Penelope rose, looking more grim and forbidding than usual. She followed Mademoiselle up the garden, past the wood, and into the house. "Behold the desolation!" cried Mademoiselle, when they got indoors. She spread out her two fat, short arms and looked around her. "Not a _petite_ in sight--not a sound--the whole mansion empty, and Madame gone--gone with venom! She have left me my dismissal; she say, `You teach no more _les enfants_ in this school.' She gave no reason, but say, `I find another and you teach no more!' Who was that spiteful and most _mechant enfant_ who reveals secrets of poor Mademoiselle to Madame?" "I don't know," said Penelope. "I hadn't an idea you were going. I know nothing about it," she continued. "Aren't we going to have any lunch? I am so hungry." "And so am I," cried Mademoiselle, who was exceedingly greedy. "I starve--I ache from within. _Sonnez, mon enfant_--I entreat; let us have our _dejeuner_--my vitals can stand the strain no longer." Penelope rang the bell, and presently a towsled-looking housemaid appeared, to whom Mademoiselle spoke in a volley of bad English and excellent French. "Get us something to eat," said Penelope, "that is what we want. Isn't Patience here to wait on us as usual?" Patience was one of the immaculate parlour maids. "No," said the girl; "Patience has gone on her holiday." She withdrew, however, quickly after making this remark, for Mademoiselle's eyes flashed fire. "I suffer not these tortures," she cried, "and the insolence of English _domestiques_! I return to my own adorable land and partake of the _ragouts_ so delicate and the _bouillon_ so fragrant and the _omelettes_ so adorable. I turn my back on your cold England. It loves not the stranger--and the stranger loves it not!" A meal was hastily prepared in another room, and Penelope and the governess went there together. "What I dread," said Mademoiselle, "what I consider so _triste_ and execrable--is that I should remain here in this so gloomy climate, far, far from my beloved land, with you--the most _ennuyeuse_ of all my pupils during the time of holiday. I call it shameful! I rebel!" "Then why do you stay?" said Penelope. Again Mademoiselle extended her fat hands and arms. "Would I lose that little character which is to me the breath of existence?" she enquired. "Were Madame to know that I had left you, my _triste_ pupil, all alone during these long days and weeks, would she give me a paper with those essential qualifications written on it which secure for me employment elsewhere?" "I am going away myself next week," said Penelope, bluntly. "Next week!" cried Mademoiselle, much startled and delighted at this news. "But is that indeed so? for Madame say nothing of it. She say to me this morning: `You take excellent care of my pupil, Penelope Carlton, and give her of the food sufficient, and of the mental food also, that she will digest.'" "I won't digest any of it," said Penelope, bluntly.