“It is such a melancholy house to come to when one is out of sorts,” observed her companion, “I have felt that myself! It will not give you a good impression of your first visit to London. Her ladyship wrote me you had just come from the West Indies,” she added, timidly. “Yes! I have not long arrived in Europe,” replied Harriet. “But I thought--I fancied--the Baroness gave me the idea that the Red House was particularly gay and cheerful, and that so many people visited her here!” “That is true! A great many people visit here! But--not such people, perhaps, as a young lady would care for!” “O! I care for every sort,” said Harriet, more gaily, “and you,--don’t you care for company, Miss Wynward?” “I have nothing to do with it, Miss Brandt, beyond seeing that the proper preparations are made for receiving it. I am Bobby’s governess, and housekeeper to the Baroness!” “Bobby is getting rather tall for a governess!” laughed Harriet. “He is, poor boy, but his education is very deficient. He ought to have been sent to school long ago, but her ladyship would not hear of it. But I never teach him now. He is supposed to be finished!” “Why don’t you find another situation then?” demanded Harriet, who was becoming interested in the ex-governess. She was a fragile, melancholy looking woman of perhaps five-and-thirty, who had evidently been good-looking in her day and would have been so then but for her attenuation, and shabby dress. But she was evidently a gentlewoman, and far above the menial offices she appeared to fill in the Red House. She gazed at Harriet for a minute in silence after she had put the last question to her, and then answered slowly: “There are reasons which render it unadvisable. But you, Miss Brandt, have you known the Baroness before?” “I never saw her till we met at Heyst and she invited me here,” replied the girl. “O! why did you come? Why did you come?” exclaimed Miss Wynward, as she left the room. Harriet stood gazing at the door as it closed behind her. _Why had she come?_ What an extraordinary question to ask her! For the same reason that other people accepted invitations to them by their friends--because she expected to enjoy herself, and have the protection of the Baroness on first entering English society! But why should this governess--her dependant, almost her servant--put so strange a question to her? Why had she come? She could not get it out of her mind. She was roused from her train of speculation by hearing the Baroness thumping on the outside panels of her door with her stick. “Come along,” she cried, “never mind dressing! The supper’s ready at last and I’m as ’ungry as an ’unter.”