‘I suppose Miss Belmarche is a Roman Catholic,’ she said, wishing to account for this wonderful ignorance, and addressing herself to Sophy; but Lucy, whom she thought she had effectually put down, was up again in a moment like a Jack-in-a-box. ‘O yes, but not Genevieve. Her papa made it his desire that she should be brought up a Protestant. Wasn’t it funny? You know Genevieve is Madame Belmarche’s grand-daughter, and Mr. Durant was a dancing-master.’ ‘Madame Belmarche’s father and brother were guillotined,’ continued Sophy. ‘Ah! then she is an emigrant?’ ‘Yes. Miss Belmarche has always kept school here. Our own mamma, and Aunt Maria went to school to her, and Miss Celeste Belmarche married Mr. Durant, a dancing-master--she was French teacher in a school in London where he taught, and Madame Belmarche did not approve, for she and her husband were something very grand in France, so they waited and waited ever so long, and when at last they did marry, they were quite old, and she died very soon; and they say he never was happy again, and pined away till he really did die of grief, and so Genevieve came to her grandmamma to be brought up.’ ‘Poor child! How old is she?’ ‘Fifteen,’ said Lucy. ‘She teaches in the school. She is not at all pretty, and such a queer little thing.’ ‘Was her father French?’ ‘No,’ said Sophy. ‘Yes,’ said Lucy. ‘You know nothing about it, Sophy. He was French, but of the Protestant French sort, that came to England a great many years ago, when they ran away from the Sicilian Vespers, or the Edict of Nantes, I don’t remember which; only the Spitalfields weavers have something to do with it. However, at any rate Genevieve has got something in a drawer up in her own room that she is very secret about, and wont show to anybody.’ ‘I think it is something that somebody was killed with,’ said Sophy, in a low voice. ‘Dear me, if it is, I am sure it is quite wicked to keep it. I shall be quite afraid to go into her room, and you know I slept there all the time of the fever.’ ‘It did not hurt you,’ said Sophy. Albinia had been strongly interested by the touching facts, so untouchingly narrated, and by the characteristic account of the Huguenot emigration, but it suddenly occurred to her that she was promoting gossip, and she returned to business. Lucy showed off her attainments with her usual self-satisfaction. They were what might be expected from a second-rate old-fashioned young ladies’ school, where nothing was good but the French pronunciation. She was evidently considered a great proficient, and her glib mediocrity was even more disheartening than the ungracious carelessness or dulness--there was no knowing which--that made her sister figure wretchedly in the examination. However, there was little time--the door-bell rang at a quarter to twelve, and Mrs. Wolfe was in the drawing-room. ‘I told you so,’ whispered Lucy, exultingly.