It was not very definitely known what Mademoiselle Brun taught in the
School of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart in the Rue du Cherche-Midi in
Paris. For it is to be feared that Mademoiselle Brun knew nothing except
the world; and it is precisely that form of knowledge which is least
cultivated in a convent school.

"She has had a romance," whispered her bright-eyed charges, and lapsed
into suppressed giggles at the mere mention of such a word in connection
with a little woman dressed in rusty black, with thin grey hair, a thin
grey face, and a yellow neck.

It would seem, however, that there is a point where even a
mother-superior must come down, as it were, into the market-place and
meet the world. That point is where the convent purse rattles thinly and
the mother-superior must face hunger. It had, in fact, been intimated to
the conductors of the School of the Sisterhood of the Sacred Heart by the
ladies of the quarter of St. Germain, that the convent teaching taught
too little of one world and too much of another. And the mother-superior,
being a sensible woman, agreed to engage a certain number of teachers
from the outer world. Mademoiselle Brun was vaguely entitled an
instructress, while Mademoiselle Denise Lange bore the proud title of
mathematical mistress.

Mademoiselle Brun, with her compressed mouth, her wrinkled face, and her
cold hazel eyes, accepted the situation, as we have to accept most
situations in this world, merely because there is no choice.

"What can you teach?" asked the soft-eyed mother-superior.

"Anything," replied Mademoiselle Brun, with a direct gaze, which somehow