“O! Mrs. Pullen! What is that young lady’s name, who sat opposite to you at dinner? Everybody is asking! I hear she is enormously rich, and travelling alone. Did you see the lace on her dress? Real Valenciennes, and the diamond rings she wore! Frederick says they must be worth a lot of money. She must be someone of consequence I should imagine!” “On the contrary, my nurse tells me she is English and her name is Brandt. Has she no friends here?” “Madame Lamont says she arrived in company with another girl, but they are located at different parts of the Hotel. It seems very strange, does it not?” “And it sounds very improper!” interposed Elinor Leyton, “I should say the less we have to say to her, the better! You never know what acquaintances you may make in a place like this! When I look up and down the _table d’hôte_ menagerie sometimes, it makes me quite ill!” “Does it?” rejoined Mrs. Montague, “I think it’s so amusing! That Baroness Gobelli, for instance----” “Don’t mention her before me!” cried Miss Leyton, in a tone of disgust, “the woman is not fit for civilised society!” “She is rather common, certainly, and strange in her behaviour,” said Mrs. Montague, “but she is very good-natured. She gave my little Edward a louis yesterday. I felt quite ashamed to let him take it!” “That just proves her vulgarity,” exclaimed Elinor Leyton, who had not a sixpence to give away, herself, “it shows that she thinks her money will atone for all her other shortcomings! She gave that Miss Taylor who left last week, a valuable brooch off her own throat. And poor payment too, for all the dirty things she made her do and the ridicule she poured upon her. I daresay this _nouveau riche_ will try to curry favour with us by the same means.” At that moment, the girl under discussion, Miss Brandt, appeared on the balcony, which was only raised a few feet above where they sat. She wore the same dress she had at dinner, with the addition of a little fleecy shawl about her shoulders. She stood smiling, and looking at the ladies (who had naturally dropped all discussion about her) for a few moments, and then she ventured to descend the steps between the rampant gilded lions, and almost timidly, as it seemed, took up a position near them. Mrs. Pullen felt that she could not be so discourteous as to take no notice whatever of the new-comer, and so, greatly to Miss Leyton’s disgust, she uttered quietly, “Good evening!” It was quite enough for Miss Brandt. She drew nearer with smiles mantling over her face. “Good evening! Isn’t it lovely here?--so soft and warm, something like the Island, but so much fresher!” She looked up and down the Digue, now crowded with a multitude of visitors, and drew in her breath with a long sigh of content. “How gay and happy they all seem, and how happy I am too! Do you know, if I had my will, what I should like to do?” she said, addressing Mrs. Pullen. “No! indeed!”