“Of course not, or you would have come,” said she simply. “And I suppose you did not like to come in because you did not know my people. But you will come up stairs now and know my governess, and she will see that all I have said about you is true. Please follow me. I forgot that it was discourteous to keep you waiting here.” She was like a child playing a dozen different parts in half an hour. Now, with the manner of a chamberlain, she led the way up stairs and ushered Lauriston into the smaller sitting-room into which on the night of his unexpected visit he had only peeped. CHAPTER IV. At the table was sitting a matronly lady in black, with a stodgy and inexpressive face. She was writing letters at a neat little morocco desk; and on the entrance of her pupil followed by a good-looking but perfectly unknown gentleman, she drew herself up from her occupation, and rubbed her nose with her ivory-handled pen in evident dismay. “Dear me!” she ejaculated softly, in tones of abject consternation, “who has she picked up now?” Before the elder lady had time to give any other indication of the manner in which she intended to receive the stranger, the young girl flung her uninjured arm from behind round the neck of her less impulsive fellow-woman, and cried: “Mammy Ellis, you see--you see I was right. This is the gentleman who saved me from being burnt. He has come to say he is sorry.” And with this introduction, uttered in a tone of the utmost triumph, she made a step back, as if she expected that a full and uninterrupted view of him would remove all lingering doubts as to the perfect eligibility of her new acquaintance. It was rather embarrassing certainly. For the elderly lady, who had risen from her chair and was taking a good look at the midnight intruder, continued to glare at him with cold British stolidity, and Lauriston had none of the _aplomb_ given by a long and varied course of flirtations.