Mdlle. Duprez occupied a first floor in an airy terrace of houses overlooking the Hoe. She was the kind of little woman to whom eating and drinking and fine dress are matters of very small moment, but who could not have endured to live in a shabby house or an ugly neighbourhood. All her surroundings were neat and bright and fair to look upon. She had brought over her furniture from Paris. It was the remnant of that furniture which had adorned her great-grandmother's house at Versailles, before the fiery spirits of the _tiers état_ met in the tennis-court, and the Revolution began. There was not much of it left, but that little was of the best period in French cabinet-work, and in the most perfect taste. Louise Duprez loved this heritage from her ancestors as if the chairs and sofa, cabinet and writing-table, had been living things. She used to sit and contemplate them sometimes, between the lights, in a dreamy mood, and think how much they might have told her about Marie Antoinette and her court, and the old days of the Oeil de Boeuf, if they could but have found a voice. The _bonheur du jour_, with its ormolu mounts, looked very human as the firelight shone upon it. The goats' heads seemed to wink and twinkle like human eyes, while the floral mouldings assumed the form of a broad human grin, as who should say, "Ah, I could tell you some fine farces about those ladies, if I could but speak!" Mademoiselle's rooms were always the pink of neatness; not a book out of line on the shelves above the secrétaire, not a scrap of work or a stray pin-cushion littering the tables; newspapers, pamphlets, magazines, all in their places; while Mademoiselle herself was one of those dainty little women who never have a pin awry in their toilet. So when Miss Heathcote was ushered into the singing-mistress's _salon_ at half-past nine in the morning, her unexpected appearance at such an early hour caused neither confusion nor annoyance. Mademoiselle had been breakfasting at a table in front of the open window--a temperate meal of coffee and roll, neatly arranged on a tray. Spotless damask and pretty china made the tray a picture, with Mademoiselle's pink cambric gown and bright little face for background. "My dear child, how early! I am enchanted to see you!" she cried, jumping up and kissing her old pupil on both cheeks. "What a good girl to come to me before my day's work begins! This is one of my full days, from eleven till five. Squall, squall, thump, thump, every kind of outrage upon the genius of harmony must these poor ears of mine suffer; and I must be very polite, all the same; must not lose patience and cry aloud--ah, how I long to do it sometimes!--'My love, you have no more voice than a peacock, no more ear than a four-post bedstead; your accent is diabolical, and you are the very embodiment of idiotcy.' You see one must not be quite frank with one's pupils. But, Hilda, my pet, what is the matter? You have been crying!"