"English, I'll vow. No French tongue could speak English as she does." "When you answer in that free, abrupt manner, Kate, you greatly displease me," I interposed. "It is most unladylike." Kate laughed; said she was free-spoken by nature, and it was of no use trying to be otherwise. By habit more than by nature, I told her: and I waited with impatience for the evening. It was Emily. I knew her at once. Gay-mannered, laughing, lovely as ever, she came into the room on her husband's arm, wearing a pink silk dress and wreath of roses. Alfred de Mellissie looked ill; at least he was paler and thinner than in the old days at Nulle. She either did not or would not remember me; as the evening drew on, I felt sure that she did not, for she spoke cordially enough to me, though as to an utter stranger. It happened that we were quite alone once, in the recess of a window, and I interrupted what she was saying about a song. "Have you quite forgotten me, Madame de Mellissie?" "Forgotten you!" she returned, with a quick glance. "I never knew you, did I?" "In the years gone by, when you were Miss Chandos. I am Anne Hereford." A puzzled gaze at me, and then she hid her face in her hands, its penitent expression mixed with laughter. "Never say a word about that naughty time, if you love me! everybody says it should be buried five fathoms deep. I ought to have known you, though, for it is the same gentle face; the sweet and steady eyes, with the long eyelashes, and the honest good sense and the pretty smile. But you have grown out of all knowledge. Not that you are much of a size now. What an escapade that was! the staid Demoiselles Barlieu will never get over it. I shall go and beg their pardon in person some day. Were you shocked at it?" "Yes. But has it brought you happiness?" "Who talks of happiness at soirées? You must be as unsophisticated as ever, Anne Hereford. Has that Johnstone left?" "A long, long while ago. She was dismissed at the end of a few months. The Miss Barlieus did not like her." "I don't know who could like her. And so you are a governess?" "Yes," I bravely avowed. "I have been nearly a year with the Miss Palers." "You must get leave to come and see me. Alfred, here's an old schoolfellow of mine. I daresay you will remember her." M. de Mellissie came at the call, and was talking to me for the rest of the evening. The great things that a night may bring forth! The sadness that the rising of another sun may be bearing to us on its hot wings!