"I think the Miss Barlieus were surprised when they saw her," observed Ellen Roper. "Mademoiselle Annette asked her this morning if she were really twenty-one. So that is the age she must have represented herself to be in writing to them." In the course of a day or two Emily Chandos received a letter from home. Lady Chandos had discovered that the velvet mantle, by some unaccountable mischance, had not been put into the boxes. She would forward it to Nulle. The De Mellissies were staying in the town. Madame de Mellissie, the mother, an English lady by birth, had been intimate with Lady Chandos in early life; they were good friends still. Her son, and only child, Monsieur Alfred de Mellissie, chief of the family now in place of his dead father, appeared to make it the whole business of his life to admire Emily Chandos. The school commented on it. "It can never lead to anything," they said. "He is only a Frenchman of comme-ça family, and she is Miss Chandos of Chandos." And—being Miss Chandos of Chandos—it occurred to me to wonder that she should be at that French school. Not but that it was superior—one of the first to be found in France; but scarcely the place for Miss Chandos. I said as much—talking one day with Mademoiselle Annette, when I was by her, drawing. "My dear, Emily Chandos, though one of the most charming and loveable girls ever seen, is inclined to be wild; and Miladi Chandos thinks the discipline of a school good for her," was the answer. "They do not care to have a governess residing at Chandos." "But why, Mademoiselle?" Mademoiselle Annette shook her head mysteriously. "I know not. Miladi said it to me. She is altered terribly. There is always a cloud hanging over Chandos. Go on with your sketch, my dear; young ladies should not be curious." One of the first questions put to me by the girls was—were any names given in for my visiting. I did not understand the question. We elder ones were seated at the desk-table, doing German exercises—or pretending to do them. Miss Barlieu had found me so well advanced, that I was put in the first classes for every study. Ellen Roper saw I looked puzzled, and explained. "When a pupil is placed at school in France, her friends give in the names of the families where she may visit, and the governess writes them down. It is not a bad custom."