"I propose to tell you a story, _mes cheres_," she said, as she seated herself and folded her white hands over one of the thick bundles that she had taken from the drawer. "You have all heard me speak of Lina Dale, my English governess before I had Mary Gibson. Mary Gibson is an excellent girl, but she has not the talent that Lina had. Lina's father was a Captain Dale, a half-pay officer, whom I had once seen on business about a pupil of mine who had crossed the Channel under his care. A surly, morose man he appeared to me, rough towards his wife, a meek, worn-out looking old lady, who spoke with a hesitating, apologetic manner and a nervous movement of the head,--a habit I thought she must have contracted from a constant fear of being pounced upon, as you say, by her husband. I always pitied her _de tout mon coeur_, but she possessed neither tact nor intellect, and was _tres ennuyeuse_. "It was one cold day in winter that Justine told me there was a _demoiselle au salon_ who wished to see me. I found standing by the table a young lady,--a figure that would strike you at once. She turned as I entered the room, and her manner was dignified and self-possessed. She was not pretty, but her face was a remarkable one: thick dark hair above a low forehead, the eyelids somewhat too drooping over the singular dark eyes, that looked out beneath them with an expression of concentrated thought. 'That girl is like Charlotte Corday,' I said to Monsieur afterwards: 'it is a character of great energy and enthusiasm, frozen by the hardness and uncongeniality of her fate.' For in this interview she told me that she sought a situation in my school, and that she felt confidence in offering herself,--that the state of her father's affairs did not render this step necessary, but that circumstances of which she would not speak made her home unhappy and most unattractive to her. All this she said in a calm and perfectly unexcited manner, as if relating the details of a matter of business. For a moment I trembled lest she had come to make me her confidante in a family-quarrel; but I was soon relieved from this apprehension, for, after she had stated the fact, she referred to it no more, but went on to speak upon general subjects, which she did with great intelligence. Her good sense impressed me so much that before she left the house I had engaged her.