library.

I stood breathless in the hall. Every girl at my age knows how much is
involved in such an advent. I also heard Mrs. Rusk, in a minute or two
more, emerge I suppose from the study. She walked quickly, and muttered
sharply to herself--an evil trick, in which she indulged when much 'put
about.' I should have been glad of a word with her; but I fancied she was
vexed, and would not have talked satisfactorily. She did not, however, come
my way; merely crossing the hall with her quick, energetic step.

Was it really the arrival of a governess? Was that apparition which had
impressed me so unpleasantly to take the command of me--to sit alone with
me, and haunt me perpetually with her sinister looks and shrilly gabble?

I was just making up my mind to go to Mary Quince, and learn something
definite, when I heard my father's step approaching from the library: so
I quietly re-entered the drawingroom, but with an anxious and throbbing
heart.

When he came in, as usual, he patted me on the head gently, with a kind of
smile, and then began his silent walk up and down the room. I was yearning
to question him on the point that just then engrossed me so disagreeably;
but the awe in which I stood of him forbade.

After a time he stopped at the window, the curtain of which I had drawn,
and the shutter partly opened, and he looked out, perhaps with associations
of his own, on the scene I had been contemplating.

It was not for nearly an hour after, that my father suddenly, after his
wont, in a few words, apprised me of the arrival of Madame de la Rougierre