"Oh, it is overwhelming, isn’t it? It must be, Jeanette. Why, I wouldn’t mind even if you were my mother!" "That’s what I call crushing proof." "Yes. And it’s taking chances, too. I don’t really want another mother, you know. Mothers are only truly nice to their sons. Now do you see how much I love you?" "I do, you little philosopher. And I conclude, from so much undeserved affection, that, as a teacher, I have probably been far too easy-going. In future, I shall have to be much more severe." "Oh, that has nothing to do with it," said Henriette, laughing. "It isn’t the way you treat me. It’s—well, I don’t know what. Perhaps it’s the deep, deep mystery about you. Papa has noticed it, too." "Has he, indeed?" "Yes. And speaking of mysteries, I forgot to tell you that some one called to see you while you were out. A gentleman—" "A gentleman! Who could it be?" "Well, he was a great big mountain of a man. Ugly, oh, like the ogre in a fairy tale. I didn’t like him a bit." "Oh, you saw him?" "Yes. I peeked over the banisters. What a monster! Papa wasn’t home. Berthe let him in because he said he was an old friend of yours. Here’s his card." Janet read the name of Hutchins Burley, and needed all her self-control not to show her dismay. "Did he leave a message?" Henriette prattled on, unaware of Janet’s emotion. "He asked Berthe to tell you that he would call again about five o’clock tomorrow afternoon. He said he especially wanted to see you. If you couldn’t be in, he would be sure to see papa." "Five o’clock, did he say?" "Yes. Just when my riding lesson comes. I suppose we shall have to give up our ride," she added mournfully. "Let’s wait and see, dear." *II* Had Burley chanced upon her in the street and followed her home, or had he seen her in one of the shops or at one of the English tea rooms in Brussels? Janet did not pursue this fruitless inquiry. The question was how to meet the fact, the perilous fact. For she could hardly doubt that Hutchins Burley’s visit boded her no good. She passed the events of the last nine months in quick review. M. St. Hilaire had engaged her without references. True to his agreement, moreover, he had given her a free hand with Henriette’s education and had been well pleased when a growing attachment between Janet and his daughter relieved him almost entirely of routine parental cares. As the virtual guardian of Henriette, Janet had had little to complain of and much to be thankful for. Her pupil and her pupil’s father had treated her from the first as one of themselves, so that she enjoyed all the advantages of membership in a family of wealth and refinement. These advantages were not to be scoffed at. M. St. Hilaire was not only a man of cultivated tastes; he possessed the means (derived from extensive realty holdings in Alsace and Switzerland) which permitted him to indulge his tastes on a very liberal scale.