became animated, and I had leisure to think of other things.

Dinner was quickly over, and at a signal from her ladyship, the folding
doors were thrown open, and we defiled into the Green Saloon, I bringing
up the rear meekly. On the table were fruit and flowers, and one small
bottle of some light wine. The butler filled her ladyship's glass, and
then withdrew.

"You can take a pear, little girl," said Lady Chillington. Accordingly I
took a pear, but when I had got it I was too timid to eat it, and could
do nothing but hold it between my hot palms. Had I been at Park Hill
Seminary, I should soon have made my teeth meet in the fruit; but I was
not certain as to the proper mode of eating pears in society.

Lady Chillington placed her glass in her eye and examined me critically.

"Haie! haie!" she said. "That good Chinfeather has not quite eradicated
our gaucherie, it seems. We are deficient in ease and aplomb. What is
the name of that Frenchwoman, Agnes, who 'finished' Lady Kinbuck's
girls?"

"You mean Madame Delclos."

"The same. Look out her address to-morrow, and remind me that you write
to her. If mademoiselle here remain in England, she will grow up weedy,
and will never learn to carry her shoulders properly. Besides, the child
has scarcely two words to say for herself. A little Parisian training
may prove beneficial. At her age a French girl of family would be a
little duchess in bearing and manners, even though she had never been
outside the walls of her pension. How is such an anomaly to be accounted