"Look at Susan," they said to her constantly, "how well Susan behaves! how upright Susan sits! how perfectly Susan says her lessons! how good Susan is!"--but Sophia Jane took no heed, it did not improve her a bit, but if possible made her worse to have this shining example held up for her to copy. As to Susan, she now heard her own praises so often that she began to think not only that Sophia Jane was very bad, but that she herself must be uncommonly good. At home it had always been taken as a matter of course that she would be quiet, obedient, and useful, and learn her lessons properly; it had never been considered anything remarkable. Here, however, she was continually called "clever," and "good," and "dear little thing," when she did the most common things, so that she soon began to hold her head higher and to look down upon Sophia Jane with a very condescending air. Meanwhile there was one thing she dreaded, and that was Monsieur La Roche's French lesson in which she was to join; she had now been a week at Ramsgate, and the day was approaching. Whenever he was mentioned Margaretta had always some giggling joke to make, and Sophia Jane echoed them. They imitated the way in which he spoke English, and the way in which he bowed when he came into the room, and the way in which he smiled and rubbed his hands; everything he did appeared to be laughable, and though Susan had not found it so on the steamboat, she now began to think that they must be right. Even Maria, she remembered, had called him "a figure of fun." How she hoped that he would not say anything about that journey! Her cheeks grew quite hot when she thought of how she had told him her name, and where she lived, and all sorts of confidential things. They would all laugh at her--it would be dreadful. Now, to laugh at Monsieur might be pleasant, but to be laughed at herself was, Susan felt, a very different matter. So when the day came, and they were all sitting round the table with their books ready for the class, she bent her head down as the French master entered the room, in the faint hope that he would not notice her. But that was of no use. Monsieur had hardly made his bow and taken his seat before Aunt Hannah looked round from her arm-chair at the fireside. "You have a new pupil to-day, Monsieur. My little niece, Miss Susan Ingram." His attention thus directed, Monsieur leaned forward, and a kindly smile of recognition brightened his face as he saw Susan. "Ah! c'est vrai," he said; "it is my leetle friend, Mees Susanne. We know ourselves already; is it not so?" The dreaded moment had come, and it was even more uncomfortable than she had expected. Everyone was looking at her, and waiting for her to answer, and she saw a mischievous glitter in Sophia Jane's eyes which were fixed on her like two blue beads.