggage had been examined, we found her outside, walking to and fro with the gentleman. "Where are your boxes, Miss Chandos?" asked Miss Johnstone. "My boxes? I don't know anything about them. I gave my keys to one of the commissionaires; he will see to them. Or you can, if you like." "I do not imagine that it is my business to do so," was Miss Johnstone's offended reply. But Miss Chandos was again walking with her companion, and paid no heed to her. "Halloa, De Mellissie! have you been to England?" inquired a passing Englishman of Miss Chandos's friend. "Not I," he replied. "I stepped on board the boat when it came in, so they took their revenge by making me go through the custom-house and turning my pockets inside out. Much good it did them!" An omnibus was waiting round the corner, in which we were finally to be conveyed to our destination, Mademoiselle Barlieu's. Seated in it was a little, stout, good-tempered dame of fifty, Mademoiselle Caroline, the senior teacher. She received Miss Chandos with open arms, and a kiss on each cheek. The gentleman politely handed us by turn into the omnibus, and stood bowing to us, bareheaded, as we drove away. "Do you think him handsome?" Miss Chandos whispered to me, the glow on her face fading. "Pretty well. What is his name?" "Alfred de Mellissie. You can be good-natured, can't you?" she added. "I can, if I like." "Then be so now, and don't preach it out to the whole school that he met me. He——" "Is that gentleman a relative of yours, Miss Chandos?" interrupted Miss Johnstone from the end of the omnibus. Miss Chandos did not like the tone or the question: the one savoured of acrimony, the other she resented as impertinent. She fixed her haughty blue eyes on Miss Johnstone before she answered: they said very plainly, "By what right do you presume to inquire of me?" and Miss Johnstone bit her lips at the look. "They are not related to us. Madame de Mellissie is an intimate friend of my mother, Lady Chandos." And that was all she condescended to say, for she turned her back and began laughing and chattering in French with Mademoiselle Caroline.