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 A WOMAN'S TRIALS 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 A WOMAN'S TRIALS. 
 
 GRACE RAMSAY. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 
 1867. 
 
 The right of Translation is reserved.
 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2009 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/womanstrials01omea
 
 I 
 
 f*3 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IT was towards the end of September, 
 a little past noon. The proud old 
 chestnuts in the Tuileries Gardens were 
 gathering rich autumn tints of purple 
 and red, that harmonized softly with the 
 fading green. Thejets-d'eau were still play- 
 ing, rippling, and gurgling, and splashing 
 their silver spray up into the sunlight. 
 
 A travelling carriage that had excited 
 the admiration and curiosity of the strollers 
 in the Champs Elysees, drew up before the 
 gateway of a large square building on the 
 sunny side of the broad promenade. 
 
 " Here we are !" exclaimed the footman, 
 and jumping from his seat, he summoned 
 the porter with such a sonorous clang at 
 the bell as only an English flunkey can give. 
 
 The carriage step was lowered and a 
 gentleman alighted, and assisted his com- 
 panions to descend. 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 a woman's teials. 
 
 The first was a lady of apparently 
 forty years of age, fair and dignified, 
 with the slow, nonchalant step that 
 generally betokens indolence or delicate 
 health. The second was a young girl, 
 whom her father rather lifted than handed 
 from the carriage. The three walked in 
 through the courtyard to the front door, 
 where the female Cerberus was waiting 
 to receive them. 
 
 The gentleman handed his card to 
 the woman, who with a variety of dips 
 and smiles showed the travellers into the 
 parlovr. 
 
 " Donnez-vous la peine, Mesdames," 
 she said ; and placing chairs for the 
 ladies, she tripped out of the room. 
 
 When the door closed, the young girl 
 drew her chair closer to her mother's. 
 
 " Dear mamma, I feel so frightened," 
 she whispered." 
 
 "You silly child," returned her mother, 
 who seemed quite 1 as agitated as her 
 daughter; "what is there to be frightened 
 at? Madame St. Simon is no doubt as 
 kind as your good Mademoiselle Kosalie, 
 whom you loved so much, and who took
 
 a woman's trials. 3 
 
 such care of you for the last four years." 
 
 " Oh, but theu I was at home, 
 mamma." 
 
 Sir John Stanhope busied himself ex- 
 amining the drawings on the walls of the 
 reception room. They were signed by 
 pupils of the Establishment, and supposed 
 by uninitiated visitors to be the bona-fide 
 productions of the young ladies. 
 
 " My dear Mabel," observed Sir John, 
 " I hope you may, on leaving this dis- 
 tinguished institution, be able to shew 
 something as creditable to yourself and 
 your teachers as some of the specimens 
 before us." 
 
 " I hope so, dear papa," replied his 
 daughter, with a nervous glance at the 
 opening door. It was the parlour-maid 
 to say that " Madame priait ces dames 
 de passer chez elle." 
 
 Mabel felt relieved, as if the few seconds 
 delay before the dreaded interview gave 
 her time to summon up her courage. 
 
 Sir John looked undecided; he felt 
 inclined to express his private opinion 
 on the coolness of the French school dame, 
 summoning his wife to an audience, some- 
 
 B 2
 
 4 A WOMAN S TRIALS. 
 
 what after the fashion in which he admitted 
 one of his tenants to the same honour. 
 
 Lady Stanhope guessed what was pass- 
 ing in her husband's mind, and to prevent 
 any awkwardness at the commencement 
 of their acquaintance with Madame St. 
 Simon, she rose and followed the servant 
 across the vestibule. 
 
 It never occurred to Sir John that 
 his intercourse with any French man or 
 woman could be otherwise than a suc- 
 cession of hostilities, more or less dan- 
 gerous, as circumstances should ordain. 
 This forced march looked like a com- 
 promise of his dignity at the starting 
 point ; but before he had arrived at any 
 satisfactory decision, as to the manner of 
 protesting against it, the door was thrown 
 open, and the three travellers were in 
 presence of the maitresse de pension. 
 
 If they expected (as one of the party 
 decidedly did) to see in that lady a 
 gay, over-dressed, be-ribboned personage, 
 they were thoroughly disappointed. Ma- 
 dame St. Simon was tall and slight ; 
 her hair, of a brilliant black, was drawn 
 classically back in plain bands, its large
 
 A WOMAN'S tRTALS, 
 
 rolls fastened by a plain shell comb. 
 Her pale face would have been sickly 
 but for the flashing of the keen grey 
 eye that lighted up her features, and 
 pierced the eye it rested on. 
 
 I don't think any one would say she 
 was handsome, but she was what the 
 French call une belle femme. Her face, 
 in repose, looked hard and cold, but 
 she had a bright smile that lighted the 
 sallow features, though it never warmed 
 them ; one of those smiles that come 
 and go, leaving no trace behind them, 
 fading away suddenly; it was pleasant 
 while it lasted, and you were sorry to 
 see it die out so quickly, like daylight 
 sinking at once into darkness without the 
 intervening shadows of twilight. Ma- 
 dame St. Simon had a long white hand, 
 that gave her an air of high breeding, 
 and a small, narrow foot, that fell noise- 
 lessly on the polished floors and stone 
 passages of Belle- Vue. 
 
 Her dress of rich black silk was of irre- 
 proachable taste, and perfectly simple ; a 
 handsome cameo fastening a small linen 
 collar was the only ornament she wore.
 
 a woman's teials. 
 
 Lady Stanhope was pleased, and Sir 
 John surprised out of his pre-arranged 
 attack. The lady, who was seated half- 
 reclining on a low green velvet couch, 
 rose with a winning smile, and present- 
 ing her hand to Lady Stanhope, drew her 
 gracefully to her side upon the couch, and 
 motioned Sir John and Mabel to be seated. 
 
 " Chere Milady," she began, address- 
 ing Lady Stanhope, " I was deeply touched 
 by your letter, and the confidence you 
 place in me ; I will care your dear child 
 as the apple of my eye. Nothing claims 
 my gratitude so much as the trust of 
 English parents who confide their children 
 to me at such a distance. And, believe me, 
 it is not misplaced. I cover them with 
 my eyes — with my heart," protested the 
 French woman, with an earnestness that 
 brought the tears to Lady Stanhope's eyes, 
 while Madame St. Simon seemed with dif- 
 ficulty to repress her own. 
 
 Sir John thought the sentimental effu- 
 sion rather premature; besides, he had 
 a national horror of a scene, and if this 
 continued such a catastrophe was in- 
 evitable.
 
 a woman's trials. 
 
 He cut it short by asking to see a 
 prospectus of the school. 
 
 "I wish my daughter to have a 
 separate room, and every comfort 
 and advantage that your establishment 
 can afford, madame," observed the ba- 
 ronet. 
 
 " Certainly, Milord," replied Madame 
 St. Simon. " Mademoiselle must have 
 one of our pretty rooms looking on the 
 Promenade. She shall go out for a 
 walk every day w r ith the English go- 
 verness. Milady is a Protestant ?" turn- 
 ing to Lady Stanhope. 
 
 "Yes; and in placing my child under 
 your care," her Ladyship replied, " I 
 must have the assurance "that her reli- 
 gion will not only be untampered with, 
 but that she shall have every facility for 
 religious instruction. You have, I pre- 
 sume, an English clergyman attached to 
 the Establishment ?" 
 
 " Oh, bien entendu, Milady ! Ces cheres 
 enfants are provided with every moral and 
 religious advantage ; the regular attend- 
 ance of one of their own pastors is a ne< 
 cessary guarantee to their parents, while
 
 8 a woman's trials. 
 
 it lightens my responsibility on the most 
 most important of all points.'' 
 
 " We should like to visit the c Institu- 
 tion,' if it be not giving you too much 
 trouble, observed Lady Stanhope, after 
 some further inquiries concerning the 
 rules of the house. 
 
 " With much pleasure, and forgive 
 me," added Madame St. Simon modestly, 
 "if I say with much pride. This chere 
 niaison has been to me all that husband and 
 children are to other women. I have spent 
 the best years of my life in bringing it to 
 the point at which you now see it. I may 
 have acted unwisely for my own happi- 
 ness, in sacrificing the joys of domestic 
 life to the realisation of my Utopian 
 dreams about education, but the dream 
 was a most noble one, and there was a 
 great work to be done." 
 
 " A most noble work, if properly un- 
 derstood," rejoined Sir John, whose 
 prejudice was beginning to thaw under 
 the influence of Madame St. Simon's 
 quiet, earnest manner. 
 
 The house was admirably adapted to 
 its present purpose, although originally
 
 a woman's trials. 9 
 
 used as a private residence. It formed 
 a quadrangle ; the inner courtyard was 
 laid out as flower-garden ; two sides of 
 the building were devoted to the classes 
 and refectory ; on the third were the Salles 
 des Professeurs, the Salles de Gymnase 
 et de Dessin; the south was reserved for 
 Madame St. Simon's private apartments 
 and the reception rooms. Madame St. 
 Simon entered one of the classes, where 
 her presence was acknowledged by a de- 
 ferential rising of the young ladies, who 
 stared more eagerly than politely at the 
 graceful English girl who was about to 
 become their companion. 
 
 " This is to be your study-room, ma 
 petite," said the lady, turning to Mabel. 
 "Mes enfants," addressing her pupils, 
 " je vous presente une amie de plus." 
 
 The announcement was followed by a 
 murmur and a curtsey. 
 
 Nothing could be more satisfactory to 
 the most exacting visitor than the perfect 
 order of the whole establishment. The 
 cleanliness was perfect, and the appoint- 
 ments in the different salles were complete 
 without any attempt at display.
 
 10 a woman's trials. 
 
 The gymnastic hall attracted Sir John's 
 special admiration, which he expressed 
 very graciously to Madame St. Simon. 
 
 "Yes," she said, " I have taken great 
 pains to fit it up thoroughly, for I believe 
 the use of gymnastic exercises one of the 
 best things for developing the health and 
 strength of young people. Some parents 
 have accused me of paying too much at- 
 tention to the physical development of my 
 pupils, and so taking away time from their 
 studies, but my instinct is against them 
 there. The time given to exercise and the 
 cultivation of health, is never time lost. 
 A neglected education may be repaired, 
 a ruined constitution never can." 
 
 They had finished the tour of the house, 
 including the long dormitory upstairs, with 
 its fifty little iron beds in two prim rows 
 on either side, the length' of the room 
 broken only by a large iron stove running 
 its black chimney up into the ceiling. 
 
 Both Sir John and his wife were charmed 
 with the inspection, and they took leave 
 of Madame St. Simon with the warmest 
 expressions of approval, Sir John saying 
 as he held her soft white hand, " Madame,
 
 a woman's tbials. 11 
 
 I wish I had six daughters to leave you 
 instead of one." 
 
 It had required no small amount of en- 
 treaty and persuasion to induce Sir John 
 to place his daughter in a French boarding 
 school. To boarding-schools in general 
 he bore a decided ill-will, to French ones 
 in particular. But Mabel could coax her 
 father into anything she set her heart on 
 having or doing. She was an only child 
 and an heiress, but, singular as it may 
 seem, not the least spoilt. 
 
 The only joy that her young life missed 
 was the companionship of a sister or a 
 brother, and the idea of going to school, 
 where she would live in pleasant harmony 
 with numbers of girls of her own age, had 
 a wonderful attraction for her. She had 
 hinted it more than once to her father, 
 but the suggestion had been snubbed by a 
 peremptory " Tut, tut, child ; you know 
 nothing about it. They would starve you 
 to death, and what should I do then for 
 my pretty Mab ?" 
 
 Circumstances came to Mabel's assist- 
 ance, though not in the way she should 
 have best liked.
 
 12 a woman's trials. 
 
 Lad j Stanhope's health had suffered so 
 severely from the foregoing winter in Eng- 
 land, that her husband was advised by the 
 physicians to take her for a whole year to 
 Madeira. 
 
 Now, Madeira, they said, was not at all a 
 desirable residence for her daughter, either 
 in its climate or otherwise. There were 
 few, if any, educational resources to be had 
 there. True, they could take a governess 
 with them, but Mabel required something 
 more now ; she had arrived at a point 
 when the teaching of superior masters 
 was necessary to complete the governess's 
 work. So after much hesitation and dis- 
 cussion, and minute inquiries as to the 
 best schools in London and Paris, it was 
 decided that Mabel should remain during 
 her parents' sojourn abroad at Belle- Vue, 
 under the maternal tutelage of Madame 
 St. Simon. 
 
 Not till she found herself alone next day 
 in Belle- Yue, her cheeks still wet with her 
 mother's tears, did Mabel realize at what 
 a price she had bought the grant of her 
 long urged request. It had all been plea- 
 sure and sunshine in the distance, but
 
 a woman's trials. 13 
 
 now that she held it in possession, the 
 bitterness of parting with her beloved 
 parents gave it a sadly different as- 
 pect. 
 
 It was the first time she had ever been 
 separated from her mother even for a 
 day, and the long succession of days and 
 months that must intervene before they 
 were re-united, stretched out before her 
 in interminable length. She upbraided 
 herself remorselessly for having allowed 
 her longing for the joyous companionship 
 of school life to have tempted her to such 
 a sacrifice. Though Mabel was nearly 
 sixteen, she was much more of a child 
 than most young ladies of that mature age 
 believe compatible with sense and dignity. 
 That our heroine was deficient in neither, 
 we hope to prove in due time. 
 
 For the present we are forced to confess 
 that Miss Stanhope was guilty of the un- 
 dignified proceeding of sobbing herself to 
 sleep on the little white-curtained bed, 
 where she is to sleep and dream for the 
 next eighteen months. 
 
 About an hour elapsed, when she was 
 aroused by the ringing of a bell, and the
 
 14 a woman's teials. 
 
 touch of a hand laid, not roughly, but 
 sharply, on her shoulder. 
 
 "What's that?" cried Mabel, starting 
 up. " Who are you ?" 
 
 " The dressing bell, and Milly Jackson." 
 The answer was more concise than clear. 
 " The bell is to notify that it is time to 
 dress for dinner," explained the intruder, 
 " and my name is Milly Jackson." 
 
 " Oh, thank you," said Mabel, rising hur- 
 riedly. " Am I to put on a low dress ?" 
 
 " Bless you, no; that would be larks !" 
 replied Milly Jackson. " Let's see what 
 sort of a dress you have on." She bustled 
 about for a match, found one on the 
 chimney-piece, struck it against the wall, 
 lit the bougie, and then held it close to 
 Mabel's dress ; it was a dark green silk, 
 quite new, and very prettily made. 
 
 " Will it do for dinner ?" asked the new 
 comer, hesitatingly. 
 
 " I should think so !" exclaimed her 
 companion, with three notes of admiration 
 in her tone ; " why it's a love of a dress 
 —was it made in Paris ?" 
 
 " I believe it was," said Mabel. 
 
 The answer seemed to puzzle Milly ; she
 
 a woman's tkeals. 15 
 
 turned her scrutiny from the dress to the 
 wearer's face. It was still flushed from 
 crying, but looked very beautiful. The 
 deep hazel eyes, under the long black 
 lashes, had a world of fire and tenderness 
 in their depths, and the fair hair that had 
 fallen from the comb, all wavy and shining, 
 looked like a veil of gold thrown round the 
 small, well-set head. 
 
 Milly noticed the red lids and the choked 
 sob, that shewed the tears were ready to 
 start up again at a moment's notice ; she 
 poured out some water into the diminutive 
 cuvette, that represented a basin on the 
 washing-table. 
 
 " Come and bathe your eyes, like a dear, 
 and try and don't fret. You won't when 
 you get used to it. Were you never at 
 school before?" she asked good-naturedly. 
 
 " No, never," said Mabel, " do you like 
 being here ?" 
 
 " Oh yes, very much, it's a jolly kind of 
 school, at least for the parlour-boarders." 
 
 " Am I a parlour-boarder ?" asked 
 Mabel. 
 
 "Yes, if you have a room to yourself, 
 and dine with Madame St. Simon."
 
 16 a woman's trials. 
 
 " 1 know I have a room to myself," said 
 Mabel, " but I don't remember if papa 
 said anything about where I was to dine." 
 
 " Then if he didn't, you have to dine in 
 the refectory, and the Fates have mercy 
 on you !" 
 
 " What is there so dreadful in the re- 
 fectory ?" inquired Mabel, startled at 
 Milly's lugubrious invocation. 
 
 " Why you will be starved, that's all, 
 but unless your father's a fool he is sure to 
 have thought about that. It's the first 
 thing my father thought of when he put 
 me here." 
 
 " My father is not a fool," spoke Mabel 
 indignantly, " and he never forgets any- 
 thing that can make me happy." 
 
 "Oh, dear! don't be huffed," said 
 Milly, laughing; " you'll never get on here, 
 if you are the least thin-skinned. I only 
 meant to tell you, you were very lucky if 
 you escape the refectory cramming, and if 
 your father didn't understand the differ- 
 ence, why you can write and tell about it, 
 and he'll make it all square with Juno." 
 
 " Who is Juno ?" inquired Mabel, more 
 and more bewildered at her new friend's
 
 a woman's trials. 17 
 
 peculiar manner of expressing herself. 
 
 " We call Madame St. Simon Juno, she's 
 so high and mighty ; but you will learn all 
 that soon enough," continued Miss Jack- 
 son, while Mabel drew the brush through 
 her long silken hair. 
 
 " My eye ! what a jolly lot of hair you 
 have ! such a sweet colour too ! I wish 
 mine were like it. What's your name ? 
 you didn't tell me yet ?" 
 
 " Because you did not ask me. My name 
 is Mabel Stanhope." 
 
 " Mabel ! what a funny name ! Don't 
 they call you something else at home for 
 shortness ?" 
 
 " Papa calls me Queen Mab," replied 
 Mabel smiling. 
 
 " Mab ! that will do ; we'll leave out the 
 Queen. Oh, there's the dinner-bell, and I 
 forgot to change my sleeves." 
 
 "You won't leave me to go down by 
 myself," pleaded Mabel timidly, " I don't 
 know the way, and I shall be so awkward 
 going in without any one ; that is, if I am 
 to dine with you." 
 
 There is an instinct that makes us yearn 
 to those who look to us for help. Milly 
 
 vol. i. c 
 
 //
 
 18 a woman's trials. 
 
 was unused to be appealed to by her 
 school friends in any emergency, unless it 
 happened to be some wild frolic that she 
 was always ready to be foremost in. No 
 one ever thought of going to Milly for 
 advice in anything serious, yet for all that 
 she was looked up to as a leader in the 
 school, and was a general favourite. Kind- 
 hearted and careless of blame, always ready 
 to help another out of a scrape by getting 
 into it with them, the great business of her 
 life was to get through the day with as 
 little trouble and as much fun as possible. 
 She never studied at the study hours, but 
 gave herself endless trouble in trying to 
 kill the time by making faces behind her 
 books, and thereby setting her opposite 
 neighbours into " fits," as the school term 
 goes ; yet, somehow when the examination 
 day came round, Milly generally managed 
 to get off with a good place. She had been 
 two years at Madame St. Simon's, when 
 she introduced herself to Mabel Stan- 
 hope, and was to remain there one year 
 longer. 
 
 Perhaps this rollicking girl was the last 
 person Mabel would have chosen as her
 
 a woman's teials. 19 
 
 chaperon, if she had had a choice, but she 
 had not. The want of refinement and good 
 breeding that eked out in Milly' s free and 
 easy manner might have repulsed her at 
 first ; but the bright, sunny face, and good- 
 natured cheerfulness with which she com- 
 forted the lonely new-comer, atoned for 
 short-comings that grated on the sensitive, 
 refined nature of her protegee. 
 
 On their way along the corridor, they 
 met some of the parlour-boarders hurrying 
 down in answer to the dinner-bell. 
 
 " Let me introduce you," patronised 
 Milly. " Miss Wilson, Miss Wood, Miss 
 Stanhope." 
 
 "A parlour-boarder, I suppose ?" asked 
 Miss Wood. 
 
 "I believe so," returned Mabel. 
 
 " Perhaps I ought not to go with you 
 till 1 am certain ?" she added, looking to 
 Milly for counsel. 
 
 " Oh, come along; if you're not in the 
 right box, Juno will soon let you know it, 
 and hand you over to the Philistines." 
 
 This was not very encouraging to the 
 timid new-comer; however she had no- 
 thing for it but to go on, and take chance 
 
 c 2
 
 20 a woman's trials. 
 
 for being admitted or turned off to the re- 
 fectory. 
 
 The staircase at the end of the above- 
 named corridor opened into the cloisters, 
 where a group of young ladies were col- 
 lected at the lower end near the first-class 
 school-room. They were not near enough 
 for Mabel to see their faces, but by way of 
 compensation, she had every facility for 
 hearing their voices, not silvery ones at 
 any time, and less so now than ever, being 
 raised in angry altercation. The shrill, 
 ringing tones fell on the ear unpleasantly. 
 Five or six talked, or rather, shrieked to- 
 gether, gesticulating violently ; one in par- 
 ticular, who, judging from her animated 
 part in the discussion, seemed the princi- 
 pal character in the fray, shook her closed 
 hand in the face of a small wiry person, of 
 whom she might have easily had the ad- 
 vantage in single combat ; but that alter- 
 native was prevented by one of her com- 
 panions holding her back, while another 
 planted herself between the belligerents. 
 
 " What has happened ?" inquired Mabel, 
 glancing with more amazement than curi- 
 osity at the noisy scene.
 
 a woman's trials. 21 
 
 " It's probably some quarrel of no con- 
 sequence. The French make such a fuss 
 about nothing ; we have grown used to it, 
 and so will you in time, Miss Stanhope," 
 observed the young lady introduced as 
 Miss Wilson ; she smiled and strolled on 
 towards the dining-room. 
 
 Two other parlour-boarders followed 
 her, leaving Mabel still looking on with 
 Milly at the sight. 
 
 " I'd like to see the fun out," exclaimed 
 Miss Jackson coolly. 
 
 " Is that what you call fun ?" inquired 
 her companion, with a look of such genuine 
 astonishment, that Milly could not refrain 
 from laughing. 
 
 " Well, I daresay it is rather disreput- 
 able, but it's great fun to hear those French 
 parties pitching into each other. They go 
 at it with such a zest." 
 
 "Vous mentez !" shrieked the small 
 combatant at her tall antagonist. 
 
 " Menteuse vous-meme !" was the brisk 
 retort. 
 
 " Good gracious ; they will do some- 
 thing dreadful before they stop," and 
 Mabel with her British appreciation of the
 
 22 a woman's teials. 
 
 insults interchanged by the assailants, 
 really did tremble at what was to follow. 
 
 " Had you not better interfere ?" she 
 asked. 
 
 " By reading the riot act ? Yes, and get 
 abused for my pains, the usual reward 
 for such attempts at peace-making,'' re- 
 plied Miss Jackson philosophically; "but 
 pray don't excite yourself. Those little 
 compliments are given and taken in the 
 kindest spirit, and so frequently that their 
 edge is considered blunted by use. A 
 French girl thinks no more of calling or 
 being called a liar, than we should of 
 voting one another a bore." 
 
 " Who are they ?" inquired Mabel, her 
 astonishment increasing with every at- 
 tempt at explanation from her companion, 
 "they cannot surely be ladies !" 
 
 "Aren't they though ! The first blood 
 (some of them) in the old faubourg. But 
 if we stay watching them much longer, 
 we shall have Juno down on us, for being 
 behind time to receive her highness." 
 
 It was the first Saturday of the month, 
 and Monsieur l'Abbe, Chaplain of Belle- 
 Vue, usually dined there, after hearing
 
 a woman's trials. 23 
 
 some of the pupils' confessions, and giving 
 an hour's instruction on the Catechism. 
 He was an old man, and looked much older 
 than he was ; a venerable face was that 
 of the white-haired priest. The forehead 
 was lofty and care-worn, and the mouth in 
 repose looked rigid, till the smile came 
 like a sweet surprise to dispel the first 
 impression, when the cold severity of the 
 outline melted away, and in its place 
 beamed out the very sunshine of bene- 
 volence. 
 
 The deep-set eyes had a power of pene- 
 tration that made the children say, Mon- 
 sieur l'Abbe could read their thoughts, so 
 it was no use telling him anything but the 
 truth, and they never did. When dinner 
 was over, Madame St. Simon presented 
 Mabel to the Chaplain, whose glance had 
 been frequently directed to the new-comer 
 opposite to him. 
 
 "Monsieur l'Abbe," she said, " try and 
 comfort this pauvre petite ; you have more 
 talent for such missions than I have. 
 Mademoiselle is not a Catholic," she 
 added, by way of a preliminary caution. 
 
 " That need not prevent our being good
 
 24 a woman's trials. 
 
 friends, I hope," remarked the Abbe look- 
 ing kindly on Mabel. 
 
 " No, Monsieur," replied the young 
 girl timidly. 
 
 She felt rather impressionnee, as the 
 French call it, in coming thus, for the 
 first time in her life, in close contact with 
 a Catholic priest ; but the gentle suavity 
 of his manner soon put her at ease. 
 
 Milly Jackson loitered near the salon 
 door on the watch to seize upon her pro- 
 tegee ; she was rather proud of playing cha- 
 peron to the pretty, new girl ; and resolved 
 not to allow any one else to supplant her. 
 
 Monsieur l'Abbe saw the merry face 
 turned upon himself and Mabel, and 
 beckoned her to approach. 
 
 " Mademoiselle Meely," he said, " I am 
 going to give this young compatriote into 
 your charge ; see that she dances every 
 quadrille to night, and if I don't find her 
 eyes as bright as your own next time we 
 meet, gave a vons /" and he held up his 
 finger menacingly at Mademoiselle Meely. 
 She seemed by no means awe-struck, but 
 curtsied and answered pertly, with a 
 twinkle in her grey eye :
 
 a woman's trials. 25 
 
 " I undertake the task, Monsieur 1' Abbe. 
 Mademoiselle shall not shed a tear under 
 my patronage." 
 
 " Amusez-vous bien, mes enfants," said 
 the Aumonier, and wished them good 
 night. 
 
 It was the custom at Belle- Yue for the 
 first class to join the parlour-boarders 
 every Saturday in the salon. 
 
 Madame St. Simon was supposed to 
 prepare her pupils for the highest posi- 
 tions in society, and one of the accom- 
 plishments, on which she laid particular 
 stress, was what she termed Vart de re- 
 cevoir. 
 
 The Saturday soirees were got up for 
 the purpose of initiating the young ladies 
 into the art of holding a salon, beside 
 which, in Madame St. Simon's opinion, all 
 the graver duties of life sank into insig- 
 nificance. 
 
 The parlour-boarders, twelve in number, 
 being all English, Mabel had as yet seen 
 no specimen of the French pupils. They 
 generally made their appearance some five 
 minutes after Madame St. Simon had 
 taken her seat in the fauteuil beside the
 
 26 a woman's trials. 
 
 fire, and the English girls had distributed 
 themselves through the room. There was 
 a rushing noise in the hall, and a buzz of 
 voices, then a dead silence, and the door 
 opened. Madame St. Simon rose to meet 
 ces demoiselles, who advanced in pairs ; 
 they mustered about twenty strong. There 
 was a graceful bow from Madame St. 
 Simon, as she presented her hand to each, 
 saying she was charmed to see her. 
 
 The young ladies answered with some 
 pretty speech held in readiness for the 
 occasion, and curtseying withdrew, leaving 
 the next couple to go through the same 
 ceremony. Mabel thought it rather thea- 
 trical, but very gracefully done, as it cer- 
 tainly was; all French girls have an 
 innate sense of elegance, which makes 
 them feel at home in ceremonies and pre- 
 sentations, where an English girl is gen- 
 erally as clumsy as a clown. 
 
 As soon as the music began there was a 
 general stir, a bustling about, engaging of 
 partners, and interchange of compliments. 
 Milly had assumed a certain importance 
 as appointed chaperon to the " new girl," 
 and resolved to make the most of it. After
 
 a woman's trials. 27 
 
 dancing two quadrilles with her protegee, 
 she said : 
 
 " Now I'll introduce the best girls to 
 you ; try and don't get in with the others, 
 especially the French ; we English never 
 get on with them, they drag you into no 
 end of scrapes, and leave you to get out 
 of them the best way you can. Olga," 
 beckoning to a pretty girl who was in 
 conversation with a lady near them, who, 
 Milly informed Mabel in a whisper, was 
 Miss Jones the English governess, " come 
 and dance with Miss Stanhope. Made- 
 moiselle Czerlinska, Miss Stanhope." Then 
 added in a whisper to Mabel, " She's a Pole, 
 a duck of a girl, you'll like her immense- 
 ly," and having done what she considered 
 her duty, Milly turned away to mix in 
 the crowd, and answer some of the 
 eager questions that were put to her 
 on every side as to who Mabel was, and 
 whether she had known her at home. 
 
 Olga was about the same age as Mabel, 
 and until now had been considered the 
 beauty of the school. 
 
 She had the soft graceful manners of 
 her countrywomen, and those powers of
 
 28 a woman's trials. 
 
 fascination that made Napoleon the First 
 say : " If an angel could come down from 
 Heaven, a Polish woman could bring him 
 to her feet." 
 
 Mabel felt more at home with Olga, after 
 five minutes conversation, than she had 
 done with Milly in spite of her good- 
 natured patronage, and before the qua- 
 drille was finished she had promised Olga 
 to sit next her in class, if she had the 
 good fortune to be put in the same 
 division. 
 
 At eight o'clock, tea was brought in ; one 
 of the French girls presided at the table. 
 
 " Do you take tea ?" said Olga to her 
 companion. 
 
 " Oh, yes, we always do in England." 
 
 " Then I'll bring you a cup ; wait here 
 while I fetch it." 
 
 Mabel sat down as she was desired, and 
 began to look around her; she was not 
 many minutes alone when the lady Milly 
 called Miss Jones, came and took Olga's 
 vacant seat beside her. 
 
 " I see you are English, and come to 
 bid you welcome," she said, holding out 
 her hand to Mabel.
 
 a woman's trials. 29 
 
 There was something about Miss Jones 
 that Mabel warmed to instantaneously. It 
 was not her beauty ; Miss Jones was ugly, 
 decidedly ugly ; her skin was yellow and 
 parched, her eyes sunken, and of a nonde- 
 script colour ; her teeth projected uncom- 
 fortably, and when she laughed, gave a 
 skeleton appearance to her mouth. For 
 all that there was a sweet expression about 
 her face that won Mabel's heart at once. 
 
 They had not been long together, w r hen 
 Olga returned with a cup of some white 
 washy looking beverage, three huge lumps 
 of sugar sticking up through it, like small 
 pyramids. 
 
 Mabel looked very much inclined to 
 burst out laughing as she took the cup 
 from Mademoiselle Czerlinska, but the 
 latter discreetly whispered : " Take care, 
 Juno is watching us ; if she sees you laugh- 
 ing at her the, you'll hear of it by-and- 
 
 by-" 
 
 The hint was enough to restore Mabel's 
 gravity ; she pretended to sip the tea for a 
 minute, and then laid it on a table beside 
 her to cool. 
 
 The proceedings at the tea-table attract-
 
 30 a woman's trtals. 
 
 ed her attention, and caused her no small 
 amount of curiosity and amusement. The 
 moment a cup was poured out, half-a- 
 dozen hands were stretched out to snatch 
 it ; this was seldom achieved without por- 
 tion of the tea being spilt. The next move 
 after securing the prize was to make a dart 
 at the sugar-bowl, which was generally 
 emptied before half the company had ob- 
 tained a cup of the coveted hot water. The 
 disappointed ones, protesting against the 
 greediness of the others, pushed their way 
 out of the crowd round the table, jostling 
 and elbowing the successful candidates, so 
 as to shake the tea out of their cups, 
 thereby eliciting sundry indignant expos- 
 tulations, and cries of " malhonnete," 
 " gourmande," " que tu es grossiere," 
 
 Mabel's look of amazement did not 
 escape Olga or Miss Jones, who were both 
 watching her with amused countenances. 
 
 "You're not much edified, I fear," ob- 
 served the latter ; " but you'll be less 
 surprised at this specimen of French 
 politeness when you come to know more 
 of it." 
 
 " I could not have imagined anything so
 
 a woman's trials. 81 
 
 barbarous amongst civilized people. Why- 
 does Madame St. Simon allow it ?" in- 
 quired Miss Stanhope. 
 
 " Oh, Madame St. Simon does not see 
 it; her fauteuil is against the tea-table, 
 and she is too busy talking to the sous- 
 maitresse to mind what is going on behind 
 her." 
 
 " But you have forgotten your tea," 
 said Olga, turning towards the table where 
 Mabel had left her cup ; the cup had dis- 
 appeared. Mabel laughed ; she was rather 
 glad to have it disposed of, but she was 
 at a loss to understand what had become 
 of it. 
 
 Olga cast her eyes round the room, and 
 saw a French girl at a distance grinning 
 mischievously at the trio in the corner ; 
 she immediately suspected her to be the 
 thief. 
 
 " I'll go and tell Madame St. Simon," 
 she said angrily, " and have that nasty 
 Madeleine Renard punished for her inso- 
 lence." 
 
 " Oh, pray don't," pleaded Mabel, " I 
 feel quite grateful to her for saving me 
 the trouble of drinking it."
 
 32 a woman's trials. 
 
 " Well, let it be a lesson to you never 
 to leave anything of the sort in that girl's 
 way again, unless you want to get rid of 
 it," counselled Olga. 
 
 There were a few more dances after tea, 
 and then Madame St. Simon gave the 
 signal for the breaking up of the party. 
 The sortie was pretty much the same as 
 the entree ; the young ladies withdrew from 
 the salon as gracefully as they had entered 
 it. So ended Mabel's first evening at 
 BeUe-Yue.
 
 33 
 
 CHAPTEK II. 
 
 THE next day being Sunday, the English 
 girls did not go into class, and as 
 they were Protestants, Miss Jones took 
 them to morning service. 
 
 The sermon struck Mabel as being full 
 of practical good sense, and the preacher 
 as a simple earnest man, who thought more 
 of doing good to his hearers than of gain- 
 ing their admiration. She was too in- 
 experienced in controversial questions to 
 seize any defect of doctrine that it might- 
 contain ; but when the young ladies sat 
 down to breakfast on their return from 
 Church, a discussion arose as to the or- 
 thodoxy of the preacher and the sound- 
 ness of his views. Miss Jones breakfasted 
 with the parlour-boarders on Sunday in 
 the dining-room. Milly Jackson was the 
 first to begin. 
 
 " I wish Mr. Brown joy the next time 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 a woman's trials. 
 
 lie sees me in his Church ! One might as 
 well go to the Madeleine at once, and hear 
 an out and out Romanist sermon. I'll tell 
 Madame St. Simon I shan't go to church 
 any more, unless she can send me some- 
 where else." 
 
 " Really, my dear," said Miss Jones 
 mildly, " I don't see what you can find in 
 the Reverend Mr. Brown's sermon to object 
 to ; for my part, I think his views perfectly 
 sound, and himself a most godly man." 
 
 " Oh," retorted Milly, " I was not aware 
 that you were of his way of thinking. 
 Perhaps you send him an occasional pre- 
 sent of wax candles ; there was a grand 
 display this morning." 
 
 " Mesdemoiselles !" interposed Madame 
 Laurence, the French surintendante, who 
 presided at dejeuner when Madame St. 
 Simon was not present, " I must request 
 you to speak French ; politeness ought to 
 prevent your speaking a language I cannot 
 understand, and you know what strict 
 orders I have from Madame St. Simon on 
 the subject. She questioned me again last 
 night as to whether English was spoken 
 at table in her absence."
 
 a woman's trials. 35 
 
 "We were discussing something that 
 would not have been of the least interest 
 to you, Madame," explained Milly in 
 French. 
 
 "I daresay not," returned Madame 
 Laurence sarcastically ; " your conversa- 
 tion does not generally run on interesting 
 topics ; but it is my duty to see that you 
 speak French, and yours to obey the 
 wishes of your parents." 
 
 " Certainly, Madame," said Miss Jones; 
 " I ought to apologise in the name of these 
 young ladies for our impropriety in speak- 
 ing English, especially before you. We 
 were alluding to the sermon preached this 
 morning by our Minister." 
 
 " Speak in the singular if you please, 
 Miss Jones," said Milly pertly. "Mr. Brown 
 is no minister of mine, nor of any true 
 Protestant. I, for one, don't understand 
 his new-faugled doctrines, and I shan't 
 trouble him in a hurry again." 
 
 "What do you think of his preaching, 
 Henrietta?" said Miss Jones to a pensive 
 lackadaisical girl, who had, as yet, taken 
 no part in the conversation. 
 
 "I, oh ! I beg your pardon ; I was 
 
 i) 2
 
 36 A WOMAN S TRIALS, 
 
 thinking of something else. What did you 
 say ?" _ 
 
 Henrietta Wilson was a sentimental 
 young lady, who was always starting from 
 a reverie. 
 
 " Come down out of the clouds then," 
 said Milly Jackson, " and say if Mr. 
 Brown is not a most unprincipled man to 
 call himself a Church of England Minister, 
 and turn out such a figure as he treated 
 ns to this morning ; besides lighting tall 
 candles on the altar, as he calls it." 
 
 " Well, I can't agree with you that it is 
 unprincipled to wear a tight coat with silk 
 buttons, or even to burn candles on the 
 Communion table ; in fact, I rather like 
 candles, there is something poetic about 
 them ; then he has a delightful voice, and 
 reads so well." 
 
 " I think he is a duck of a preacher," 
 said Miss Woods, who made it a point 
 always to agree with the last speaker. 
 
 " Well, I don't," protested Milly, " and 
 I'll go with the first class to the Madeleine 
 next Sunday, if Madame St. Simon won't 
 let us go to the Rue St. Honore." 
 
 " You must try and agree amongst
 
 a woman's trials. 37 
 
 yourselves," observed Madame Laurence, 
 " for you cannot expect Madame St. Simon 
 to have sittings in every church in Paris 
 to suit your different tastes ; besides, there 
 is no one to go with you except Miss 
 Jones." 
 
 " Tant pis," replied Milly Jackson, " I'll 
 go to the Madeleine !" 
 
 " And so will I, and I," cried several 
 of the young girls, who had taken no part- 
 in the conversation but secretly sided with 
 Milly in her dislike to Mr. Brown's doc- 
 trines, or probably to his dress, of which 
 they were more capable of judging. 
 
 " My dears," reproved Miss Jones, in 
 tone of surprise and distress, " you cannot 
 seriously intend doing anything so wrong; 
 what would your parents say about it ? 
 Think of the risk to your own faith in ex- 
 posing yourselves to the dangerous in- 
 fluence of Catholic preaching, and those 
 ceremonies that are so apt to fascinate 
 young minds." 
 
 "One does not turn actress for going 
 to the theatre," said Milly, who continued 
 spokeswoman for the discontented party, 
 " and as for the preaching, it will do us
 
 38 a woman's teials. 
 
 a great deal of good to hear a fine French 
 sermon." 
 
 "Yes," replied Miss Jones, "if there 
 were no other objection, I would be only 
 too glad to assist every Sunday at one of 
 their sermons ; it is the best French lesson 
 one could have ; nothing familiarises one 
 so much with the idiom of the language." 
 
 The bell rang for recreation, the circle 
 broke up, and the discussion was laid 
 aside till the contending parties met that 
 evening in Milly Jackson's room. There 
 is was decided that eight of the pupils 
 should continue with Miss Jones to sit 
 under the obnoxious Mr. Brown, while 
 the others went with a French governess 
 and some five or six grown French girls 
 to the Madeleine, or whatever Catholic 
 Church they should select. The whole 
 thing looked rather unsatisfactory to 
 Mabel ; she had never heard the orthodoxy 
 of a preacher contested, and she was 
 puzzled to make out in what point of his 
 sermon Mr. Brown had drawn upon 
 himself the odium of his hearers. 
 
 The candles had struck her as odd, but 
 she set it down to the circumstance of
 
 a woman's teials. 39 
 
 their being in France, and accepted it as a 
 concession to the foreign habits of the 
 country. 
 
 It seemed to her too ud important a 
 thing to justify the outburst of indignation 
 that had startled her at the breakfast table. 
 Then the idea of improving the ortho- 
 doxical difficulty by goiug to a Catholic 
 Church, and assisting at devotions that 
 any honest Protestant must shrink from 
 as superstitious and false ! All this 
 puzzled Mabel as much as it shocked her. 
 
 That silly school-girls should venture 
 on such a step from ill-will towards an 
 individual, or as a piece of bravado that 
 looked grand because it was absurd and 
 audacious, did not so much surprise 
 her ; but that Madame St. Simon should 
 allow it, as no one seemed to doubt she 
 would, seemed to her an unpardonable 
 breach of trust. She remembered the 
 stress her mother had laid on that par- 
 ticular point, during her first conversation 
 with Madame St. Simon, and how decided 
 that lady's assurance had been, as to the 
 strictness with which she watched over 
 the religious education of her English
 
 40 a woman's trials. 
 
 pupils. Of course it was no affair of hers 
 if Milly Jackson and her three friends 
 chose to go to a Catholic Church; it did 
 not involve her in the discredit or the 
 danger of such a proceeding ; indeed 
 from what she had seen of Milly she 
 felt convinced it was more from her 
 love of change and excitement, or per- 
 haps foolish spite, that she had taken 
 the initiative in rebelling against Mr. 
 Brown ; but it shook her confidence in 
 Madame St. Simon, it destroyed the castle- 
 buildiug she had indulged in with regard 
 to that lady, whom she had been prepared 
 to look upon as the representative of her 
 mother, and had already decked in all the 
 attributes of maternal goodness. It made 
 her look forward to the time she was to 
 pass at Belle- Yue with a certain uneasi- 
 ness. If there was not to be peace and 
 security on this point, where was she to 
 find them ?
 
 41 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE Examination day came round for 
 the second time since Mabel's arrival 
 at Belle-Yue. It was preceded by the bustle 
 that always accompanies such events, and 
 elicits an amount of fresh, healthy excite- 
 ment never known out of school days. 
 
 Milly Jackson with her habitual non- 
 chalance, had taken things easy, trusting 
 to her stars to come off respectably when 
 the day came. She was in the first class ; 
 how she came there was as great a puzzle 
 to herself as to anybody else. 
 
 " I was born under a lucky star," she 
 used to say, " you'll see I'll come off better 
 than people who give themselves no end 
 of trouble." 
 
 " What is the first thing we are to be 
 examined in?" inquired Henrietta Wilson, 
 languidly turning over the leaves of a 
 novel that she had been reading surrepti-
 
 42 a woman's teials. 
 
 ously for the last three days, holding it 
 on her knees, while apparently poring 
 over an open school book on her desk. 
 
 "Roman history," replied Mabel Stan- 
 hope, " I thought it was to be geography, 
 but Monsieur Corambert does not come 
 to-day. It appears he is ill, and won't come 
 till next week." 
 
 " What a pity !" exclaimed Henrietta, 
 " and I had prepared so nicely for him." 
 
 "What a bore!" cried Milly Jackson, 
 flinging her geography into the middle of 
 the room, " I haven't looked at the Roman 
 history ; I am sure to be caughl this 
 time." 
 
 " Never fear, Milly," said Mabel, " come 
 and sit next me, and I'll prompt you. 
 Monsieur Belille never asks you much, and 
 you are sure to fall on something you 
 know." 
 
 "Where do we begin ?" inquired Milly, 
 pouncing on her Roman history, and shoot- 
 ing over the leaves with her thumb. 
 
 " At the first Punic war," replied Mabel. 
 
 Milly accepting her invitation, had 
 crossed over the bench and sat down be- 
 side her.
 
 a woman's trials. 43 
 
 " Well," said Milly, " you must let me 
 sit at the top of the form, and I'll go 
 in for the first Punic." 
 
 There was a general asseut ; Milly was 
 a universal favourite, and all were willing 
 to give her a helping hand out of her diffi- 
 culties. 
 
 " Don't count too surely on getting the 
 first question, I advise you," suggested 
 Henrietta Wilson, " you know Monsieur 
 Belille likes to take one by surprise, 
 and I think he suspects we learn our 
 words, for he often begins in the middle 
 of the chapter." 
 
 " I'm done for if he does to-day," said 
 Milly, shaking her head, "but you'll see 
 I'll come off with flying colours, and bring 
 in Pegulus at the death." So saying, she 
 flattened out the book, gave it a thump in 
 the middle to make it lie down, and then 
 began fighting over the first Punic war in 
 a low voice, beating her chest now and 
 again with a vigour that made one fancy 
 her memory was hid somewhere in that 
 direction, and that she was pounding the 
 words into it. 
 
 There was a cessation of all noises, ex-
 
 44 a woman's trials. 
 
 cept the muttering of the lessons that were 
 conned over in low whisperings. Presently 
 the bell rang, and Madame Laurence step- 
 ped down from her marche-pied, where she 
 had been giving the last touch to the com- 
 positions that were to be submitted to the 
 Professor. 
 
 A red velvet arm-chair was placed beside 
 the table for Madame St. Simon, who never 
 made her appearance in class except on 
 such occasions, or when doing the honours 
 to her visitors. There was a noise of foot- 
 steps along the stone passage, and of 
 voices in pleasant conversation. 
 
 " Ouvrez, Mesdemoiselles. C'est Ma- 
 dame I" Mademoiselle Penard a pretty 
 coquette, with blue eyes and a brown skin, 
 who called herself a blonde, obeyed the 
 summons, and threw open the folding 
 doors. 
 
 Madame St. Simon, followed by the Pro- 
 fessor, entered bowing and smiling to the 
 young ladies. 
 
 " Bon jour, mes cheres enfants. Vous 
 allez me dire de belles choses aujourd'hui, 
 n'est-ce pas ?" 
 
 No one answered, but there was a buzz
 
 a woman's teials. 45 
 
 and a flutter that satisfied Madame St. 
 Simon her presence had caused a proper 
 degree of sensation. 
 
 She swept past the desks where her 
 pupils remained standing until she was 
 seated. After a moment's pause, of which 
 Monsieur Belille took advantage to arrange 
 his copy-books, while the French girls bit 
 their lips to coral red, and the English girls 
 threw themselves into as comfortable an 
 attitude as was possible on a hard, backless 
 bench, the seance was opened. 
 
 " Mademoiselle Jacqueson," began Mon- 
 sieur Belille in a mild voice, bowing to the 
 young lady he addressed, "you will be 
 good enough to let us have a succinct resume 
 of the second Punic war." 
 
 There was a death-like silence. 
 
 " Pauvre Meely, la voila attrapee !" was 
 the cry that rose to every tongue. Milly 
 stood up, and after casting an encouraging 
 look round the room, as if to re-assure her 
 friends, cleared her throat, and replied : 
 " Monsieur, before entering on the second, 
 it might be well to cast a glance at the 
 first Punic war, of which it was a continu- 
 ation ; and this will enable us to understand
 
 46 a woman's trials. 
 
 better the character and cause of the 
 second." Monsieur Belille assented, and 
 Milly began her narrative. 
 
 She had a clear, full voice, spoke French 
 with great fluency, and possessed a natural 
 flow of language not without a certain 
 brilliancy. A rapid style, heightened by 
 her animated face and her imperturbable 
 sang-froid, carried her through her subject 
 with decided success. She sketched briefly 
 the destruction of the Carthaginian fleet 
 by the Romans under Duilius, the triumphs 
 of Regulus, so closely followed by his fall; 
 she hurried on with animation through the 
 history of the noble Roman's captivity ; 
 his mission to Rome, so fruitful in wise 
 counsel to his country and glory to himself; 
 his return to Carthage, where vengeance 
 and death awaited him, casting a stigma 
 of cowardice and cruelty on the foes who 
 were incapable of admiring the heroic self- 
 sacrifice which made the patriot forget his 
 own safety in the welfare of his country. 
 Milly paused for a moment after the death 
 of Regulus. 
 
 " Maintenant, Monsieur, passons a la 
 deuxieme guerre Punique."
 
 a woman's trials. 47 
 
 " C'est assez, Mademoiselle, c'est assez," 
 said Monsieur Belille, " I see you have 
 thoroughly studied the subject." 
 
 " And delivered it equally well," added 
 Madame St. Simon approvingly. " I am 
 glad to be able to compliment you in pre- 
 sence of your companions, my dear, on 
 your industry and improvement in narra- 
 tion ; I trust it will encourage them to 
 follow your example I" 
 
 Milly bowed, and resumed her seat, 
 while Mabel continued the subject, taking 
 it up from where her neighbour had 
 dropped it. With her high notions of 
 honour and uncompromising truth, Mabel 
 was pained and shocked at the simple, 
 satisfied manner with which Milly accepted 
 the praise her conscience must have told 
 her she deserved so little. She could not 
 bear to think Milly was deceitful, or ca- 
 pable of a deliberate falsehood — but was 
 not this falsehood in action ? 
 
 Perhaps Milly was distressed in her 
 heart, and longing to disclaim the appro- 
 bation she had won so unfairly. Mabel 
 would have given anything to look at her 
 and see how she bore it ; but that was
 
 48 A WOMAN'S TE1ALS. 
 
 impossible just yet, for she was behind 
 Mabel, whose face was turned towards the 
 Professor. It may have been this vexed 
 question which kept puzzling her so as to 
 prevent her continuing clearing the thread 
 of Milly's discourse ; it may have been 
 that her natural timidity was getting the 
 better of her, and preventing her doing 
 full justice to herself, as it had often done 
 before, especially when Madame St. Simon 
 was present ; it may have been that both 
 causes combined to unnerve her, and 
 prevent her speaking with anything like 
 fluency or self-possession. 
 
 Mabel was a great favourite with all her 
 mistresses, and each of them knew that 
 on occasions like the present, when they 
 were most anxious that she should do 
 credit to herself and to them, she was 
 least capable of shining. 
 
 Madame St. Simon had so little inter- 
 course with her pupils beyond the common- 
 places of the dinner table conversation, 
 that she had but slight opportunity of judg- 
 ing of their character and capabilities, or 
 of appreciating fairly any apparent short- 
 coming, such as Mabel's to-day.
 
 a woman's teials. 49 
 
 " I am sorry,' ' she said, reprovingly, as 
 the young girl stood trembling and con- 
 fused under her cold, bright eye, "lam 
 sorry to find you so little improved since 
 the last examination. I am writing to 
 your dear mother to-day, and hoped to 
 have been able to report favourably of 
 your studies from to-day's trial." 
 
 Mabel clasped her hands tightly to- 
 gether ; she would have given every chance 
 of success for the next year to have been 
 able to speak, but the only words that 
 would come, were a beseeching " Oh, Ma- 
 dame!" 
 
 The tears were rolling down her cheeks. 
 
 Monsieur Belille knew that Mabel had 
 broken down purely from nervousness ; 
 her copies and compositions proved more 
 satisfactorily than any verbal answers could 
 do, how conscientiously she studied. He 
 was touched by her tears and her beauty. 
 Perhaps the latter would have been suffi- 
 cient to make him look leniently on a 
 greater crime. He turned over some copy 
 books that were piled on the desk beside 
 him, and, on coming to Mabel's, handed it 
 to Madame St. Simon, saying : 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 a woman's trials. 
 
 " Madame, if you will look over some 
 of Mademoiselle's historical compositions, 
 it will convince you that idleness has not 
 been the cause of her failure in the Punic 
 war. It is a sad pity she is so nervous, 
 for it prevents her doing justice to herself 
 or to her teachers." 
 
 "For their sakes, Mademoiselle should 
 try and conquer it," replied Madame St. 
 Simon, taking the manuscript from him; 
 " and be assured, my dear," addressing 
 Mabel, " that self-possession is much more 
 charming than nervousness ; it never runs 
 the risk of being mistaken for affecta- 
 tion." 
 
 Madame St. Simon never lost an oppor- 
 tunity of saying a cutting thing, when she 
 could do so, without being suspected of 
 injustice. It was a principle of hers that 
 young people should be humbled as much 
 as possible ; it was the secret way of root- 
 ing out vanity, and teaching them self- 
 control. She was too clever a woman, 
 and far too clear-sighted, not to feel in 
 her inmost heart that in this case it was 
 an injustice, for no one could look into 
 Mabel Stanhope's pure young face without
 
 a woman's teials. 51 
 
 feeling satisfied that no shadow of affecta- 
 tion conld approach her. 
 
 There was depth, great depth, in the 
 full, soft eye, but it was transparent as 
 the sunlight, and as pure. 
 
 Whatever the reason might be, if she 
 had any more denned one than the plea- 
 sure of saying an unkind thing, Madame 
 St. Simon thought proper to interpret her 
 pupil's agitation as an attempt to attract 
 attention, and treated it with the severity 
 such a pettiness would have deserved. 
 
 Madame Laurence meantime sat silently 
 listening and looking, but not daring to 
 testify either in the case of Milly's triumph, 
 or Mabel's failure. Each was the gift of 
 accident, of that she felt convinced; but 
 to dispute Madame St. Simon's sentence in 
 open Court, to stand up in defence of one 
 pupil and condemnation of another, when 
 the oracle had passed judgment on them, 
 that was a deed of heroism that the sous- 
 maitresse dare not contemplate; yet this 
 poor, broken-spirited woman had been for 
 more than twelve years in Madame St. 
 Simon's service ; she had given the best 
 years of her life, and slaved with more 
 
 e 2 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
 
 52 a woman's teials. 
 
 than a slave's devotedness at the task she 
 had undertaken. She plied away at her 
 knitting, without daring to look at Mabel ; 
 her nerves could not bear the silent re- 
 proach of the poor child's tears. They 
 were not flowing from the humiliation of 
 unmerited defeat, Madame Laurence knew 
 that, for she had watched her anxiously 
 while going through the ordeal, and saw 
 the first tear start, only when Madame St. 
 Simon held out the implied threat of com- 
 plaining to Lady Stanhope. Mabel was 
 so gentle to every one, and so respectful 
 to all her teachers, that it would have been 
 difficult to say with whom she was the 
 greatest favourite ; but thrown more con- 
 stantly with Madame Laurence, from being 
 in her class, that lady had closer oppor- 
 tunities than any other mistress of discern- 
 ing her character and appreciating it. Her 
 love for her mother was Mabel's ruling 
 passion, and the possibility of Madame St. 
 Simon writing to Lady Stanhope so as to 
 cause her a moment's displeasure or dis- 
 appointment, was more galling to the 
 young girl's heart than any punishment 
 that could be inflicted on herself.
 
 a woman's trials. 53 
 
 Miss Jones was sitting opposite to her, 
 too much absorbed in some idioms that 
 she had picked up about the house during 
 the morning, to have caught all that had 
 been going on before Madame St. Simon's 
 appearance in the school-room ; but like 
 every one else, she knew that Milly Jack- 
 son's success was just as little the result of 
 study as Mabel's breakdown was of idleness. 
 
 " Why doesn't Madame Laurence stand 
 up for her ?" was the first idea that sug- 
 gested itself, on hearing Madame St. 
 Simon's unjust remarks. She looked to- 
 wards the sous-maitresse, whose eyes were 
 riveted on her knitting, as if her soul 
 were bent on arriving at some conclusion 
 mth her needles. Miss Jones gave a loud 
 "hem." Madame Laurence was impassible. 
 Not so Madame St. Simon ; she looked up 
 inquiringly from the inspection of the 
 copy-book. Now is the moment, thought 
 Miss Jones, feeling as if she were about to 
 make a desperate plunge into some invi- 
 sible gulf. 
 
 " Madame," she began in French, with 
 a violent English accent. " Je considere 
 il eSt de mon devoir de protester."
 
 54 a woman's teials. 
 
 "Against what?" demanded Madame 
 St. Simon. 
 
 "Against injustice ! Mademoiselle Stan- 
 hope is the most studious pupil in the 
 school, as Madame Laurence can testify," 
 looking very decidedly towards that lady, 
 who continued pertinaciously buried in her 
 knitting, which seemed to have got itself 
 into an inextricable tangle. 
 
 " Je ne veux pas me melanger dans la 
 conscience des autres, mais je considere il 
 est mon devoir de testifier !" 
 
 There was a suppressed murmur of ap- 
 probation, while Milly Jackson whispered 
 across the desk " Bravo old, Jo !" Madame 
 St. Simon would have probably met the 
 unprecedented interference from any other 
 mistress with a haughty rebuke that 
 would have withered the offender into thin 
 air; but any such attempt would have 
 been thrown away on Miss Jones. She 
 was too single-minded to understand the 
 airs and graces of the Frenchwoman, and 
 too stern a worshipper of truth to have 
 been deterred from doing the right thing 
 by any amount of contempt or ridicule it 
 might entail. Madame St. Simon knew
 
 a woman's trials. 55 
 
 this, and generally showed more indul- 
 gence to Miss Jones's sallies and sorties, 
 that were often of the most original and 
 inopportune description, than she would 
 ha^e done to a slight breach of etiquette 
 from any other inmate of her house. 
 
 She had, besides, been looking atten- 
 tively through Mabel's copy-books, and 
 they were such as to justify completely 
 the encomiums of her master and of Miss 
 Jones's testification. 
 
 She was not a kind woman, and the 
 natural harshness of her nature made her 
 often push severity to the verge of tyranny; 
 but she saw she had been mistaken, and 
 was disposed to acknowledge it. 
 
 " Can you corroborate this testimony in 
 favour of Mademoiselle Mabel?'' she in- 
 quired, turning to Madame Laurence. 
 
 " Oh, most willingly, and most truly," 
 replied the nervous sous-maitresse, only 
 too glad to have the chance of doing justice 
 to her favourite without incurring the 
 deity's wrath. " I should have borne 
 witness, as Miss Jones, has done, to her 
 industry and great ability, but I was so 
 taken aback by her failure that I had
 
 56 a woman's tkials. 
 
 not presence ©f mind to do it at once. My 
 nerves are quite overdone." 
 
 " Perhaps the weakness is contagions," 
 observed Madame St. Simon, with a smile 
 that looked like a sneer. If there was one 
 thing Madame St. Simon despised above 
 any other, it was nerves. Madame Lau- 
 rence collapsed. 
 
 "Ma chere enfant," said Madame St. 
 Simon to Mabel, who had recovered her- 
 self during the last few minutes, "I am 
 most thankful to accept the good testi- 
 mony of your teachers, and I trust that 
 for their sakes, as well as for your own, 
 you will try to correct that most absurd 
 weakness; nervousness, I think you call 
 it ?" turning sarcastically to Madame 
 Laurence. " It is the worst enemy a 
 rational being can be hampered with; it 
 prevents your faculties from having full 
 play, and if not conquered early degene- 
 rates into something too like imbecility to 
 be easily distinguished from it." 
 
 Having delivered herself of this piece 
 of advice, apparently for Mabel's special 
 advantage, but in reality as a covert 
 blow at poor Madame Laurence, whose knit-
 
 a woman's trials. 57 
 
 ting had now grown quite unmanageable, 
 she begged Monsieur Belille to continue 
 the examination, expressing a hope that 
 there might be no more interruptions of 
 the same nature. 
 
 All this clever skirmishing might be very 
 amusing to the lookers on, and very exhil- 
 arating to Miss Milly Jackson, but Mabel 
 Stanhope could not bring herself to see the 
 matter in this satisfactory light. There 
 was a right and a wrong in the question. 
 
 It appeared to her, the right was always 
 getting worsted in these passages between 
 master and pupil ; the sole object of the 
 latter being to " dodge" the question suc- 
 cessfully. 
 
 It was no duty of Mabel's to interfere; 
 but it was a sort of thing that made her 
 uncomfortable, and precluded anything like 
 friendship between herself and the success- 
 ful dodgers. 
 
 The French girls responded to her ex- 
 pressions of astonishment by ridicule, ban- 
 tering Mabel on her puritanical scruples, 
 which they treated as simple betise. They 
 had received their intelligence to use it, 
 and to what better use could they apply it
 
 58 a woman's trials. 
 
 than to save themselves trouble, and cheat 
 their masters adroitly ? 
 
 The immorality of such opinions struck 
 Mabel more painfully coming from her 
 own countrywomen. They were quite sin- 
 cere in their ultra-liberal view of the 
 question. Many amongst them who would 
 have shrunk with sensitive conscientious- 
 ness from an act they believed really wrong 
 committed practical offences against truth, 
 in dealing with their masters, without a 
 shadow of remorse. 
 
 An episode which brought out some of 
 the least amiable characteristics of the 
 French girls, occurred a few days after 
 the examinations. Amongst the least 
 esteemed of the many light-fingered 
 charlatans, who went by the name of 
 artists at Belle-Vue, was one old Ger- 
 man, . called Herr Carl. He was so old, 
 or what comes pretty nearly to the same 
 thing, he looked so old, that many of his 
 pupils believed him to have been contem- 
 porary with Beethoven. At all events, he 
 had lived so completely in spirit with the 
 grand maitre, as he reverently styled the 
 German poet, that he had grown almost
 
 a woman's trials. 59 
 
 to believe lie had known him in reality, 
 and heard from his own lips many of the 
 lessons he now imparted to others. 
 
 The oldest pupil in the school remem- 
 bered to have seen him always in the same 
 hat, a peculiar broad-brimmed hat, bearing 
 inside a faded green patch with the German 
 maker's name inscribed in gold letters, 
 long since illegible. 
 
 In the midst of his poverty, the music 
 master preserved a cleanliness that re- 
 deemed and dignified its penury. Indeed, 
 he seemed so unconscious of it, so com- 
 placently satisfied with his position, that 
 most of the thoughtless young things who 
 never looked below the surface, and were 
 incapable of understanding what lay hidden 
 there, believed the old man to be a miser 
 who had gold hoarded up in teapots and old 
 stockings, and starved and froze himself ra- 
 ther than part with one of his bright Louis. 
 
 It is so difficult for youth, happy, opu- 
 lent youth, to believe in poverty ! They 
 read of it in novels, where heroes and 
 heroines play at sentimental misery ; but 
 they acknowledge its presence in real life 
 only when it presents itself in rags.
 
 60 a woman's trials. 
 
 stretching out a famished hand for the 
 crumbs that fall from the rich man's table. 
 
 Herr Carl had none of these recognised 
 attributes to his poverty, so the music- 
 mad philosopher came to be called a miser. 
 He neither begged nor whined, but held 
 his head erect with the dignity of inde- 
 pendence ; he had never borrowed a penny 
 in his life ; had never done a mean or an 
 unjust action, if he knew it ; he toiled for 
 his bread honestly, and such as it was, 
 Herr Carl was content with it. 
 
 It was Saturday, the day on which he 
 attended at Belle-Yue ; the few who had 
 the ill-appreciated privilege of being his 
 pupils were assembled in the music-room, 
 waiting his arrival. 
 
 The old man's punctuality had, like his 
 poverty, passed into a proverb. 
 
 He gave his lesson at four o'clock, and 
 at the first stroke of the great horloge 
 in the courtyard, he stood at the door of 
 the salle de musique, bowing to his pupils, 
 with the rusty hat in one hand, and his 
 threadbare brown gloves (which, to save 
 time, he always pulled off in the corridor) 
 in the other.
 
 a woman's teials. 61 
 
 Madame St. Simon, who, like all true 
 disciplinarians, was as punctual as a post- 
 man, valued this trait in Herr Carl's 
 character beyond every other quality he 
 possessed ; she once paid him the compli- 
 ment of setting her watch by his ring at 
 the gate. The Professor himself owned 
 no such luxury as a watch, but long habit 
 had taught him to judge of the lapse of 
 time as accurately as if the chiming of a 
 time-piece had warned him of the flight of 
 every half hour as it passed. 
 
 " Mesdemoiselles," he began, bowing 
 first to one side and then to the other, " we 
 are going to read a little Bach to-day." 
 
 " Oh, Monsieur Carl," exclaimed Olga 
 Czerlinska " won't you let us finish that 
 sonata of Beethoven's that we got half 
 through last time ?" 
 
 " Ha, ha, you want the grand maitre 
 again to-day, do you ?" rubbing his hands 
 with a malignant grin ; " no, no, that won't 
 do ; we must learn to spell before we read; 
 we must learn to walk before we run." 
 
 "But you promised us to finish the 
 Pathetique, and I'm dying to get through it, 
 Monsieur Carl," returned Olga poutingly.
 
 62 a woman's trials. 
 
 " Ha ! so your teeth water for it, do 
 they ? Very good ; we'll wait a little longer; 
 it will do them no harm. Grimace all 
 that!" he muttered to himself, " much 
 she knows about the beauties of the grand 
 maitre /" He grumbled this flattering re- 
 flexion to himself in German ; the person 
 he was talking at, was supposed not to 
 understand his mother-tongue; not that 
 her doing so would have in the least dis- 
 composed the old gentleman. He made it 
 a matter of conscience to snub anv well- 
 intentioned remark his pupils ever ven- 
 tured to advance on the classics, whether 
 it expressed admiration or the reverse ; 
 in his eyes, one was as unjustifiably pre- 
 sumptuous as the other; the only tribute 
 of appreciation he tolerated was atten- 
 tion, silent, and humble. " We shall 
 finish exploring that gold mine one of 
 these days," he continued in French, lay- 
 ing the Pathetique tenderly on one side ; 
 "in the meantime here is a silver one, let's 
 see how much ore we can get out of it." 
 
 " I don't care about Bach," said Olga, 
 turning away from the piano. 
 
 " Neither do I," whispered Mabel to the
 
 A WOMAN S TEIALS. 63 
 
 pretty Polonaise, " but the sooner we dis- 
 patch hira, the sooner we shall have Bee- 
 thoven again ; besides our friend is as 
 headstrong as a Turk, there is no use in 
 arguing with him." 
 
 " Vieille perruque !" muttered Madeleine 
 Renard, distorting her piquant features 
 into a grimace. 
 
 "He's an old humbug," said Milly 
 Jackson, " he bores one to death with his 
 classics, and I can't see the fun of them." 
 
 " Nobody expects the classics to be 
 funny," remarked Mabel, " with all your 
 ingenuity I don't think you'll succeed in 
 getting much fun out of Mozart and 
 Handel." 
 
 " Now, Mab, don't be logical, there's 
 nothing bores one like logic. Here we go, 
 old fogey, ready to pitch into the majors !" 
 
 This last apostrophe was intended for 
 Herr Carl, who, during the foregoing con- 
 versation, had been screwing the piano 
 stool to its proper height ; a proceeding 
 not accomplished without some delay, for 
 while it was a hair's breadth above or 
 below regulation height, the Professor 
 persevered twisting it up and twisting it
 
 64 a woman's trials. 
 
 down till he arrived at the precise eleva- 
 tion required. The lesson began, and the 
 old man gave himself up to it with an 
 earnestness and an energy that would have 
 won an equally earnest response from any 
 but those hare-brained school-girls. 
 
 How often must the best of us look 
 back with regret and self-reproach to the 
 cruelty which let our teachers labour to 
 impart to us some lesson that we struggled 
 quite as conscientiously not to take in. So 
 Herr Carl worked away as if the gold 
 medal of Munich were to reward his 
 efforts. He opened out to those flighty 
 young spirits the beauties of the master- 
 piece before them ; he disentangled every 
 intricate passage, illustrating on the keys, 
 each verbal explanation. 
 
 Sometimes, when there came a sudden 
 change from darkness to light, from sad- 
 ness to joy, the musician's eye would light 
 up with a strange beauty. The cold fishy 
 look gave way to the brightness of emo- 
 tion, as if some unseen lamp were kindled 
 in his brain, shedding its mellow light 
 through the green orbs. 
 
 Seldom, very seldom, did he meet with
 
 a woman's trials. 65 
 
 a kindred glance ; when he did it was from 
 Mabel Stanhope. Not that she always 
 understood the thrill which the wild Ger- 
 man music sent through her heart, but 
 she felt it, and he saw that she felt it. 
 For one such response Herr Carl would 
 have waited patiently all day, toiling at 
 his ungrateful task. 
 
 To-day Mabel was determined to be 
 more than usually attentive, for she saw 
 that she was probably the only one present 
 disposed to listen to him. It was enough 
 that one did listen. Herr Carl bent all his 
 zeal on Mabel, determined that, for an 
 hour at least, she should enter into his 
 spirit and drink in draughts of harmony 
 from his fatherland. 
 
 Olga, too, grew interested in the master's 
 glowing interpretation; something of his 
 enthusiasm was gaining her. It was never 
 difficult to excite hers when music was in 
 question, and by the time the lesson was 
 half over she had forgiven Herr Carl, and 
 even acknowledged that Bach had beauties 
 enough to console her for the postpone- 
 ment of Beethoven's sonata. The old man 
 had grown so absorbed in his pupils that 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 C6 a woman's trials. 
 
 he had not noticed the listless attitudes of 
 the others, some of whom had moved 
 away from the piano to a distant part of 
 the room. Their careless answers when he 
 had tried to awaken their attention, or 
 elicit a solution of some complicated chord, 
 had irritated and soon wearied him ; so he 
 left them to their ignorance, and consoled 
 himself by imparting his instructions with 
 redoubled zeal to Mabel and Olga. 
 
 The clock struck five. Herr Carl 
 rose as if some electric spring within him 
 had been touched, and paralysed his fingers 
 on the instrument. He thanked Miss 
 Stanhope and Mademoiselle Czerlinska for 
 the attention they had lent him, and walk- 
 ing hastily to the door, seized his hat, 
 which lay on a table near it. He was in the 
 act of raising it for a parting salute, when 
 the weather-beaten crown came rattling 
 to the ground, with the old brown gloves 
 on top of it. 
 
 The master started ; his first idea was 
 that age had done its work, and that his 
 trusty head-gear had bent under the last 
 half-ounce. He seemed perplexed and 
 sorry, but there was not one tinge of
 
 a woman's trials. 67 
 
 smarting pride or shame upon his counte- 
 nance. He looked at the fallen crown and 
 said playfully : " Pauyre chapeau ! thou 
 hast served me well, I ought to have let 
 thee rest sooner !" 
 
 A suppressed titter, followed by what 
 school-girls call an explosion, roused him 
 from his meditation on the mutilated hat ; 
 he turned abruptly towards a group of 
 four or five of his French pupils, and met 
 their eyes sparkling with mischief and 
 mockery. 
 
 The old man gazed at them for a mo- 
 ment in silence. The blood mounted 
 slowly through the parched skin, and his 
 eyes had a light in them not goodly to see. 
 The culprits shrank under his glance ; not 
 even Madeleine Eenard dared meet it un- 
 abashed. The true state of the case had 
 struck the other pupils more quickly than 
 it had done Herr Carl, and they were in 
 hopes he would have gon£ away without 
 discovering it ; but they were mistaken. 
 
 He stooped to pick up the gloves, w^hen 
 Mabel Stanhope sprang forward in time to 
 prevent it, and handed them to him. She 
 felt for her companions all the shame they 
 
 F 2
 
 68 a woman's trials. 
 
 ought to have felt for themselves, and 
 longed to say something to the old Pro- 
 fessor, something that would speak more 
 admiration than pity, but the right words 
 would not come. Perhaps the silent de- 
 ference of her manner spoke more elo- 
 quently than words could have done, for a 
 tear stood in the music-master's eye as he 
 took the gloves from her hand, and looked 
 at the gentle face flushed with indignant 
 shame and true womanly pity. 
 
 " Merci, mon enfant," and he bowed a 
 a low courtly bow to the young girl 
 "merci!" Then turning towards the 
 guilty group near the window, but this 
 time with a softened glance, as if the kind- 
 ness of one had pleaded for all. " Jeu- 
 nesse," he said, forcing a smile, " never 
 make a laughing-stock of poor old age, it 
 brings no blessing." 
 
 The door opened. 
 
 They cried out, " Pardon, Monsieur, 
 pardon !" but it was too late ; the Profes- 
 sor was gone. 
 
 " Who did it ?" were the first words 
 uttered by several voices together, when 
 the door had closed behind him.
 
 a woman's trials. 69 
 
 The four in the window all screamed out 
 at once, each throwing it on the other as 
 being the originator of the deed. 
 
 " It was a shabby trick," exclaimed 
 Milly, " I can't see the fun of it." 
 
 " It was a heartless, vulgar joke," said 
 Olga. 
 
 The offenders were thoroughly ashamed 
 of themselves, and bitterly repented 
 what they had done. % 
 
 " It was Madeleine that proposed it," 
 exclaimed Marie de Ricane, " I didn't want 
 to have anything to do with it ; I knew we 
 should get into a scrape. Of course the 
 old perruque will inform before he goes 
 home to-day." 
 
 " Vous mentez," retorted Madeleine fu- 
 riously. " It was not I suggested it ; 
 it was yourself." 
 
 "Whoever suggested it," interposed 
 Mabel Stanhope, " I suspect you executed 
 it, Madeleine ; if I had known what use you 
 intended making of my penknife when you 
 asked me to lend it to you before we left 
 class, I should not have given it." 
 
 " Merci pour rien !" returned Madeleine, 
 flinging the penknife across at Mabel ; it
 
 70 a woman's tetals. 
 
 must have struck her full in the face had 
 not Olga, with quick presence of mind, 
 thrust out her arm between Mabel and the 
 well aimed missile, which struck her hand 
 and then rebounded to the floor. Mabel 
 snatched up the penknife and raised her 
 hand to dash it back on the assailant, but 
 her wrist was grasped so tightly, that the 
 knife dropped from her powerless fingers. 
 The momentary pause was enough to calm 
 her excitement. 
 
 " Thank you, Olga," she exclaimed im- 
 pulsively, " you have saved me from self- 
 contempt ; if I had struck that girl, 1 
 should have despised myself as much as I 
 do her."
 
 71 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE next day, when the English girls 
 went out for their usual airing, it 
 was agreed amongst Herr Carl's pupils 
 that they should buy him a hat to replace 
 the one that had received its death blow 
 from the hand of Madeleine Renard. 
 
 Miss Jones, whose kind heart was deeply 
 touched at Mabel Stanhope's account of 
 that young lady's misdemeanour, readily 
 acquiesced in her desire to atone for it ; 
 and accordingly they elbowed their way 
 along the crowded Boulevards to the grand 
 hatter's, whose window gloried in the Im- 
 perial arms surrounded by the talismanic 
 words : Fournissenr cle sa Majeste VEm- 
 pereur. 
 
 " We are sure to get a good one here," 
 said Milly Jackson, " the old fogey will be 
 coiffe for the rest of his days." 
 
 " If you could drop that vulgar habit of
 
 72 t a woman's trials. 
 
 talking slang, my dear," reproved Miss 
 Jones, " and that rude way of qualifying 
 everybody as old ; Herr Carl is no more 
 than a middle-aged gentleman." 
 
 " Who's going to be spokesman ?" asked 
 Milly, turning a deaf ear to the governess's 
 observation, " you know how to come over 
 the black whiskers, Miss Jones, so we will 
 leave you to walk into that ineffable dandy 
 behind the counter. Just look at his 
 moustache ! shouldn't I like to give it a 
 tug ! I suppose he thinks he's going to 
 stick the spikes of it into our little 'arts." 
 
 " If you can't contain yourself, and cease 
 those ridiculous remarks so much against 
 good taste and good sense, I shall leave 
 the shop." 
 
 Miss Jones stood bolt upright in the 
 middle of the magasin, while she addressed 
 this warning to her pupil. " I won't 
 budge," promised Milly, putting on a 
 mock-modest air, absurdly at variance 
 with the natural expression of her face. 
 
 " Qu'aurai-je l'honneur de faire voir a 
 ces dames ?" demanded black whiskers. 
 
 " Un chapeau pour un gentilhomme de 
 moyen-age," replied Miss Jones.
 
 woman's trials. 
 
 " Lemari de Madame," put in Milly in a 
 voice so low that it escaped the ear of 
 the unconscious spinster. 
 
 The man turned aside to look for some 
 suitable article, or perhaps to hide a smile, 
 that in spite of his politeness crept over his 
 face. 
 
 Amongst all the amiable qualities of the 
 French, and they are numerous, perhaps 
 there is not one that should excite the 
 admiration and emulation of foreigners 
 more than their heroic powers of endu- 
 rance under the most trying provocation 
 of their risibility. Englishmen and women 
 especially should bear this in mind, and 
 be grateful for it, which they are not. 
 
 " They murder our language just as 
 much as we do theirs," says John Bull. 
 
 Granted, but they do it in a diffident, 
 self-accusing way, that disarms our satire 
 even when it provokes our laughter. 
 
 The polite individual whose nerves were 
 about to undergo no ordinary shock from 
 the fire of Miss Jones' vocabulary, pro- 
 ceeded with edifying sang-froid to pro- 
 duce a number of hats for her inspection. 
 
 There was an inexhaustible supply to
 
 74 a woman's teials. 
 
 choose from, of the most elegant and 
 fashionable shapes ; the one most in favour 
 with the Parisian beaux, the shopman in- 
 formed his customers, was the narrow 
 brim cut off close to the head. 
 
 " That's just the thing," suggested Milly 
 Jackson, as she took it up for inspection, 
 " it will be such fun to see it swearing at 
 old Carl's brown regimentals, instead of 
 that dilapidated old chimney pot of his, 
 that used to look like a scare-crow on his 
 bald pate." 
 
 " Oh, anything but that !" pleaded 
 Mabel, appalled at the idea of seeing the 
 poor old Professor, with the polished, dan- 
 dified head-gear, shining over his rusty 
 suit, " he would be a perfect fright, Milly." 
 
 "You are quite right, my dear," replied 
 Miss Jones, "no one but that silly girl 
 could suggest such a choice ; but really 
 it is puzzling to know what to take. I 
 fear the plainest will look out of keeping 
 on the good old gentleman." 
 
 She leaned her elbow on the counter, 
 nodding her grizzly curls at the array of 
 hats strewed out on it. Suddenly a 
 bright idea seemed to strike her ; she mut-
 
 a woman's trials. 75 
 
 tered something to herself, and turning to 
 Mabel whispered : " How do you say 
 ( crush' in French ?" 
 
 " E eraser," replied Mabel. 
 
 " Avez-vous des chapeaux ecrases, Mon- 
 sieur ?" she inquired of the man. 
 
 " Non, Madame, vous ne trouverez pas 
 des chapeaux d'occasion dans une maison 
 comme la notre," replied the shopman stiffly. 
 
 " C'est etonnant," was Miss Jones naif 
 rejoinder. She suspected the man did not 
 understand her, but did not like to own it. 
 
 " Come here, Mabel, don't go away, my 
 dear, I, want you to help me. What is the 
 French for e spring ?' " 
 
 " S'elancer, sauter," replied Mabel, pre- 
 paring herself inwardly for some outrage- 
 ous Gallicism. 
 
 " Monsieur," continued Miss Jones, " je 
 voudrais un chapeau qui s'elance, qui 
 saute." 
 
 "Un chapeau qui saute !" repeated the 
 shopman affrighted out of his risibility. 
 
 "Oui, s'il vous plait;" Miss Jones was 
 satisfied she had hit on the right thing 
 at last. The man looked at her for a 
 moment, utterly bewildered.
 
 76 a woman's trials. 
 
 " What do you want to say?" inquired 
 Mabel, in English, of the governess. 
 
 " My dear, I said what I meant, and I 
 mean what I said," replied Miss Jones, 
 bristling up at the implied affront to her 
 phraseology. 
 
 " But, dear Miss Jones, you can't pos- 
 sibly mean to ask for a jumping hat !" ex- 
 postulated Mabel. 
 
 " I asked for a spring hat, you told me 
 the spring was sauter in French." 
 
 It was more than Mabel could bear 
 with all her good-nature and stoicism, 
 she fairly laughed outright, and the mys- 
 tified shopman, partially re-assured as to 
 the sanity of his customer, joined with 
 infinite relief in the merriment. 
 
 Miss Jones deliberated for a moment 
 whether she should rise and walk majes- 
 tically out of the shop, or join in the laugh 
 against herself. She decided on the more 
 sensible alternative, and when Mabel was 
 sufficiently sobered to answer her ques- 
 tion quietly proceeded to explain the 
 origin of the blunder. It occurred to Miss 
 Jones that the unpolished felt hat would 
 be much more suitable to Herr Carl than
 
 a woman's trials. 77 
 
 the shining castor of the fashionable 
 chapeaux. 
 
 She recollected having seen, before 
 leaving England, that admirable invention 
 called the crush hat. Not possessing the 
 corresponding idiom in French, she tried 
 to convey her idea by asking for a spring 
 hat, translated as a cha/peau qui saute, 
 thereby startling the Frenchman into the 
 belief his customer was insane. Once the 
 mistake rectified and the shopman en- 
 lightened as to the article required, it was 
 soon produced, and agreed upon as the 
 most fitting substitute for its venerable 
 predecessor.
 
 78 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 MISS JONES found the idioms very up- 
 hill work. She displayed an indefa- 
 tigable courage in their pursuit that was 
 worthy of a nobler cause ; but to Miss 
 Jones every duty was a noble cause ; she 
 had undertaken to learn French as a 
 means of honourable livelihood, and gave 
 all her energies to the success of the 
 undertaking. What she complained most 
 of was the difficulty of " turning the 
 phrases ;" they never seemed to come right. 
 
 With her pronunciation the governess 
 was blandly satisfied; she believed con- 
 scientiously that it was a faithful echo of 
 the pure Parisian accent ; this was a great 
 point gained, there remained but to acquire 
 fluency and correctness by vigorous study. 
 
 The pensionnaires, though they enjoyed 
 many a laugh at her expense, felt kindly 
 towards Miss Jones (when she was not
 
 a woman's trials. 79 
 
 teaching them), and were always willing to 
 assist her in her dictees and translations. 
 The younger children were rather proud of 
 playing professor to their own teacher, 
 and Miss Jones in her humility was always 
 glad of the little ones saucy help in her 
 difficulties. 
 
 It was her habit out of class to walk, 
 for an hour at a time, up and down the 
 parlour-boarders' corridor, repeating to 
 herself the lessons she had learned during 
 the day, or getting by heart a number of 
 idioms picked up here and there, and 
 scribbled on a scrap of paper. What 
 a lesson it was to many an idler close 
 by, the untiring industry of the worn- 
 out governess ! There she walked day by 
 day, tramping hard on the carrele floor of 
 the passage to warm her feet. Is there 
 any small suffering more trying than cold 
 feet? Winter and summer Miss Jones 
 was a martyr to them. 
 
 She was one day making her forty- 
 second turn up the corridor, when for the 
 first time she perceived a door open. It 
 was Henrietta Wilson's. That young lady 
 sang very sweetly to the guitar, and had
 
 80 a woman's trials. 
 
 a weakness for leaving the door ajar while 
 she was practising, as she thought it 
 looked interesting and romantic. Hearing 
 the sound of Miss Jones' military step in the 
 passage, she took up the instrument and 
 began drawing her fingers across the 
 strings to the words, " She is far from the 
 land." There was something sweet in the 
 sounds, although unskilfully given ; Miss 
 Jones stood listening at the half open door. 
 When she was young she used to play 
 on the guitar herself. 
 
 The cessation of the steps just at the 
 threshold caused Henrietta to turn her 
 head ; she started as if the fact of the door 
 being open had quite surprised her. 
 
 " I hope I have not frightened you, my 
 dear," said Miss Jones, with a simplicity 
 that no affectation could disturb. 
 
 " Oh, not much ! only I was thinking 
 of something else, far away." 
 
 Henrietta heaved a deep sigh. 
 
 " Thinking of home ! oh, you need not 
 sigh while you have home to think of." 
 
 There was something in the tone that 
 sounded more like a real sigh than Hen- 
 rietta's theatrical sob ; she looked at Miss
 
 a woman's teials. 81 
 
 Jones, and for the first time noticed how 
 haggard her face was. The yellow teeth 
 protruded more painfully than ever, and 
 the wrinkles on her forehead were deeper 
 and harder. The cold had given a violet 
 tint to her skin that made it look livid. 
 
 Henrietta was kind-hearted ; what girl 
 of eighteen is not ? 
 
 " Come in, Miss Jones," she said, " and 
 sit beside the fire if you want to study." 
 
 " Oh, thank you, my dear, I shall just 
 warm myself since you are so kind, but I 
 study very well walking up and down the 
 corridor; and I should be afraid of dis- 
 turbing you if I staid here mumbling my 
 bad French. Is it not very early to begin 
 fires ? You will not feel the benefit of them 
 when the real cold weather comes." 
 
 "Why, I call this real cold weather," 
 said Henrietta ; "it's so gloomy and damp, 
 one feels miserable without a fire ! How 
 do you exist without a fire in your room ? 
 I should much rather go without my 
 dinner than without my fire," declared 
 Henrietta, and she threw a large block on 
 the embers. 
 
 " One can live without a fire," replied 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 a woman's tetals. 
 
 the governess, holding out her hands to the 
 blaze, " but one must have a dinner some- 
 times.' ' 
 
 " Sometimes ! do you mean to say that 
 you don't get your dinner every day ?" 
 
 cc Not one that I can eat always ; the 
 refectory food is not like what you get at 
 Madame St. Simon's table ; there are some 
 days, Friday for instance, that I dine off 
 bread and eau rougie" 
 
 " How wicked of Madame St. Simon to 
 starve you in that way !" said Henrietta 
 indignantly, " she must have horrid 
 dreams at night ; I am sure I should in her 
 place ; but why don't the others com- 
 plain of it?" 
 
 " French people are more used to that 
 kind of living, and can bear it better ; they 
 get through an amount of jpotage, made of 
 onions and grease, that would astonish 
 your delicate appetite, my dear ; I tried at 
 first, from a sense of duty, to take it, but 
 my good will was not proof against the 
 sickness it caused, and the consequent 
 weakness I suffered from for days." 
 
 " Why don't you ask for tea ?" sug- 
 gested Henrietta.
 
 a woman's tkials. 83 
 
 Miss Jones smiled. " I get a cup of tea 
 on Thursday in the salon" 
 
 It was the first time since they had 
 been under the same roof that Henrietta 
 observed Miss Jones. She had seen her 
 day after day trudging through her cheer- 
 less round of duties with uncomplaining 
 cheerfulness. It never occurred to her 
 that under the shrivelled, angular body 
 there was a heart that burned, and beat, 
 and pined away under the dull weight of 
 duty, with no drop of love to sweeten its 
 wholesome bitterness. She never asked 
 herself if Miss Jones was nothing more 
 than the mere studying machine she 
 looked, groping her way through the 
 mazes of French grammar, and picking 
 up with the avidity of a miser every stray 
 idiom that heedless school-girls dropped 
 from their rattling tongues. It never 
 struck her that the poor governess might 
 once have been a young girl like herself, 
 looking out into life with sunny hope, and 
 filling up the future with bright visions of 
 love and happiness. 
 
 No, Henrietta had never thought of 
 this, and now that the wan, worn face 
 
 g 2
 
 84 a woman's trials. 
 
 before her peered greedily into the warm 
 blaze as a hungry man inhales the smoke 
 of a savoury dish, she was startled to see 
 how careworD the face was, and what an 
 aged look it wore. There was more 
 than moral suffering there ; there was phy- 
 sical want ; cold and hunger were written 
 in deep furrows down the cheeks, and left 
 their mark round the mouth, pointing the 
 chin to a painful sharpness. Henrietta 
 was shocked ; she felt as if she had been 
 guilty of some personal cruelty towards 
 Miss Jones in having been so slow to 
 notice these traces of suffering, now so 
 evideut to awakened observation. She 
 forgot even the guitar and her sentimental 
 song. Her visitor sat quite silent, looking 
 into the fire, and rubbing her thin hands 
 with a pleasant sense of enjoyment. 
 
 " Dear Miss Jones," said Henrietta, 
 " we were talking yesterday of getting up 
 a little tea-party turn-about in our rooms 
 of an evening, and we want you to come, 
 and join us in a cup of tea; you can't 
 refuse, for your lessons are over, and you 
 may as well spend your evenings with us 
 as by yourself. I am to begin the series
 
 a woman's trials. 85 
 
 of entertainments, so I shall expect you 
 to-morrow evening at seven." 
 
 " Thank you, my dear," replied the 
 governess, " if there be anything that 
 could tempt me away from my duty it is a 
 cup of tea ; but I must not yield to the 
 temptation, there is no saying what habits 
 of idleness it might lead me into if I once 
 gave way." 
 
 "But I don't want to tempt you from 
 anything except loneliness. You surely 
 don't study in your room after dinner, 
 and it will be as pleasant for you to pass 
 the time before going to bed with us." 
 
 " Very much pleasanter ; but I fear my 
 French would suffer. I daresay you all 
 speak English when you are together, like 
 so many foolish children that you are ?" 
 
 " Well, perhaps we do," replied Hen- 
 rietta, smiling at Miss Jones' reproving 
 shake of the head ; " but if you come, it 
 will make us speak French, and that will 
 be doing an act of duty in another way, 
 though I can't see the use of boring oneself 
 with that stupid French after school hours, 
 it's quite bad enough to be plagued with 
 participles and irregular verbs for seven
 
 86 a woman's trials. 
 
 hours of the day, without inflicting them 
 on one's nerves after dinner. The rest 
 ought to freshen you for the next day's 
 work instead of doing you harm ; now just 
 try it, Miss Jones." 
 
 "You talk like one who has no care 
 beyond putting in a day as quietly as you 
 can without any looking forward to the 
 morrow. My great object while I am 
 here is to acquire a thorough knowledge 
 of French, so as to enable me conscien- 
 tiously to teach it when I return to 
 England. Everything like amusement or 
 relaxation must be sacrificed to self-im- 
 provement ; while that is in my power, I 
 cannot afford to lose a moment." 
 
 " Bon Dieu !" exclaimed Henrietta, lan- 
 guidly throwing her head on the back of 
 her fauteuil, and stretching her feet on the 
 little brass fender, " it makes me feel 
 quite guilty when I see you so earnest 
 about study. It is all such a bore to me, 
 except music and dancing; I can quite 
 understand any one having a passion for 
 them. I wonder you don't throw all your 
 marvellous energy into music, for instance ; 
 but every one has not the feu sacre, to be
 
 a woman's trials. 87 
 
 sure, and, without that, energy is of very 
 little use." 
 
 " I don't think the feu sacre, as you call 
 it, was the thing most wanting — I had 
 plenty of that. Perhaps it was a punish- 
 ment." 
 
 " What was ?" inquired Henrietta, her 
 curiosity roused by the reticence, and the 
 sigh that followed it. 
 
 Miss Jones unbuttoned her sleeve, and 
 baring her left arm, held it out for her 
 companion's inspection. 
 
 Henrietta uttered a cry of horror. The 
 flesh was literally withered off the bone. 
 "What happened to your arm, did you 
 burn it ?" she asked eagerly. 
 
 " No, my dear, but disease did the work 
 as well. I went as music-mistress to a 
 school in the North of England, after my 
 father's death. I had not been long there 
 when I was seized with an acute rheuma- 
 tism that left my arm as you see it. If 
 the physical suffering and its consequent 
 deformity had been the only, or the worst 
 result of my illness, I should have borne 
 it unmurmuringly ; but the loss of my arm 
 was to me the loss of bread. Music was
 
 88 a woman's teials. 
 
 my only accomplishment, and in losing the 
 power of utilising it, I lost the means of 
 living ; then my passionate love for music 
 made the privation painful beyond what I 
 can describe." She paused for a moment, 
 and then continued : " But God never tries 
 us above our strength. An old friend of my 
 father's, who heard of my misfortune, 
 wrote to me from London, telling me his 
 house should be my home till I was suffi- 
 ciently recovered to provide one for myself. 
 I accepted the offer with thankfulness, and 
 spent four months with the kind old 
 gentleman, who insisted on my having the 
 best advice the Capital afforded, and every 
 comfort that could hasten my restoration 
 to health. The next difficulty was, how 
 was I to get a living ? My arm, although 
 completely relieved from pain, was too 
 weak and einaciated for me to think of 
 using it on the piano, at least, for a very 
 long time. I always regretted having neg- 
 lected to cultivate languages more as- 
 siduously, and it seemed as if fate had now 
 driven me to atone for the deficiency in 
 my early education. I talked over the 
 matter with my friend, who highly approved
 
 a woman's teials. 89 
 
 of my idea, and generously provided me 
 with sufficient money to defray my ex- 
 penses to Paris. I had a small sum saved, 
 which would enable me to remain there a 
 year for the purpose of acquiring French, 
 and improving myself generally." 
 
 " But surely .... I beg your pardon, 
 you won't be offended, Miss Jones, but does 
 Madame St. Simon accept your services 
 without rewarding them ?" 
 
 " Yes ; that is to say, she considers them 
 sufficiently paid by giving me board and 
 lodging while I remain in her employment. 
 It used not to be so formerly, I believe. 
 The governess who was here four years 
 ago received fifty francs a month over and 
 above the advantage of assisting at all the 
 classes." 
 
 u And does Madame St. Simon think 
 you unworthy of the same consideration ?" 
 asked Henrietta. 
 
 " Perhaps not, if she looked at the matter 
 differently ; but the fact is, there are more 
 teachers of English in Paris now than there 
 are pupils, and Madame would find twenty 
 to take my place to-morrow on the same 
 terms, if I left her. Of course it seems a
 
 90 a woman's trials. 
 
 hard bargain, and one lias many discom- 
 forts to put up with ; but the advantage of 
 hearing French spoken with a pure Parisian 
 accent, and acquiring the idiom of the 
 language, are great compensations." 
 
 Henrietta was too much touched by the 
 real misery of her position, to laugh at the 
 poor soul's eccentricity ; but she could 
 hardly restrain a smile when Miss Jones 
 alluded to the Parisian accent. 
 
 " Can any one be so infatuated !" she 
 mentally exclaimed. " Why ces Messieurs, 
 and even Madame Laurence, can hardly 
 keep their countenances when Miss Jones 
 greets them with her inevitable Bone jour, 
 Moshu ; to be sure it's a decided improve- 
 ment on bong jour, but it's as far from the 
 Parisian accent as Piccadilly is from the 
 Boulevards." 
 
 Nevertheless Miss Jones was happy in 
 her conscientious illusion, and believed 
 firmly that at the end of her year she 
 should be as competent to advertise, 
 " French like a native," as any one of 
 the hundreds who daily publish their per- 
 fections in the columns of the " Times." 
 Perhaps if the individual cases were ex-
 
 a woman's trials. 91 
 
 amined, Miss Jones's mistake would be 
 found less comparatively egregious than 
 Henrietta imagined. 
 
 The bell rang for the parlour-boarders' 
 dinner. Henrietta jumped up to arrange 
 her hair and make some changes in her 
 dress ; Miss Jones rose too. 
 
 " Pray don't go, Miss Jones, you may as 
 well study here till dinner is over ; please 
 do, and keep my fire from going out," 
 urged the young girl. " That's the worst of 
 a fire, one has to look after it ; Justine is 
 never in the way when one wants her, and 
 it destroys one's hands poking in the 
 ashes." 
 
 She rounded her nails delicately with 
 the towel, powdered her face with jpoudre 
 de violette (Madame St. Simon recom- 
 mended this as a precaution against the 
 action of cold on the skin,) and wish- 
 ing good-bye to Miss Jones went down 
 to dinner. 
 
 When it was over Henrietta returned, 
 with Mabel Stanhope and Milly Jackson, 
 to her room, expecting to find Miss Jones 
 there ; but Miss Jones was gone. 
 
 " You look full of something important,
 
 92 a woman's trials. 
 
 Henrietta," Mabel said, as soon as the 
 three girls were seated round the fire, 
 "let us hear what it is." 
 
 "Did you ever see any one dying of 
 hunger?" demanded Henrietta after a 
 moment's pause, looking very seriously 
 at her companions. 
 
 The two girls stared at her and at each 
 other. 
 
 "Where is she off to now ?" cried Milly 
 Jackson. " Going to give us a lecture on 
 anatomy or physiology, or some such sen- 
 timental bosh. If you don't take care, 
 Henrietta, you'll go moonstruck. Mind, I 
 warn you !" 
 
 "Very kind of you," returned Hen- 
 rietta, "but I'm not gone yet. I want to 
 know if you ever saw anyone dying of 
 starvation, because I did." 
 
 " Well, more shame for you !" com- 
 mented Milly. " Why didn't you give them 
 something to eat, and they wouldn't have 
 died ?" 
 
 " I did not say they did die," corrected 
 Henrietta. 
 
 " Then what did you say, or what do 
 you want to say ? Somebody died, and
 
 a woman's teials. 93 
 
 somebody didn't die," and Millj turned to 
 Mabel with a shrug of her shoulders, as 
 much as to say, " I can't make her out, 
 can you ?" 
 
 " Do try and be a little more explicit, 
 Henrietta," entreated Mabel. 
 
 " T said," continued . Henrietta, "or at 
 least I now say, there is somebody in this 
 house who is literally starving, and that 
 we must try and come to the rescue, as 
 Milly accused me of not doing, or else she 
 may die under our eyes." 
 
 " For Heaven's sake, what do you mean ? 
 Who are you talking about ?" inquired 
 both the girls in the same breath. 
 
 Henrietta was sincere in her pity and 
 concern for Miss Jones, but it was not in 
 her nature to let an opportunity, like the 
 present, pass without turning it to ac- 
 count. She had created a sensation, and 
 resolved to make the most of it. 
 
 " Can't you guess ?" she exclaimed with 
 a look of reproachful surprise ; " why, the 
 poor soul is fading day by day, and to 
 think we have been living in comfort, and 
 eating bountiful meals while there was 
 a fellow- creature under the same roof with
 
 94 a woman's trials. 
 
 us wanting the very necessaries of life." 
 Henrietta burst into tears. 
 
 " Do in pity's, name tell ns whom you 
 are talking of," demanded Mabel impa- 
 tiently. "Is it one of the servants, or 
 no, it cannot be one of the pupils ?" 
 
 "It's far worse," replied Henrietta, 
 after giving vent to her emotion for a few 
 moments, "it's far more dreadful for us. 
 She had a right to look to us for sympathy, 
 and we might have spared her much 
 suffering but for our heedlessness, our want 
 of thought, to use no harsher term," and 
 she covered her eyes with her delicate 
 white fingers, as if to keep in the tears 
 that would force their way through. 
 
 Mabel's patience was nearly exhausted. 
 
 " If you really are in earnest," she said, 
 " I think it would be kinder to tell us 
 what this is all about, instead of tantalis- 
 ing us in this way. If you want to make 
 a scene, you have succeeded." 
 
 " I can't see the fun of crying scenes," 
 remarked Milly Jackson ; " so, if you are 
 going to keep it up any longer, I'll make 
 myself scarce, and leave you to operate on 
 Mabel."
 
 a woman's trials. 95 
 
 Henrietta saw she had carried the scene 
 far enough, and that the effect of her 
 disclosure would be injured by prolonging 
 it. 
 
 " I'm sorry I allowed my feelings to 
 overcome me," she said penitently, " but 
 if you had seen poor Miss Jones an hour 
 ago, and heard her telling me of the 
 miseries she has had to endure, and still 
 endures, it would have horrified you as 
 much as it did me." 
 
 " Miss Jones !" cried both girls to- 
 gether. 
 
 "Yes," continued Henrietta, "she is 
 is actually sinking away for want of food ; 
 fancy her telling me she passed days with- 
 out anything but dry bread for her dinner !" 
 And then, her better nature again upper- 
 most, Henrietta described, in much more 
 elaborate words than simple Miss Jones 
 had used, the hardships and privations 
 the good soul was enduring daily and 
 hourly beside them. 
 
 " Juno is a wretch to treat her so," 
 broke in Milly Jackson, bringing down 
 her hand on the table with a blow that 
 made her Noel et Chapsal jump. " We
 
 96 a woman's trials. 
 
 must get up a petition, or an affidavit, or 
 something against her. I'll write to papa 
 and tell him to expose her in the Times. 
 He's a lawyer you know, and he'll make 
 her wince !" 
 
 " Much good the wincing would do poor 
 Miss Jones ! She might be starved to 
 death before your father could get his 
 letter published," said Henrietta. 
 
 "Just so," assented Mabel; "we can 
 do no good by attacking Madame St. 
 Simon. The only thing we could do 
 would be to subscribe together enough 
 to have Miss Jones admitted to dine in 
 the salle-a-manger. Then how could we 
 do that without her knowing it ?" 
 
 " That's not a bad idea, Mab ; I declare 
 you're a genius ! If you were a man, you 
 would be a first-rate lawyer." 
 
 " Do try and be serious and lawyer-like 
 for ten minutes, and help us to invent 
 some plan that may be carried out without 
 exciting Miss Jones' suspicions. Do you 
 think Madame St. Simon would keep the 
 secret for us if we trusted her ?" 
 
 " She would keep it by sending Miss 
 Jones to the right-abouts," replied Milly,
 
 a woman's trials. 97 
 
 " and we should be favoured with a homily 
 on the propriety of minding our own 
 affair s." 
 
 " No, I don't think that would answer," 
 said Henrietta ; " whatever we do must be 
 done without either Juno or Miss Jones 
 knowing anything about it. My idea was 
 that we should give tea-parties turn about 
 in our rooms, and manage to have some- 
 thing more substantial than tea for Miss 
 Jones ; we could easily do it I think, as 
 some of us go out almost every day, and 
 she never notices what we buy. The mo- 
 ment we enter a shop she is too busy 
 listening to the idioms to mind anything 
 else. We might go to the charcutier's and 
 get some sliced ham and cold meat, she 
 would enjoy that with her tea. At all 
 events, it would be better than to let her go 
 on living three days in the week on dry 
 bread and greasy water. What do you 
 think, Mabel?" 
 
 " I think you are a dear kind-hearted 
 girl," returned Mabel warmly, " and it's the 
 wisest thing we could do ; at least for the 
 present. So we shall begin our heavy teas 
 to-morrow ; whose turn is it to be first ?" 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 a woman's teials. 
 
 " Mine," cried Henrietta eagerly, "I've 
 already invited Miss Jones, I was so sure 
 you'd both agree to it; but had we not 
 better tell the others ? Harriet Woods I 
 am sure of. Then the Flemmings would 
 enter into the scheme ; they're all fond of 
 poor Miss Jones." 
 
 " The only thing that will stand in her 
 way," continued Mabel musingly, " is the 
 speaking English ; if we could muster one 
 or two natives to sprinkle the conversation 
 with the idioms. Suppose we asked Ma- 
 dame Laurence? She's very good-natured 
 and pleasant when she hasn't a crise de 
 nerfs" 
 
 " Oh no," protested Milly, " it would be 
 no end of a bore to have the cross old thing 
 listening to every word one said ; besides, 
 we'd have to do the polite and speak 
 French, and it's bad enough to have 
 it choking one all day, without being 
 strangled with it after dinner; the only 
 moment one has to breathe and be jolly." 
 
 "What time of the day do you happen 
 to do anything else, pray ?" inquired Mabel. 
 
 " Don't be sarcastic, my dear, it's un- 
 lady-like, and unbecoming in a Christian,"
 
 a woman's trials. 99 
 
 retorted Milly, so completely mimicking 
 Miss Jones' voice and manner, that Mabel 
 was obliged to join in the laugh at the 
 expense of the excellent woman for whose 
 position her heart was so full of sympathy. 
 
 " I have given my word to Miss Jones 
 that we would speak French," declared 
 Henrietta, so you must either choke or 
 stay away, Milly." 
 
 After an indignant protest, Milly agreed 
 to make good the promise given in her 
 name. Next day, during the walk in town, 
 the parlour-boarders contrived to purchase 
 the heavy extras for the tea, without awak- 
 ing the suspicions of the governess. 
 
 Milly Jackson's turbulence, so often in 
 the way of their school-room schemes, 
 proved of infinite value there ; she managed 
 so completely to shock Miss Jones by the 
 impropriety of her language, just as they 
 reached the charcuterie shop, that the good 
 soul began to deliver in French to her un- 
 ruly pupil a sound lecture on her evil 
 courses. Milly hit on the expedient of 
 talking French during the walk, in order 
 to absorb Miss Jones' attention more fully. 
 A few minutes sufficed for Henrietta to 
 
 e 2
 
 100 a woman's teials. 
 
 secure an over-abundant stock of provi- 
 sions ; half a cold roast fowl, a goodly slice 
 of ham, a large piece of veau joique, which 
 the charcutier recommended as being 
 quelque chose aVexquis. Henrietta secured 
 the fowl in her leathern bag, which threat- 
 ened to burst under the unusual tension ; 
 and the other delicacies were stuffed into 
 the pockets of her companions. 
 
 When they had finished their purchases, 
 Miss Jones turned in astonishment to the 
 shop-windows, and inquired what they 
 had been buying. 
 
 " Only a little English ham," replied 
 Henrietta, " and something cold to eat in 
 my room. Sometimes I have no appetite 
 at dinner, but before going to bed I feel 
 ravenously hungry. By the way, you 
 won't forget your promise to take tea with 
 me to-night." 
 
 " My memory is seldom at fault where 
 there is a cup of tea in the way," returned 
 Miss Jones, good-humouredly. " But, my 
 dear, I don't think it is a wholesome habit 
 to give yourself, eating meat before going 
 to bed." 
 
 "It's more wholesome than going to
 
 A WOMAN S TRIALS. 
 
 101 
 
 bed hungry," asserted Milly Jackson, 
 " and it's fun to make a cup of tea in one's 
 room, with the bouillote on a jolly fire. It- 
 reminds one of the kettle !" Milly sighed. 
 
 "I do believe Milly' s growing senti- 
 mental," laughed Mabel. 
 
 " I wish she would make up her mind to 
 grow sensible," observed Miss Jones, 
 shaking her head at Milly. 
 
 Punctual to her appointment, at half- 
 past seven Miss Jones knocked at the door 
 of Henrietta Wilson's room, where she 
 found the young people already assembled. 
 Miss Jones attached great importance to 
 all points of etiquette. She accepted Hen- 
 rietta's invitation as seriously as if it had 
 come from a lady of the Faubourg St. 
 Germain, and came dressed for the occa- 
 sion. 
 
 Her gala gown was a grey silk shot with 
 copper colour ; it might have been of ten 
 years' standing, but Miss Jones said it 
 dated only five years' back, and Miss 
 Jones' accuracy was above suspicion. A 
 pair of black lace mittens which always 
 accompanied the dress on state occasions, 
 completed her resemblance to her grand-
 
 102 a woman's teials. 
 
 mother's ghost. She advanced to Hen- 
 rietta and wished her good evening, as if 
 she had not seen her an hour before, and 
 then went through the same ceremony 
 with the other young ladies, who, being in 
 possession of the real intention of the 
 gathering, were all too kindly disposed 
 towards the poor governess to laugh at 
 her ceremonious greeting. 
 
 " This is your place, Miss Jones," said 
 Henrietta, rolling an arm-chair near the 
 fire ; " you will be next the table, and close 
 to the fire. It is very good of you to 
 come to us, and we are very much obliged 
 to you." 
 
 She said it with unusual warmth and 
 cordiality. 
 
 " Will any one have the charity to make 
 the tea?" inquired the hostess. " I feel I 
 am not equal to it to-night. Those gym- 
 nastics do fatigue one so dreadful," and 
 she let her arms fall, as if her strength 
 were utterly inadequate to the exertion of 
 raising the tea-pot. 
 
 " Paresseuse !" chided Miss Jones, 
 shaking her curls. 
 
 " Oh, that reminds me we have to speak
 
 a woman's teials. 103 
 
 French to-night." The announcement 
 was greeted with exclamations of disap- 
 proval. 
 
 " It's too bad to talk French over tea," 
 protested Miss Flemming, the daughter 
 of a London grocer, who sent his three 
 girls to Belle-Vue because it was "the 
 thing." 
 
 " Quite a heresy," declared Milly Jack- 
 son, " but we'll get used to it as one does 
 to other heresies. I feel half converted to 
 Romanism by those splendid sermons we 
 have been hearing at the Madeleine these 
 last three months. It was awfully sleepy 
 at old Brown's last Sunday ; I just thought 
 I'd try him again and see if he improved 
 by contrast, but he didn't; he lost fifty 
 per cent, beside those delightful French 
 Abbes. Didn't you think so, Henrietta ?" 
 
 " Well, I must say Mr. Brown is much 
 less impressive, and touches me less than 
 ces messieurs. There is something in their 
 sermons that goes right to one's heart. 
 But, to be sure, that is not what people go 
 to church for." 
 
 " What do we go for ?" asked Mabel, 
 " if not to have our hearts touched ?"
 
 104 a woman's teials. 
 
 " We go because it is a right thing to 
 do," replied Henrietta, unhesitatingly. 
 
 " Harriet, please help that ham. Miss 
 Jones, servez-vous." 
 
 But Miss Jones laid down her knife 
 and fork. " My dear," she said, address- 
 ing Henrietta with the earnest look 
 and voice that defied prevarication, 
 " you don't mean to say that the false 
 doctrines you have been imprudent enough 
 to listen to of late, have made any serious 
 impressions upon your mind ?" 
 
 " It never occurred to me to think about 
 it," replied Henrietta, after a moment's 
 pause. " I enjoyed the preaching very 
 much, because, as Milly says, it is so much 
 finer than anything we have been accus- 
 tomed to from Mr. Brown, or indeed any 
 one else that I ever heard. Beyond that, I 
 did not think about it." 
 
 The answer was as unsatisfactory as it 
 could be without being positively unbeliev- 
 ing; but there was no doubting that it 
 was the truth, as far as Henrietta was 
 capable of discerning it. 
 
 " You must promise me," said Miss 
 Jones, " that you will give up going to
 
 a woman's trials. 105 
 
 the Madeleine, or any other Catholic 
 Church for the future." 
 
 u We'll promise anything you like, Miss 
 Jones, if you will only take your tea," 
 assured Henrietta, growing fidgetty at the 
 turn the conversation was taking. She 
 knew more by instinct than by reflection 
 how deeply religious Miss Jones was, and 
 how painfully it must affect her to hear a 
 subject to her so all-important discussed 
 in this light way. 
 
 Mabel Stanhope, who had said nothing, 
 was watching Miss Jones, and saw by her 
 countenance that she was distressed ; an- 
 xious to change the conversation she said 
 to her : 
 
 " Have you read Massillon's sermons ?" 
 
 " JSTo, I never have been fortunate 
 enough to meet with them. Have you got 
 them, my dear ?" 
 
 " Yes, I have a very beautiful edition 
 that Olga gave me on my fete ; if you like, 
 I should be very happy to lend them to 
 you. I have just finished the second 
 volume, and can let you have the first ; or 
 if you prefer it, we might read some of 
 them together. The next best thing after
 
 106 a woman's trials. 
 
 hearing a fine sermon preached, is to hear 
 one read." 
 
 " That would be a great treat to ine," 
 replied Miss Jones, her eyes sparkling. 
 
 " Well then, we'll begin to morrow at 
 recreation if you like; it is not Herr 
 Carl's day, is it ?" Mabel inquired. 
 
 "No, old fogey came yesterday," replied 
 Milly. " Didn't he look a swell in his 
 new hat ?" 
 
 " Poor old man," laughed Mabel, " I 
 could not make out what change had come 
 over him when I saw him coming along 
 the corridor ; the old hat had grown so 
 used to his head, that the head seemed 
 quite odd without it. What a wonderful 
 antiquity he is ! When he gets on Bee- 
 thoven he works himself into such a state 
 of excitement that I believe he actually 
 fancies he lived and conversed with the 
 grand maitre. The enthusiasm is catching." 
 
 " Yes, that's the way you get round him, 
 Mab," said Milly Jackson ; " when he 
 began raving over that never-ending sonata 
 the other day, you turned your moonstruck 
 eyes on him, with the tears running over. 
 I expected to see him fall down a V orientate
 
 A woman's trials. 107 
 
 and worship you. I couldn't squeeze a 
 tear out if I were to die for it. I think 
 Beethoven a bore, and Mozart a ditto, 
 and—" 
 
 " And Milly Jackson an uncivilized Van- 
 dal," interrupted Mabel, with an angry 
 flash in her dark eyes. 
 
 Milly stood up and bowed, " Well," she 
 exclaimed, " I forgive your impudence, 
 Mab, it becomes you so much ; you look 
 deliciously pretty when your eyes are in 
 a passion." 
 
 11 You are a goose !" retorted Mabel, 
 her colour heightening under the glances 
 of admiration which Milly' s oddly turned 
 compliment directed to her. 
 
 It certainly was a lovely face to look 
 at ; such a mixture of fire and gentleness. 
 The fire took one by surprise ; it slept so 
 calmly under the gentleness that one 
 hardly guessed it lay there. 
 
 " Miss Jones," said Milly Jackson, 
 " Mab's eyes remind me of a pretty French 
 idiom, shall I tell it to you ?" 
 
 Miss Jones suspended her tea-cup be- 
 tween the saucer and her lips to catch the 
 idiom.
 
 108 a woman's teials. 
 
 " Elle a des yeux a la perdition de son 
 
 ame." 
 
 I don't like joking on sacred sub- 
 jects, my dear," said Miss Jones gravely ; 
 " pray find some more suitable motive for 
 bons mots than your own, or your neigh- 
 bour's salvation." 
 
 " I didn't invent it," returned Milly, " I 
 never said anything half so clever. It was 
 a French officer who whispered it to Mabel 
 the other day, when we were crossing the 
 Tuileries gardens ; she didn't hear him, 
 being as usual in the clouds. I wish it 
 were to me he had said it !" 
 
 "Will you have another cup of tea, 
 Milly ?" asked Henrietta abruptly. 
 
 "Yes, if you please, I have only had 
 three." 
 
 "Are you quite sure about the French 
 officer whispering that insolent remark to 
 Mabel ?" inquired Miss Jones uneasily. 
 
 " Oh, you're not so naive as to mind 
 Milly' s nonsense, Miss Jones," replied 
 Henrietta, " she read it in some French 
 novel." 
 
 "French novel!" echoed Miss Jones, 
 horror-struck, "you don't mean to say
 
 a woman's trials. 109 
 
 you read such things, my dear child ?" 
 
 "Well, where's the harm if I did?" re- 
 plied Milly evasively. 
 
 " Where would be the harm of drinking 
 poison. You cannot have been so foolish, so 
 imprudent as to allow yourself sueh a dan- 
 gerous amusement?' , 
 
 Milly made no answer. 
 
 " What novels have you read ?" inquired 
 Miss Jones. 
 
 " Not many," replied Milly, " and those 
 I did read were the most innocent things 
 ever written, and the most amusing. Then 
 you know, Miss Jones, there is nothing so 
 improving as reading in a language you 
 are learning. I have no taste for musty, 
 old scientific books, and so I read what I 
 can; I learnb more idioms in Monte Cristo 
 than in all the exercises I've been stupefy- 
 ing myself over for the last six months." 
 
 Miss Jones was too ignorant of the cur- 
 rent French literature of the day to be 
 much enlightened by Milly' s explanation. 
 She had heard of Alexandre Dumas as a 
 popular novelist, and an immoral one, but 
 of his works she knew nothing. It did not 
 occur to her to ask the author's name, so
 
 110 a woman's teials. 
 
 she accepted Milly's assurance that Monte 
 Cristo was a most harmless and instructive 
 book. Still it was a novel, and as such 
 must contain a certain dose of love-sick 
 romance, and such-like absurdity; she 
 therefore repeated her warning advice 
 against French novels, and earnestly 
 begged her young friends to deprive them- 
 selves for the future of such dangerous 
 reading. The young people listened to 
 the lecture more patiently than they would 
 have done under other circumstances, but 
 it was quite evident that the governess's 
 presence was a considerable restraint upon 
 them. Mne o'clock struck; Miss Jones 
 rose, and thanking Henrietta for her hos- 
 pitality, to which the poor soul had done 
 full justice, bade the party good night. 
 
 When the door closed behind her, Miss 
 Woods exclaimed : " Well, I've enjoyed 
 your tea very much, Henrietta, but I can't 
 say as much of the conversation. We didn't 
 expect to be entertained with lectures 
 about what church we used to go to, or to 
 be scolded for reading novels. Milly might 
 say, in this case, that she did not see the 
 fun of it."
 
 a woman's trials. Ill 
 
 "Milly doesn't want to see any fun in 
 it," retorted that young lady. " We asked 
 old Jo to give lier a heavy tea, and not to 
 amuse ourselves. As to the lectures, you 
 know one might as well expect a raven 
 not to croak, as to expect old Jo not to 
 lecture. She can't help herself, so we 
 must only try to keep out of the way of it." 
 
 " In that case you had better not repeat 
 in future any pretty speeches you hear in 
 the streets," suggested Henrietta. 
 
 " No ; that was very green of me," 
 confessed Milly. " I ought to have known 
 better; but my innocence and confiding 
 frankness are constantly getting me into 
 scrapes." 
 
 " I can't admire your frankness," said 
 Mabel, " in throwing the absurdity on me. 
 You might as well have acknowledged it 
 as a specimen of your own erudition." 
 
 " I never steal other people's thunder," 
 replied Milly. "I wish it had been said 
 to me by that handsome lieutenant. Such 
 a moustache !" and she threw her eyes up 
 in comical rapture at the recollection. 
 
 "Very odd I never noticed him," ob- 
 served Mabel incredulously.
 
 112 A WOMAN'S TE1ALS. 
 
 " We met him twice, Sunday and Sun- 
 day week," continued Milly, "at the gate 
 of the Tuileries Gardens, and almost in 
 the same spot both times. I think he 
 must live somewhere near the Palace ; I'll 
 keep a look-out for him next time we go 
 that way. If Mademoiselle Eugenie came 
 with us, we might have some fun; but old 
 Jo is so awfully proper there is no having 
 a lark with her." 
 
 "What kind of a lark could you expect 
 to have ?" inquired Mabel wonderingly. 
 "You wouldn't be so absurd as to en- 
 courage any impudent dandy to speak to 
 you in the street?" 
 
 " Oh, Mab, get up into the firmament, 
 it's the best place for you," retorted Milly, 
 pettishly. " I don't want your opinion ; 
 you are only an authority on morality and 
 metaphysics, and I hate one as much as 
 the other." 
 
 There was something so ludicrous in the 
 vehemence with which she emitted this 
 sentiment, that it was impossible not to 
 laugh at it. 
 
 "After all," thought Mabel, "though 
 Milly was a diablefini, as the French girls
 
 a woman's trials. 113 
 
 called her, she could not dream of en- 
 couraging the impertinence she pretended 
 to be amused at." 
 
 No doubt if Miss Jackson looked at the 
 matter seriously, she would have shrunk 
 from exposing herself to the risk of a 
 flirtation with a Frenchman, dangerous at 
 any time, but under the circumstances 
 simple madness. Unfortunately, it was 
 not her way to look at anything seriously. 
 It would be capital fun to get up an 
 acquaintance with a pair of black mous- 
 tachios ; something to enliven the dull 
 promenade, as it was so stupid and mono- 
 tonous every day down the Champs Elysees 
 to the Tuileries and back again. Of course, 
 it was not to go farther than a mere 
 " lark." 
 
 The tea-party broke up, and the young 
 ladies, wishing each other an affectionate 
 good-night, separated. 
 
 VOL. i.
 
 114 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ONCE the idea of striking up some 
 sort of acquaintance with the black 
 moustache had taken possession of Miss 
 Jackson's mind, she set to work in order 
 to bring it about as speedily as possible. 
 
 One thing was evident, Miss Jones 
 should be kept out of the way ; there was 
 no chance of making her see the fun of 
 it, and her presence would be an insuper- 
 able barrier to the success of the frolic. 
 
 But how was it to be avoided ? 
 
 Sometimes Mademoiselle Eugenie, the 
 ling ere, accompanied the English boarders 
 in their walk, but this only occurred when 
 Miss Jones had some particular reason for 
 not going out, and she was too thoroughly 
 a Briton to forego her daily constitutional 
 unless from actual necessity. 
 
 Somehow or other she must be got rid 
 of. Milly trusted to her usual good luck,
 
 a woman's tbials. 115 
 
 and betook herself to Henrietta Wilson to 
 discuss the matter. 
 
 Henrietta was leaning pensively on the 
 window-sill, gazing at vacancy, when Miss 
 Jackson burst into the room. 
 
 " Henrietta, would it not be a jolly 
 spree if we could make a conquest of that 
 handsome hussar ?" 
 
 Henrietta started with a pretty affecta- 
 tion of terror. It was a way she had 
 when spoken to, or come upon unexpect- 
 edly, to start like one roused out of a 
 reverie. 
 
 " How — who ? Oh, yes, the gentle- 
 man you spoke of last night. It certainly 
 would be a pleasant break in this miser- 
 ably dull life of ours to have something 
 to do and to think of — something more 
 exciting than grammar and the rule of 
 three." 
 
 " Well, let's get up a steeple-chase for 
 the lieutenant, and see which of us will 
 have him," suggested Milly. 
 
 " Dear me ! what a strange creature 
 you are !" ejaculated Miss Wilson, turning 
 her blue eyes languidly on her practical 
 friend. " It takes all the poetry out of 
 
 I 2
 
 116 a woman's teials. 
 
 life to hear you talk about the possible 
 growth of sympathy between kindred 
 spirits in that coarse, matter-of-fact way." 
 
 " Kindred humbug I" was Miss Jack- 
 son's prosaic remark. " There's no having 
 a bit of fun, but you must fly off into 
 heroics. You know it doesn't take with 
 me ; I'm not a la hauteur de vos aspira- 
 tions, Mademoiselle ! So please leave off 
 the sentimental and talk sense. If we 
 want to have any fun, we must get old Jo 
 out of the way. Have you anything prac- 
 tical to suggest in order to arrive at this 
 desirable result ?" 
 
 Henrietta mused a moment. 
 
 " Suppose we ask Mabel ?" 
 
 Milly burst into a scornful laugh. 
 
 " Suppose we ask Monsieur l'Abbe, or 
 Madame St. Simon? Well, I did not 
 think you such a baby as that. Consult 
 Mabel Stanhope ? Suppose we consult the 
 Pope ?" 
 
 " That is a good thought !" exclaimed 
 Henrietta. " I wonder it did not strike 
 us before." 
 
 " What ! about consulting his Holiness ?" 
 
 " How absurd you are, Milly ! I mean
 
 a woman's trials. 117 
 
 about our making the Pope an excuse for 
 getting Miss Jones out of the way." 
 
 " The girl is gone clean mad !" 
 
 M Just listen to me, and then see. On 
 coming out of the Madeleine, we could 
 easily arrange to go for our walk after 
 service without provoking suspicion in any 
 quarter." 
 
 Miss Jackson clapped her hands. 
 
 "Yes, that's a bright idea; but mind, 
 not a word to Mabel Stanhope," and Miss 
 Jackson placed her forefinger on her lips. 
 " Mab is a dear girl, but she's a vast deal 
 too high-minded for me. I'd break my 
 neck trying to reach up to her principles, 
 so I don't intend to try." 
 
 " But she may find out," surmised Hen- 
 rietta, " and then what should we do ?" 
 
 " Deny it all and laugh it off. Besides, 
 Mab is too honourable to peach; she'd 
 represent to us the danger of our evil 
 courses, but she's not capable of bringing 
 Juno down on us. At all events, she's 
 too much in the clouds to see what's going 
 on under her nose." 
 
 Olga Czerlinska broke in on them at 
 this point.
 
 118 a woman's trials. 
 
 " What are you two scheming about ?" 
 she asked. " You look like a pair of con- 
 spirators concocting a plot." 
 
 " If you said Statesmen holding a Con- 
 gress, you might be nearer the mark," 
 retorted Milly. 
 
 (e Most potent signiors," bowed Olga, 
 crossing her hands on her breast in mock 
 reverence, " may I venture to inquire 
 the subject which engrosses your mighty 
 powers of consideration ?" 
 
 The two statesmen looked at each other 
 as if asking mutual consent. 
 
 " Olga loves a spree as well as any one," 
 said Milly. " "We shall let her run a tilt 
 with us if she chooses." 
 
 The nature of the tournament was ex- 
 plained to the new-comer. She shrugged 
 her shoulders. 
 
 " Will you enter the lists with us ?" 
 
 Olga shook her head. 
 
 " Wait till you see the prize," urged 
 Milly, "you won't look so virtuously in- 
 different, belle Polonaise" 
 
 " I'm not too virtuous to enjoy a plai- 
 santerie" protested Olga, " but I should 
 only be a spoil-sport now if I meddled in this
 
 a woman's trials. 119 
 
 one. My head is full of other things." 
 
 The bright face grew overcast. Her 
 two friends knew she was alluding to her 
 mother. Olga had received a letter some 
 days before, saying she was dangerously ill. 
 
 " Poor Olga," said Henrietta, kindly, 
 " I can't help fancying you exaggerate the 
 state of your mother's health, somehow. 
 If she were really as ill as you fancy, they 
 would have sent for you to go home." 
 
 " Oh, you don't know what an affair 
 travelling is in Poland ; there is no rail- 
 way nearer to our chateau than Warsaw, 
 which is three days' journey by carriage. 
 Of course, I should be sent for if they 
 knew the necessity in time, but the danger 
 is, it may be too late before — " 
 
 Olga stopped. 
 
 " If I only knew," she continued, clasp- 
 ing her hands tightly, " if I could only be 
 sure it would not end so ! I could bear any 
 amount of suffering and anxiety if I only 
 thought she would not be taken from me. 
 Madeleine Renard was telling me this morn- 
 ing," continued Olga musingly, " of a 
 celebrated clairvoyant whom all Paris 
 consults ; Alexandre I think is his name.
 
 120 a woman's teials. 
 
 She could easily get the address for me if 
 I liked. But how to get at him ? Whom to 
 go with ?" 
 
 "Mademoiselle Eugenie would come; 
 we'll manage it," said Milly, " but don't 
 name it to any one. If it came to Juno's 
 ears, we'd have the house upside down ; 
 cela compromettrait cette chere maison" 
 
 Mademoiselle Eugenie was consulted that 
 very day on the possibility of her accom- 
 panying them to the house of Monsieur 
 Alexandre. The lingere, besides being 
 easy-going and good-natured, was glad of 
 a walk into the city, which was to her 
 almost as great a treat as a box at the 
 opera would have been to the young con- 
 spirators. 
 
 Stitch, stitch, all the week round, and 
 on Sunday keep guard in place of the 
 mistress whose turn of sortie it was ; such 
 was the dull round of the lingerers life. A 
 walk down the Champs Elysees, or on the 
 gay Boulevards, was a glimpse of Arcadia 
 to her, and whenever Miss Jones was pre- 
 vented going with the English pupils, they 
 were always glad to ask leave for Made- 
 moiselle Eugenie to fill her place. Youth
 
 a woman's trials. 121 
 
 is kindly in spite of its unthinking selfish- 
 ness, and wants only the right card touched 
 to bring out sweet tones of sympathy. It 
 was thought well not to mention the lieu- 
 tenant to her just yet. 
 
 " One thing at a time," advised Henri- 
 etta to her more impetuous friend; " per- 
 haps after all we may not see him again, 
 and there is no need to talk unnecessarily 
 about it." 
 
 " Perhaps you are right," Milly said, 
 " besides it was on Sunday that we always 
 met him, and I fancy Sunday will be the 
 day of our fate. Of course the Magician 
 shuts up shop on Sunday, so we could not 
 see him on the Sabbath." 
 
 " That's tiresome," observed Henrietta, 
 " for we shall hardly be able to get leave 
 for Mademoiselle Eugenie to come out on 
 a week-day." 
 
 " We must trust to our stars for that," 
 was the encouraging reply. 
 
 But it was a serious check to Milly, 
 this unlooked, for obstacle. The lingere 
 took for granted the walk was meant for 
 Sunday, and at once acceeded. Milly had 
 undertaken to get Miss Jones to keep
 
 122 a woman's teials. 
 
 guard on the plea of letting Mademoiselle 
 Eugenie get the fresh air for a bad head- 
 ache. However, it was only a check, and 
 Milly had great faith in her stars. 
 
 " This is Wednesday, parlour day, I 
 must tell Madeleine to get the address 
 from some of her people ; but now that I 
 think of it, we need not speak to her at 
 all, they are sure to have a Directory at 
 every stationer's, as they have in London. 
 We can find out all we want without letting 
 that little fox suspect what we are at. 
 She is capable of peaching the first time 
 she came to a row with either of us." 
 
 " You are right," replied Henrietta, " it 
 will save time as well. We should wait 
 till next parlour day for an answer, and that 
 would prevent our attempting to see Alex- 
 andre this week." 
 
 Next morning Olga looked anxiously for 
 the arrival of her two friends in the clois- 
 ters, where she was waiting for them the 
 moment the first breakfast was over. On 
 the way out from their own meal of cafe 
 au lait, they stopped and told her of 
 Mademoiselle Eugenie's ready consent, 
 but the unlikelihood of her getting out
 
 a woman's trials. 123 
 
 except on Sunday, unless some good genius 
 interfered in their behalf. They were in- 
 terrupted by the arrival of Madame Lau- 
 rence. The maitresse de premiere seemed 
 more affairee than usual, and fluttered up 
 to the little group with an increased ner- 
 vousness in her manner. 
 
 " Mesdemoiselles," she said, "jevous 
 recommande le plus grand calme dans la 
 maison ce matin ; Madame St. Simon est 
 souffrante; elle ne se levera pas." 
 
 The announcement gave some surprise, 
 but no pain. Madame St. Simon had 
 never tried to win her pupils' affection ; 
 she was satisfied with being respected, 
 or feared, it mattered not which, as long 
 as she was obeyed. 
 
 Her presence shed no sunshine amongst 
 them, and her absence left no void ; she 
 was not disliked by her pupils, for on the 
 whole she was a just woman, as far as a 
 thoroughly worldly-minded woman can be 
 just ; she never did an unjust thing unless 
 it was necessary to her interest. To 
 Madame St. Simon, a sacrifice of self-inter- 
 est to principle betrayed an intellectual 
 weakness which she despised in others,
 
 124 a woman's trials. 
 
 and avoided in her own condnct, as a dan- 
 gerous error of judgment. She was not 
 altogether without heart; she could be 
 moved by physical suffering if it came 
 before her, and would relieve it where the 
 act involved no personal sacrifice. 
 
 To moral pain she was less compassionate. 
 If the suffering came direct from the hand 
 of Providence, such as the death of those 
 we love, it should be accepted as an inevit- 
 able decree against which there was no ap- 
 peal ; consequently repining was useless, 
 and bespoke a character wanting in strength 
 of endurance and fortitude. If the bruised 
 heart were victim of the world's unkind- 
 ness, or smitten with the cold blast of in- 
 gratitude, then the strong-minded woman 
 pronounced the sufferer unfortunate in 
 being afflicted with an over-sensitive na- 
 ture, whose tenderness was a sort of mental 
 infirmity, to be pitied in proportion as it 
 was vigorously struggled against. There 
 may have been a small dose of practical 
 philosophy in such a creed, but it could 
 not boast one particle of the Christian's 
 resignation. There was no shade under 
 its branches where the weary might sit
 
 a woman's trials. 125 
 
 down and rest, footsore and tired on the 
 journey homeward. No one ever thought 
 of going to this clear-headed woman of 
 the world for comfort or for pity, but 
 many would ask her advice on matters of 
 business. The counsel of her keen intelli- 
 gence in all concerns often proved of real 
 value ; she would give it kindly too, and 
 enter frankly and cordially into the subject 
 submitted to her. She was capable of 
 some personal exertion to serve those who 
 paid her the flattering homage of so con- 
 sulting her, and would write any amount 
 of letters, or otherwise use her influence 
 to forward their views. She was glad 
 when her friends (or those intimate ac- 
 quaintances who passed current for friends) 
 succeeded, and pleased when any piece of 
 good luck befell them. She was not 
 jealous of other people's prosperity, unless 
 it involved some diminution of her own. 
 She had a smile for the happy and success- 
 ful, but no sorrow could steal a tear from 
 that cold, bright eye. Like the Pagan Olym- 
 pia of old, every joy, every triumph, every 
 hope could find a tutelar deity there ; but 
 the votary of grief might search the Temple
 
 126 a woman's tbials. 
 
 in vain for a shrine whereon to offer up 
 his agony. 
 
 Her appearance in the school-room was 
 a rare occurrence, and took the impor- 
 tance of an event at Belle -Yue ; still her 
 presence hovered about the classes, for 
 she passed frequently up and down the 
 cloisters on one pretext or another, and 
 her pupils knew that she might come upon 
 them at any moment. That possible 
 visitation acted like a spell, and diffused 
 unconsciously a spirit of order and com- 
 parative quietness over their noisy pre- 
 cincts. 
 
 There was no venturing an escapade out 
 of their respective salles <T etudes at undue 
 seasons, while the firm, quick* step of the 
 mistress was likely to strike on the marau- 
 der's ears. To the many, therefore, the fact 
 of her being safely confined to bed for one 
 whole day, brought a sense of relief like 
 the removal of the sword to Damocles. 
 
 To Miss Jackson it came like the trick 
 of some kind fairy; the difficulty of get- 
 ting out Mademoiselle Eugenie was solved. 
 Miss Jones would do the surveillance at 
 the solfege lesson, and allow the ling ere to
 
 A WOMAN'S TE1ALS. 127 
 
 take her place at the promenade. No 
 questions would be asked by Madame St. 
 Simon, nor was it likely any one, either 
 mistress or scholar, would volunteer in- 
 formation to her on the subject. By tacit 
 consent, everybody avoided a word or a 
 look that could compromise the other with 
 the redoubtable Juno. 
 
 Miss Jackson went instantly in search 
 of Miss Jones. The governess was tak- 
 ing her customary walk up and down the 
 parlour-boarders' corridor with a book 
 in her hand, repeating vigorously several 
 trite idioms she had culled from its 
 pages. Milly spoke to her in French ; 
 this was sure to elicit a cheerful nod of 
 approbation from Miss Jones. 
 
 " Poor Mademoiselle Eugenie has such 
 a bad headache," she began, " I thought 
 a walk would do her good, if you would 
 not mind letting her come with us ?" 
 
 " Not the least, if it interfere with none 
 of her duties. Is she on guard this morn- 
 
 iDg?" 
 
 "Yes, at twelve o'clock; she is to re- 
 place Madame Emeline, who must receive 
 for Madame St. Simon if any visitors call ;
 
 128 a woman's teials. 
 
 but if you will kindly take her place there, 
 that will be no obstacle. You know Mon- 
 sieur Beranger always talks as much as he 
 sings, so it would be a French lesson to 
 you, and put you au courant of techni- 
 calities that you won't find in those musty 
 old books." 
 
 " Thank you, my dear, that is thought- 
 ful of you," replied Miss Jones, with a 
 grateful smile. " Yes, I shall be delighted 
 to allow Mademoiselle Eugenie to have the 
 walk in my place." 
 
 Milly felt a pang of remorse. There is 
 something in genuine truth that makes 
 hypocrisy shrink before its glorious bright- 
 ness. Not that Miss Jackson was in the 
 true sense of the word a hypocrite, but 
 she was acting the hypocrite now, and 
 Miss Jones' frank credulity struck her with 
 a sense of shame. Her first impulse was 
 to disown the thanks she had so un- 
 worthily elicited, but with it came the 
 thought, " If I say a word it is all up with 
 our scheme for Olga, and that would dis- 
 appoint her so." 
 
 The paltry excuse passed for an act of 
 self-sacrifice to her friends; it would be
 
 a woman's trials. 129 
 
 unkind to spoil their fun, and after all 
 there was no harm in what they were 
 going to do. Then old Jo was such a 
 goose about the idioms. 
 
 The bell that announced Monsieur Be- 
 ranger's arrival was the signal for the 
 departure of the three young ladies, ac- 
 companied by the complaisant lingere. 
 They had some difficulty in procuring the 
 somnambulist's address, for although every 
 one knew him by name, no one knew where 
 he was to be found. 
 
 Their first attempt was at a stationer's ; 
 but the great man's avocation not being 
 recognised amongst the learned profes- 
 sions, they had no clue in the Directory as 
 to his being one of the many Monsieur 
 Alexandres who figured in its columns. 
 
 " Ces demoiselles would do well," the 
 man of books suggested, "to take in- 
 formation chez le commissaire de po- 
 lice." 
 
 If a Frenchman loses his tooth-pick, his 
 first hope of recovery is directed to the 
 commissaire de police. If he quarrels with 
 his washerwoman or his wife, he seeks re- 
 dress at the hands of the same functionary. 
 
 vol. I. K
 
 130 a woman's trials. 
 
 In any perplexity of mind or body, lie 
 turns to the commissaire de police. 
 
 But the English demoiselles, not being 
 conscious of that dignitary's wonderful 
 resources, turned rather scornfully from 
 the advice. They were growing disheart- 
 ened. It might have been better to trust 
 Madeleine Renard at first; they would 
 be driven to do it eventually, and then 
 goodness alone knew when they might be 
 able to get out again, so as to take advan- 
 tage of her directions. 
 
 " I have no luck," exclaimed Olga, des- 
 pondingly, " but I did not expect any to- 
 day, I met a crow as we came out." 
 
 " If you met a goose you'd have been 
 better met," was Milly's consolatory re- 
 mark. 
 
 " Have you anything to suggest ?" she 
 demanded querulously of Henrietta Wilson, 
 who seemed placidly indifferent to the 
 success or failure of their search. 
 
 " I suggest that we have a walk in the 
 Tuileries. We are not likely to do much 
 more to-day; we have lost half-an-hour 
 already hunting after the needle in the 
 bundle of straw."
 
 a woman's trials. 131 
 
 " Mademoiselle Henriette a raison," 
 put in the ling ere, consulting her watch, 
 "it is past ten, and it takes a full half- 
 hour to walk from this home ; so we really 
 have no time, in any case, to go to the 
 clairvoyant's. We can have a promenade 
 in the grancle allee, or sit down, as you 
 like." 
 
 They were standing under the arcades 
 of the Rue de Rivoli, and looked all four 
 the picture of uncomfortable indecision. 
 
 " It's very provoking," declared Olga, 
 " but I always have the guignon. I guessed 
 we should not find him out." 
 
 " You guessed nothing of the sort," 
 snapped Miss Jackson, " or why didn't 
 you ask little Renard for his whereabouts ? 
 But there's no use standing here ; we may 
 as well go home for want of better fun." 
 
 Passing the Rue Royale, they met a 
 grand military funeral cortege approaching 
 the Madeleine. The church was draped 
 with black outside, and hung with rich 
 armorial bearings ; through the open doors 
 they could see the Bengal lights flickering 
 in the distance. As the hearse passed 
 them, they saw the regimental insignia laid 
 
 k 2
 
 132 a woman's trials. 
 
 upon the pall, which told the last honours 
 were being paid to a marshal of France. 
 
 " There will be glorious music at the 
 Mass — suppose we turn in for it ?" suggest- 
 ed Mill j, brightening -up. There was a will- 
 ing assent from her companions. " Has 
 any one money to pay for the chairs ?" she 
 inquired. " I have not a sou." 
 
 " I have plenty," exclaimed Henrietta, 
 drawing out a delicately carved portemon- 
 naie, from which she took a five franc 
 piece. They hurried on to the church, 
 and pushed their way to a row of empty 
 chairs. The queteuse had no change ; she 
 passed on to other customers. 
 
 "What's to be done ?" whispered Hen- 
 rietta of Mademoiselle Eugenie. 
 
 " There is a cake shop close at hand, 
 attendez, I'll run across and get the 
 change," and so saying she darted off to 
 the pastrycook's. 
 
 " Will ces demoiselles do me the honour 
 to accept the hospitality of my regiment, 
 who are too happy to offer them even so 
 slight a proof of admiration and respect." 
 
 Henrietta crimsoned to the roots of her 
 hair ; Milly gave a slight start, as turning
 
 a woman's tkials. 133 
 
 round she recognised in the speaker the 
 handsome officer in the hussar uniform. 
 There was no time either to refuse or ac- 
 cept, for the stranger, bowing as a French- 
 man only can bow, pointed to four chairs 
 in front of them and turned away. They 
 stood irresolute for a moment. 
 
 Milly was the first to speak. 
 
 "We may as well sit down; he's gone, 
 and will never know whether we stood on 
 our dignity or not, and the chairs are paid 
 for." ' 
 
 The queteuse came up to the group, and 
 addressing Olga as the most French-look- 
 ing of the trio : " C'est le frere de made- 
 moiselle qui a paye," she said, half in 
 inquiry, half in invitation to them to be 
 seated. 
 
 " C'est tres-heureux," answered Milly, 
 evading a direct lie, which she always pre- 
 ferred doing when convenient. 
 
 Just as they were seated, Mademoiselle 
 Eugenie returned with the change. She 
 took for granted they were sitting on 
 credit, and would pay when the old wo- 
 man came their side again. 
 
 The wolf had passed while the shepherd
 
 134 a woman's trials. 
 
 was absent ; but the steep told no tales. 
 Each sat wondering in silence which of the 
 three might claim the lion's share in this 
 graceful act of gallantry. 
 
 They looked curiously round to see if 
 their host, as he had constituted himself, 
 had really disappeared, or if he was lurk- 
 ing in the neighbourhood ; but they could 
 see no sign of him. Perhaps there was a 
 slight disappointment in the discovery ; 
 however, the young ladies kept it to them- 
 selves. 
 
 They had met the handsome officer, and 
 he had spoken to them, and expressed in 
 the name of his regiment his admiration 
 and respect. He had ventured on no com- 
 mon place personalities, he had as it were 
 put himself individually out of sight, lest 
 it might startle their timidity, and prevent 
 their accepting his deferential assistance. 
 There was something chivalrous in this, 
 and in his vanishing so suddenly from their 
 presence. Such a perfect gentleman as he 
 seemed too ! 
 
 They were pondering over the romantic 
 little adventure when the queteuse came 
 behind Olga's chair, and handed her a card
 
 a woman's teials. 135 
 
 on which was written in pencil the list of the 
 music to be performed that day. "Mon- 
 sieur told me to take this to Mademoiselle, 
 it is the programme." 
 
 " Thank you." Olgatookit without com- 
 ment ; Mademoiselle Eugenie was sepa- 
 rated from her by Henrietta arid Milly, and 
 too busy looking about her to notice the act'; 
 she supposed the loneuse came to be paid. 
 
 This singling out of her was very per- 
 plexing. Did the dark-eyed hussar tell 
 the old woman to do so, or was it a fancy 
 of her own ? She longed to ask, but dared 
 not, lest she should rouse the suspicions 
 they were all anxious to avoid. Perhaps 
 her companions guessed what she was 
 thinking of. There was no doubt they 
 shared her curiosity. 
 
 " I suppose the old crone thinks you 
 look more akin to her own species," ex- 
 plained Milly, in answer to her own 
 thoughts, while unconsciously answering 
 Olga's, " she takes you for his sister because 
 you look more Frenchified than we do." 
 
 " I wonder if he told her I was his 
 sister" mused Olga. 
 
 " It was a very delicate way of account-
 
 136 a woman's tetals. 
 
 ing to the queteuse for his interference," 
 replied Henrietta. " I dare say lie pointed 
 to us all, without singling any one in par- 
 ticular, merely saying his sister and her 
 friends were in want of chairs. He could 
 not have seen your face, for he must have 
 been behind us when we were discussing 
 about the change, and so overheard what 
 we said. Dear me, I hope he didn't hear 
 you call the loueuse stupid and spiteful, 
 Milly. I wouldn't for the world !" 
 
 " Why not?" 
 
 " It might have hurt his feelings, she 
 being French." 
 
 This was a view of the question that 
 would never have struck Miss Jackson. 
 
 " What a sweet uniform it is ! so becom- 
 ing, the blue and silver. Don't you wish he 
 may come back?" Henrietta exclaimed, 
 looking unutterable things at her com- 
 panion. 
 
 " Well, I'm afraid he wouldn't be much 
 fun," was the unsentimental rejoinder, 
 " If he'd been up for a lark, he would not 
 have bolted like that." 
 
 "You have the oddest way of talking," 
 replied Henrietta, with a look of disgust ;
 
 a woman's trials. 137 
 
 " nothing is sacred to you ; the sweetest 
 poetry of life you translate into slang ; you 
 have no higher aim in existence than see- 
 ing the fun of it." 
 
 " That's more than I'm likely to do with 
 you !" was the impudent retort. 
 
 " Let me look at the programme, Olga," 
 Henrietta said, stooping across her saucy 
 neighbour. Olga handed it to her. She 
 looked intently at the writing, as if hoping 
 to discover in it some trace of the writer's 
 name or character. Mechanically turning 
 the card in her fingers, she beheld on the 
 other side, printed in the usual form : 
 Adrien de Perronville, 
 Lieutenant au 2htie Hussar ds. 
 
 She slipped the card into her pocket, and 
 made no remark. 
 
 Miss Jackson did not relish the turn 
 things had taken. It was evident to her 
 she was not the object of attraction to the 
 hussar, and it did not enter into her 
 notion of fun to play daisy-picker to her 
 pretty neighbour. She was satisfied Olga 
 was the magnet that drew the needle, and 
 felt vexed with her for carrying off the 
 prize before they had fairly started on the
 
 138 a woman's trials. 
 
 race. It was unfair, she said inwardly, 
 looking at Olga's Tartar-like beauty, and 
 felt aggrieved at its power that made con- 
 quest so easy. Olga, unconscious of the 
 bitter feeling she had so unwittingly pro- 
 voked, was absorbed in the sweet strains 
 that the organ and military orchestra were 
 alternately pouring forth. Mozart had put 
 the handsome gentleman out of sight; she 
 had ceased to think of him or of his message. 
 There was no mistaking the look of rapt 
 delight in her face, Miss Jackson saw it, 
 and her bitter thoughts began to melt 
 away. " Olga," she whispered, " I'm not 
 savage with you, you could not help it, and 
 I don't wonder he fell in love with you ; I 
 would myself, if I were a man." 
 
 " Who fell in love with me ?" asked 
 Olga, mystified ; she was miles away in 
 dreamland, with the heroes of song. 
 
 " The hussar of course; has he left no 
 wound in your heart?" 
 
 " No," and she looked too frank to be 
 doubted ; " indeed I hardly looked at him. 
 I don't fancy he saw me, for it was to 
 Henrietta he spoke." 
 
 "Yes, so it was," assented Milly, "and
 
 a woman's trials. 139 
 
 Henrietta is just out of her mind about 
 him. She's not the girl I could fancy a 
 man like that being spoony on, though; 
 she's so ridiculously lackadaisical and 
 die-away." 
 
 " She is very pretty," said Olga, " and 
 that's all he saw. Is it not too bad we 
 missed our chance of seeing that wizard ?" 
 she continued, her thoughts wandering to 
 a more interesting theme. " It may be so 
 long before we are able to get out again." 
 
 " Don't be downhearted," consoled Milly, 
 61 I'll manage it somehow. We must get 
 the address from Madeleine ; we can say we 
 want it for a friend in town that wishes to 
 consult him." 
 
 " Mesdemoiselles, it's time to move," 
 broke in the little ling ere ; " you must be 
 at home by a quarter to twelve, and it's 
 past eleven already." 
 
 The three girls rose reluctantly. 
 
 u What a pity to leave before the band 
 goes !" exclaimed Henrietta. " I was in 
 heaven during that Requiem, weren't you, 
 Milly ?" 
 
 " No," replied her matter-of-fact com- 
 panion, " I was talking to Olga."
 
 140 a woman's trials. 
 
 They extricated themselves slowly from 
 the crowded church, and were again in the 
 sunshine of the clear winter's morning. 
 
 Henrietta Wilson in her slow, nonchal- 
 ant way lingered a little behind her com- 
 panions. Monsieur de Perronville came 
 up to her and inquired if she had enjoyed 
 the music. 
 
 " Oui, Monsieur, grace a vous," she 
 replied, with a deep blush that gave her 
 pretty face a brightness it lacked in repose. 
 "I am too happy, Mademoiselle," he said, 
 " to have been allowed the privilege of ren- 
 dering the trifling service to so charming a 
 person. This day shall be a memorable 
 one in my life ; I feel that my destiny hangs 
 on it. Do not go, I implore you," he added 
 impetuously, as she attempted to pass on, 
 " without one word that I may treasure as 
 a ray of hope ; say, shall I not see you 
 again ?" Henrietta was growing nervous ; 
 the others might miss her and turn round. 
 Then she had not expected so sudden a 
 solution of her own hopes and fears ; this 
 taking her heart and will by storm was a 
 stronger measure than she was prepared 
 for.
 
 a woman's trials. 141 
 
 " Monsieur, I beseeca you leave me/' 
 she pleaded, raising her large blue eyes, 
 that fell again as they met his glance of 
 undisguised admiration. " If I am seen 
 speaking to you !" — and she looked the 
 picture of girlish modesty and terror. 
 
 "Your name, you cannot refuse that?" 
 
 She gave it in a trembling whisper, and 
 fluttering like a frightened bird, brushed 
 past him. Another second, and it would 
 have been too late. Mademoiselle Eugenie 
 turned to speak to her charge, and descried 
 her hurrying up to her companions, who 
 had crossed the Place, and stood waiting 
 for her. 
 
 "What have you been lagging behind 
 for ?" inquired Miss Jackson, eyeing her 
 curiously. She took no notice of the 
 question, but turned to the Ungere, say- 
 ing : 
 
 " I had to stop to fasten my boot-lace ; 
 the tag was broken, and it took me so long 
 to manage it with a pin." 
 
 The excuse satisfied the unsuspecting 
 chaperon, but not so Miss Jackson. 
 
 " I was not born yesterday, Henrietta," 
 she muttered in English to the delinquent.
 
 142 a woman's trials. 
 
 Miss Wilson pretended not to near the 
 interesting announcement, but walked all 
 the way home close to Mademoiselle Eu- 
 genie, leaving Olga and Milly to keep 
 company to each other. 
 
 Henrietta did not know whether she was 
 intensely happy or something the reverse ; 
 her heart beat quicker as she recalled the 
 impassioned tone and looks of the handsome 
 Frenchman. Yet, with the thrill of gratified 
 pride and tenderness, came a warning voice 
 she sought in vain to stifle. 
 
 It was not the wslj an English gentleman 
 would have sought to know her, or to win 
 her love ; but then foreigners were so 
 different, so much more imaginative. Be- 
 sides the circumstances were peculiar; if 
 he had not taken that bold step, and in- 
 troduced himself, he might never have 
 been able to approach her in the ordinary 
 humdrum way prescribed by society. Of 
 course he would soon ask to be presented 
 to her guardians, that he might lay his 
 hopes at their feet, and claim before the 
 world the object of his idolatry. In the 
 meantime he must seek to win her heart, 
 so as to ensure his success with her family,
 
 a woman's trials. 143 
 
 and seize every occasion of meeting her, 
 and burning the incense of his adoration at 
 her feet. 
 
 What a dream of happiness it was ! 
 
 How different existence seemed within 
 that last short hour ! 
 
 How bright had grown its aspect — how 
 suddenly the dull ennui had vanished with 
 the weariness that hung over the monoto- 
 nous routine of her life ! 
 
 Had he followed her to see where she 
 lived ? Was he stealing furtively amongst 
 the trees around the cafes chantants, and so 
 keeping pace with the lingere and her 
 trio ? She fancied he was, and longed to look 
 round to make sure of the fact ; but that 
 might attract her companion's notice, 
 so she prudently forbore satisfying her 
 curiosity. 
 
 In this train of thought she reached 
 Belle- Yue. The dejeuner bell was ringing. 
 Mademoiselle Eugenie and Olga ran 
 through the cloisters to put away their 
 things in the dormitory, while the two 
 parlour-boarders went up to their own 
 rooms. Milly's was Number 4, and nearer 
 the landing than Henrietta's ; she reached
 
 144 a woman's trials. 
 
 it some seconds before her lazier friend 
 appeared in the corridor. Henrietta was 
 passing her by, when Miss Jackson caught 
 her by the arm : 
 
 " Come in for a moment, I want to speak 
 to you," she said, pushing her door open. 
 
 " I can't wait now, Milly, I have to 
 arrange my hair, you heard the bell ring. 
 Let me go." 
 
 " No, I won't let you go," was the reso- 
 lute reply, and the pressure grew tighter 
 on the small wrist. " Whom do vou want to 
 dress your hair for ? Blue coat is not to 
 breakfast here, unless you've invited him, 
 perhaps ?" 
 
 " You want to get me a mauvais point, 
 Milly ; you know very well how it annoys 
 Madame St. Simon when we are late," 
 and Henrietta strove to extricate herself 
 from the tightening fingers. 
 
 " Madame St. Simon happens to be in 
 bed, belle scrupuleuse, so you need not fret 
 about her august displeasure. Madame 
 Laurence is not so exacting." 
 
 This fact Henrietta had forgotten. She 
 had no other reason to give for refusing to 
 wait and hear what her tormentor wished
 
 a woman's teials. 145 
 
 to say ; so, making a virtue of necessity, she 
 replied : 
 
 " Oli I forgot that ; then come in ;" and 
 they entered together. Miss Jackson 
 locked the door and placed herself against 
 it, as if she feared her unwilling listener 
 might escape through the key-hole. 
 
 "What did blue coat say to you?" she 
 began. 
 
 " What he said to you ; to us all three ; 
 you were as near him as I was when 
 he spoke to us," replied Henrietta 
 sharply. 
 
 " You may use the first person singular, 
 it will be more to the purpose. When he 
 spoke to you in our presence I heard what 
 he said ; I did not hear what he said when 
 you tarried at the gate to speak to him. 
 I should like to have that pleasure second 
 hand, if you please." 
 
 " Did she see us, or is she guessing?" 
 thought Henrietta. 
 
 " I don't know what you are talking 
 about," she added aloud; "I consider you 
 are taking a great liberty in calling me to 
 account in this manner ;" but her voice 
 had a nervous tremor in it that satisfied 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 a woman's teials. 
 
 her inquirer there was something to fear, 
 something to hide. 
 
 " Henrietta," she continued, " when we 
 planned this spree together, I understood 
 it was to be a spree, and no more, that we 
 were to enjoy the fun together, and share 
 the scrapes if it brought us into any. You 
 don't seem willing to keep the bargain, so 
 I draw out of it. You may sail in your own 
 boat, and steer it the best way you can ; I 
 w T on't peach on you, but I won't help you. 
 I thought we were good chums ; it seems 
 I was mistaken." 
 
 She left her post against the door, and 
 put her hand on the key to unlock it, " Stop, 
 Milly," Henrietta entreated, in a low 
 voice. There were steps along the pass- 
 age. "Don't let us quarrel, I will tell 
 you everything." 
 
 She did not want to make an enemy of 
 Miss Jackson, though she believed her too 
 honourable to " peach," as that young lady 
 expressed it ; but she knew how difficult, if 
 not impossible, it would be for her to carry 
 on either correspondence or acquaintance 
 of any sort with her admirer, if Milly with- 
 drew the aid of her shrewd head and ready
 
 A WOMAN'S TUIALS. 147 
 
 apropos. To avoid her observation was 
 equally impossible, so she judged it better 
 to secure her help by making her a confi- 
 dante. Perhaps Miss Jackson was keen 
 enough to guess the train of reasoning that 
 led her to that resolve, for she answered 
 proudly : 
 
 " No, Henrietta, I don't want to force 
 your confidence. There's no need for us 
 to quarrel, though ; we can be good neigh- 
 bours, if we are no longer sworn friends." 
 
 " Milly, don't speak to me so coldly. I 
 value your friendship beyond everything 
 except — " she stopped and burst into 
 tears. 
 
 Miss Jackson had a supreme contempt 
 for scenes. It was a chronic complaint of 
 Henrietta's, with which she had no sym- 
 pathy. At any other time she would have 
 turned away in hard-hearted disgust, but 
 there was real feeling in this one; the 
 girl's heart was fall, and she wept genuine 
 tears ; Milly was not proof against their 
 honesty. 
 
 " Well, I'm sure I don't want to quarrel," 
 she protested, " and I said nothing to hurt 
 you, or at least I didn't mean to do so. Sit 
 
 l 2
 
 148 a woman's trials. 
 
 down and leave off crying, there's a dear, 
 do." 
 
 She sat down herself, and her friend did 
 the same. 
 
 " Monsieur de Perronville stopped me at 
 the gate," Henrietta began. 
 
 " Monsieur de Perronville !" echoed Miss 
 Jackson in surprise — " is that his name ? 
 How did you find it out ?" 
 
 " The programme he sent us was written 
 
 on the back of his card. Olga didn't notice 
 
 it, I suppose." She drew the card from 
 
 her pocket, and handed it to Milly. 
 
 Adrien de Perronville, 
 
 Lieutenant au 2eme Hussards. 
 
 Miss Jackson kept her eyes on the name 
 long enough to have learnt one three times 
 its length by heart. 
 
 " He must have been watching us all the 
 time," Henrietta continued, " for, the mo- 
 ment you three passed, he stepped out 
 from behind one of the pillars ; you know, 
 in front of the church. He asked me how we 
 liked the music, and said what a privilege 
 it was to have been allowed to assist us." 
 
 "Why do you keep saying us?" Milly 
 snapped.
 
 a woman's trials. 149 
 
 " Well, me then, and hoped he should 
 see me again. And oh, dear Milly, if you 
 could have seen his eyes ! They are per- 
 fectly distracting." 
 
 Miss Jackson shrugged her shoulders 
 impatiently. 
 
 " Did he ask you where you lived ?" 
 
 " No, but he asked me my name." 
 
 " And you told him of course ?" 
 
 " I could not help it; he was so implo- 
 ring ; and then I was terrified lest Eugenie 
 should turn round and see him, so to get 
 away, I told him." 
 
 The corridor bell sounded, and cut short 
 the confession ; Henrietta started up. 
 
 " They are at the table already; I must 
 go and take off my bonnet," she said pull- 
 ing open her strings. 
 
 " Take it off here, you can wash your 
 eyes, and arrange your hair here as well as 
 in your own room. And is that all he said ?" 
 
 " That's all indeed, Milly," and Henrietta 
 plunged her face into a basin of cold water, 
 while her companion made a hasty toilet, 
 sending a boot flying over the bed, the 
 missile unceremoniously flattening Henri- 
 etta's bonnet against the wall.
 
 150 a woman's trials. 
 
 " Honour bright, Henrietta ?" 
 
 " Honour bright, Milly." 
 
 " Well — oh, dear ! I can't find my left 
 shoe ! I suppose it's a case of love at first 
 sight, and Monsieur — what do you call 
 him?" 
 
 " De Perronville.' 
 
 " I suppose he intends to come and pop 
 for you to Juno." 
 
 This was an abrupt finale to the ro- 
 mance that startled Henrietta's sentimental 
 nerves. 
 
 " That never struck me," she replied, 
 " but I hope he won't ; it will be time 
 enough when my guardian comes at 
 Easter." 
 
 There was something in her manner as 
 she said this that struck Milly as strange ; a 
 scared, puzzled expression that passed over 
 her face like a cloud, but there was no time 
 to speculate on it now. They were already 
 late, and hurried down stairs together. 
 Luckily for the late comers, Madame St. 
 Simon's remplagante, the mild, nervous 
 Madame Laurence, was less severe on un- 
 punctuality than herself. She accepted 
 Miss Jackson's apology, and proceeded to
 
 a woman's trials. 151 
 
 dissect a couple of consumptive-looking 
 fowls, while the young ladies burst into a 
 rattle of conversation. Most of them spoke 
 English ; it was against orders, and con- 
 sequently a great treat. 
 
 Madame Laurence was too busy and 
 excited in her tete-a-tete with the carving 
 knife to protest against the irregularity 
 beyond a faint, " Mesdemoiselles, du 
 Francais, s'il vous plait !" but the appeal 
 was drowned in a din of tongues before it 
 reached the delinquents' ears. 
 
 These dutiful daughters were sent to 
 Paris to learn French and their parents 
 paid largely and liberally that no pains 
 should be spared in teaching them ; and, 
 to do justice to the teachers, no pains 
 were spared by them; but at Belle- Vue, as 
 I would venture to assert at almost every 
 other school in Paris, the parlour-boarders 
 were composed exclusively of English girls, 
 and they each had separate rooms, in which 
 they passed the greater part of the day, 
 either alone, or more frequently in groups 
 of two or three. 
 
 In these friendly gatherings it seldom 
 happened that a word of French was
 
 152 a woman's trials. 
 
 spoken. Few of them were sufficiently 
 fluent in the language to speak it without 
 more or less effort, and when the presence 
 of no French person, either companion 
 or mistress, constrained them to that effort, 
 it was not made. 
 
 It sometimes happened that beyond a 
 few words interchanged along the passages 
 with the regular pensionnaires, or a chance 
 word to servants, the parlour-boarders 
 would pass an entire day without speaking 
 French. 
 
 At dinner they were too much in awe of 
 Madame St. Simon to hold a conversation. 
 To the few who wished conscientiously fco 
 learn the language, this was a subject of 
 disappointment and annoyance. It seemed 
 that in leaving England they had sacrificed 
 real advantages for imaginary ones. They 
 were separated from all that made life 
 happy, the watchful care of parents, and 
 the comforts of home — all this they had 
 parted with, and for what ? 
 
 To improve themselves. 
 
 We have nothing to say against the 
 principle in itself, but much against its in- 
 terpretation. Properly understood, there
 
 a woman's trials. 153 
 
 can be no nobler, no safer starting point 
 in life. A principle that will urge us to 
 action, and strengthen us in great and 
 good resolves. 
 
 The mistake is not in the desire for self- 
 improvement, but in the standard we put 
 before us. 
 
 The young ladies shipped off annually 
 to the continent are, for the most part, 
 furnished with a standard of self-culture 
 too low and too false for its attainment 
 to be worth the sacrifices it involves. 
 
 French and Italian are the first items 
 on the long list of accomplishments to be 
 imbibed during three or four years' resi- 
 dence in a Parisian boarding school. 
 
 Even the acquisition of the first-named 
 language offers difficulties not suspected 
 by English parents. Their first considera- 
 tion is to secure, as far as possible, the 
 health of their children, by having them to 
 dine at the mistress's table. A separate 
 room is considered almost as necessary to 
 health as this first precaution. Wholesome 
 food is scarcely more indispensable than 
 wholesome air, and an English mother 
 shrinks very wisely from allowing her
 
 154 a woman's teials. 
 
 healthy child to breathe some nine hours 
 out of the twenty-four the close atmo- 
 sphere which forty sleepers, or more, con- 
 tribute to poison. In summer, the discom- 
 fort of such a dormitory, badly ventilated 
 even at the best schools, is hardly to be 
 imagined. 
 
 The French think less of fresh air than 
 we do, and undervalue its power as a 
 motive of health more than is consistent 
 with our notions of, I might say, civilisa- 
 tion. In winter the cold brings its own 
 drawbacks, and an amount of suffering to 
 which no mother would consign her child, 
 if she realised it. 
 
 These inconveniences are removed by 
 securing a separate room for the pupil, 
 and so constituting her a parlour-boarder. 
 The parent who can afford this extra 
 expense can generally add the necessary 
 luxury of a fire. 
 
 So far, Papa has taken every precaution 
 suggested by affection, prudence, and a 
 due regard to his child's happiness. All 
 very wise and very desirable, as far as 
 health and material comfort are concerned, 
 but woefully prejudicial to the progress of
 
 a woman's teials. 155 
 
 study. The advantage of learning French 
 in France consists undeniably in being sur- 
 rounded by French people, hearing French 
 constantly, and so inhaling the language, 
 almost as one does the air. From this 
 best of lessons the parlour-boarder is 
 debarred, not inevitably, but decidedly 
 debarred. Nothing but a very highly 
 conscientious feeling, and an amount 
 of endurance and self-denial rarely met 
 with in youth, can induce a young girl to 
 leave the warm shelter of her own room 
 for the cold, comfortless salle cV etude, where 
 she must sit on a hard bench with draughts 
 from doors and windows on all sides, 
 freezing her down to zero. 
 
 At Belle- Vue there was a stove in the 
 school-room, which was heated for about 
 two hours during the morning lessons, 
 when the pupils were thoroughly warmed, 
 and then emerged bare-headed from the 
 over-heated room into the sharp, frosty 
 air, to catch cold, rheumatism, or tooth- 
 ache, on their way to the refectory. 
 
 I say it required an amount of courage, 
 seldom shewn by the parlour-boarders, to 
 exchange the comforts of their arm-chairs
 
 156 a woman's teials. 
 
 beside the fire for the advantage of assist- 
 ing at a dictee, or an analyse logique, 
 however ably it might be developed by the 
 maitresse de premiere ; and so it happened 
 that beyond the obligatory attendance 
 during the out-door professor's lectures, 
 the parlour-boarders seldom made their 
 appearance in the classes, The frank 
 emulation that generally exists between 
 learners of the same age, studying under 
 the same teacher, was thus in a great 
 measure destroyed. 
 
 The English girls were satisfied with 
 winning the approbation of Messieurs les 
 professeurs, while the French scholars were 
 obliged to study for the lessons of their 
 respective mistresses. French grammar 
 and the ordinary rudiments of school teach- 
 ing came undor the latter head, but they 
 also not unfrequently consisted in a de- 
 velopment of the professor's previous lec- 
 ture, or a preparation for the ensuing one. 
 Of these necessary instructions the parlour- 
 boarders voluntarily deprived themselves. 
 
 For the most part they had a piano in 
 their room, so that when by chance re- 
 buked for idling chez elles during class
 
 A WOMAN'S TffclALS. 157 
 
 hours, the ready answer was, " Madame, 
 je travaillais mon piano," and the mistress 
 accepted the excuse without further in- 
 quiry.
 
 158 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE autumn had been unusually mild 
 and crept on into December, as if 
 unwilling to let winter take its place. 
 Towards Christmas, however, the snow set 
 in with exquisite intensity. The snow lay 
 deep on the ground, and the North wind 
 blew with icy breath through the thin, 
 clear air. A terrible time it is, anywhere, 
 such a winter ; but who can tell its horrors 
 in a French pensionnat ? 
 
 The hoary tyrant pressed lightly on the 
 parlour-boarders ; they had ways and means 
 of abating his rigours beyond the reach 
 of the joensionnaires and the ill-paid sous- 
 mattresses. 
 
 They had warm clothing, and com- 
 fortable rooms with roaring fires to keep 
 their young blood in healthy circula- 
 tion. An hour now and then passed in 
 the cold, badly ventilated class-room had
 
 a woman's teials. 159 
 
 no worse effect than to make them appre- 
 ciate all the more the delight of their 
 pleasant fire-side when they returned to it. 
 
 It is wonderful, when one comes to think 
 of it, what an amount of acute suffering 
 children can bear at school, and not sink 
 under it morally or physically. There is 
 no doubt a great deal in the fact of their 
 being in numbers. 
 
 Perhaps few would live through the 
 system practised on them singly, who 
 weather it successfully in a crowd. But 
 may not much of the chronic bad health, 
 so common now amongst young women, 
 be traced to this perishing process carried 
 on during the years of school-time, on 
 constitutions naturally good, if they had 
 been fairly dealt with ? 
 
 It had frozen hard during the night, and 
 the windows were lined with a thick layer of 
 frost next morning, as by the dull light of 
 the candle the pensionnaires turned out of 
 their beds, and groped half asleep into the 
 lavoir ; but the water was completely frozen 
 in the pipes, and no amount of pumping 
 seemed likely to squeeze a drop from the 
 iron tubes.
 
 160 a woman's teials. 
 
 " Quelle chance I" exclaimed a tiny child 
 of some seven years old, who had stood by 
 shivering while the water was being coaxed 
 up unsuccessfully, " we shan't have to 
 wash to-day !" 
 
 And they did not wash that day; nor 
 for many days after. The lingere, who sat 
 in a corner of the lavoir while the ablution-' 
 ary process went forward, told the house- 
 maid of the water being uncome-at-able, 
 and desired her, while the frost lasted, to 
 pour it out over-night into the basins. This 
 was done, with the satisfactory result of 
 finding a lump of ice in each cuvette next 
 morning. It froze inside as intensely as 
 outside. Some of the more courageous 
 pupils broke the frozen surface, and by a 
 little patience obtained sufficient water to 
 effect a pretence of washing their hands at 
 least ; but the great majority accepted the 
 privation as a happy escape from the 
 horrors of soap and water for one day 
 more. 
 
 Some of the English girls applied to the 
 parlour-boarders in this emergency, and 
 were hospitably regaled with warm water 
 by those young ladies.
 
 A WOMAN S TETALS. 161 
 
 Many who were not on terms of sufficient 
 intimacy to justify their applying to the 
 same source, remained like their French 
 friends, unwashed. 
 
 Things continued in the same way for 
 three days more; the frost shewed no 
 intention of abating its rigors. 
 
 Something must be done, the sous-mat- 
 tresses thought ; the children could not go 
 on unwashed till the thaw came, and 
 benignly melted the water and the dirt of 
 their frozen skin. Madame St. Simon 
 must be spoken to. 
 
 This desperate resolve had been come to 
 by the ling ere, the maitresse de troisieme, and 
 Madame Laurence, as they discussed the 
 subject on the third morning, while the 
 pupils despatched their incomplete toilet 
 in the dressing-room. 
 
 Each was anxious to shirk the mission, 
 knowing how all announcements of that 
 nature were generally received by their 
 Superior. 
 
 " I think," said Madame Laurence, ply- 
 ing at her knitting, and assuming her 
 gentlest voice to soften the ling ere, " I 
 think Mademoiselle Eugenie, it would come 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 a woman's trials. 
 
 better from you, seeing that you superin- 
 tend the lever, to mention the matter to 
 Madame." 
 
 " From me !" exclaimed the ling ere, 
 throwing up her hands and eyes, as if the 
 proposal were too absurd to need further 
 comment. 
 
 "Yes, from you," repeated the mai- 
 tresse de troisieme, coming to her compeer's 
 rescue and her own. " The arrangements 
 of the house don't come into our province 
 in any way, and I dare say Madame would 
 think it an infringement on yours if we 
 interfered in this business ; we are respon- 
 sible for the minds of ces demoiselles, and 
 you are supposed to look after their 
 bodies." 
 
 " Their linen, not their bodies," pro- 
 tested the ling ere. 
 
 " Their linen bears a nearer relation to 
 their bodies than to their minds," insisted 
 Madame. This was a truth Mademoiselle 
 Eugenie could not gainsay. 
 
 " But, I never go to Madame' s cabinet 
 unless she sends for me," she urged. " I 
 don't see her for weeks together ; you see 
 her every day, both of you ; it would be so
 
 a woman's trials. 163 
 
 easy to allude en passant to the weather, 
 and the ice, and then bring round about 
 ces demoiselles not washing themselves." 
 
 She looked so piteously at Madame Lau- 
 rence that the maitresse de premiere was 
 on the point of yielding. 
 
 Madame Emeline interfered. 
 
 " I am perfectly satisfied it would be 
 much better received from you, Made- 
 moiselle Eugenie ; Madame has such a high 
 opinion of your order and cleanliness, she 
 will understand at once your anxiety on 
 the point, and think it very praiseworthy 
 of you to exert yourself about it. Besides, 
 mon Dieu ! what is it you are frightened 
 about ? Madame must order hot water to 
 be brought to the lavoir till the ice melts, 
 and allows the cold water to be used, that 
 is all." 
 
 "Yes, and that will oblige the cook to 
 light her fire an hour earlier, that's all 1" 
 and the ling ere nodded emphatically, first to 
 one mistress, and then to the other. They 
 knew well what the nod implied. Still 
 Madame Laurence's kind heart smote her 
 when she looked at the frightened face of 
 the lingere ; perhaps they might share the 
 
 m 2
 
 164 A WOMAN S TRIALS. 
 
 unpleasant business, and not throw it en- 
 tirely on poor Eugenie. 
 
 " Suppose you wait in the cloisters this 
 morning till Madame St. Simon comes to 
 the premiere for the grammar examination 
 at half-past nine ; you might speak to her 
 at the school-room door ; she would be 
 more tame with ces demoiselles within hear- 
 ing; besides, I shall be there, and if she 
 tries to browbeat you, I'll come forward 
 and take your part." 
 
 This was a venturesome promise on the 
 part of Madame Laurence ; but she was 
 carried away by her feelings, and did not 
 reflect on her words. 
 
 The lingere yielded, seeing escape was 
 impossible. After all, if she did not take 
 the initiative, the pupils might tell the tale 
 in the parloir, where their black hands 
 would strike horror on the nerves of some 
 sensitive Parisian mother, and bring out 
 an explanation. The inevitable conse- 
 quences would be a request to see Madame 
 St. Simon, and an indignant protest to 
 that lady against the sanitary conditions 
 of her establishment. 
 
 Who was to blame? The lingere of
 
 a woman's trials. 165 
 
 course, whose duty it was to see that ces 
 cheres enfants were surrounded with every 
 appliance for health and cleanliness. The 
 result would be a violent attack on the 
 said ling ere for her gross neglect and care- 
 lessness, ending perhaps in her dismissal 
 as a peace offering to the maternal anger. 
 
 Decidedly, there was no avoiding the 
 mission. Mademoiselle Eugenie determined 
 to have the start of the unwashed ones, 
 and state the case that very morning in 
 their hearing, as suggested by Madame 
 Laurence. 
 
 Accordingly, at twenty-five minutes past 
 nine, she stationed herself at the door of 
 the first-class, which was thrown open the 
 moment the bell rang to announce the 
 great lady's approach. 
 
 The presence of Mademoiselle Eugenie, 
 there and then was sufficiently unlooked 
 for to account for the stare of inquiry 
 fixed on the thin, white face by Madame 
 St. Simon. 
 
 Trembling like a culprit, stuttering ner- 
 vously. 
 
 " Pardon, Madame," she began, " I did 
 not like to disturb you by asking an au-
 
 166 a woman's teials. 
 
 dience. May I venture to detain you a 
 
 moment ?" 
 
 There was no word or smile of encou- 
 ragement, simply the freezing stare that 
 went on to say ; " You must have some 
 good reason to account for this untoward 
 liberty, speaking to me without being ad- 
 dressed." Mademoiselle Eugenie felt she 
 had, or else that look would have frozen 
 the words in her throat. 
 
 " I wished to inform Madame that for 
 the last four days there has been no water 
 in the lavoir, owing to the frost, and that 
 in consequence, ces demoiselles . . . ." 
 
 "What do you say?" interrupted Ma- 
 dame St. Simon, in a voice that struck her 
 subaltern dumb with terror. 
 
 " No water, because it froze ! Jamais il 
 n'a gele dans ma maison !" 
 
 She looked down the two rows of listen- 
 ing faces in the school-room, but every lid 
 fell under the flashing eye. 
 
 No one was brave enough to answer the 
 preposterous affirmation. The mistress 
 swept past her pupils with a haughty bow in 
 recognition of their deferential obeisance. 
 The door was closed on the lingere, who
 
 a woman's tktals. 167 
 
 slunk away like a guilty thing to the 
 lingerie to mourn over her own fool-hardi- 
 ness, and reproach the evil counsellors 
 who had falsely persuaded her to take the 
 desperate step, and now left her to bear 
 the consequences alone. Madame Laurence 
 had remained a silent spectator of her col- 
 league's discomfiture, too cowardly to 
 venture a word in fulfilment of her pro- 
 mise. She absolutely asked herself if, after 
 all, it might not have been the fault of 
 the pupils themselves, or Mademoiselle 
 Eugenie, who had not pumped sufficiently 
 to bring up the water. There was such a 
 tone of defiance, of conviction, in Ma- 
 dame's voice ! Still the water was frozen 
 in the basins. There must be a mistake 
 somewhere ; she would look more closely 
 into it to-morrow morning. 
 
 Unfortunately, no amount of "looking 
 into it" could thaw the water which stood 
 in rigid blocks next morning in the little 
 cuvettes, dotting the long shelf that ran 
 round the lavoir. 
 
 Madame Laurence suggested that the 
 basins should be filled at night and brought 
 in under the beds, where they would be
 
 168 a woman's trials. 
 
 sheltered, and catch some little glow of 
 warmth from the young sleepers nestling 
 overhead. Some of the elder girls adopted 
 this suggestion, which proved more suc- 
 cessful than the former one. 
 
 The little fry were too small, and too- 
 cold, and too sleepy to undertake an attack 
 on the pump before bundling into bed, so 
 they contented themselves with getting 
 the end of their towel dipped into some 
 big girl's basin, and besmearing their little 
 blue faces with the wet corner. No one 
 was sufficiently impressed with the advan- 
 tages of washing under such difficulties as 
 attended the process in frosty weather, to 
 care about mentioning the matter to their 
 respective parents. It was a part of the 
 school etiquette to wear gloves when called 
 to the parloir ; but the pupils generally ig- 
 nored the regulation when it was possible 
 to escape the eye of the maid, planted at 
 the parloir door to inspect them before 
 they presented themselves to their visitors. 
 It was found convenient now to conform 
 very punctiliously to this rule, and the 
 most careless of the young ladies ap- 
 peared on the jour de parloir, buttoned to
 
 a woman's teials. 1G9 
 
 the wrist as neatly as any ball-room belle. 
 
 Madame St. Simon had not thought it 
 necessary to inquire what amount of truth 
 there might have been in the ling e re's 
 complaint. She contented herself with 
 repelling the impertinent accusation as a 
 libel against her house, without troubling 
 herself to ascertain how far the cleanliness 
 and comfort of her pupils might suffer, in 
 case the libel should prove a fact. It was 
 the business of the four sous-mattresses to 
 see to such matters. 
 
 Madame St. Simon by no means under- 
 valued cleanliness ; she considered it next 
 to godliness in the persons of other 
 people, perhaps before it in her own ; but 
 if she allowed herself to be convinced that 
 her pupils were without water, and conse- 
 quently unwashed, some step should be 
 taken towards remedying such a state of 
 things, in a word, money should be spent. 
 There was no other solution to the diffi- 
 culty. The previous winter had been quite 
 as rigorous ; the cold had told severely on 
 the pupils, one of whom had been seized 
 during the night with violent pains and 
 symptoms that sent the dread whisper
 
 170 a woman's teials. 
 
 " cholera" round the dormitory, roused 
 from end to end by the shrieks and moans 
 of the sufferer. The doctor was sent for, 
 and calmed the terrified children by de- 
 claring that it was not cholera, but simply 
 cramps brought on by cold. An extra 
 blanket, and the luxury of a hot bottle 
 were awarded every night to the half- 
 frozen girl for some time after, but no 
 precaution was taken to prevent the cold 
 acting in the same way on others. 
 
 Monsieur l'Abbe had placed before Ma- 
 dame the necessity of having a stove put 
 in the lavoir, and lighted an hour before 
 the school was called, but the suggestion 
 met with so peremptory a repulse, that 
 the chaplain felt it was useless to urge it. 
 
 " Young people must be taught to rough 
 it ; those who are Sieves dans du coton are 
 never good for anything," was the prin- 
 ciple which justified the system of starving 
 and perishing to Madame St. Simon's ac- 
 commodating conscience. 
 
 The young people managed somehow to 
 rough it with that enduring buoyancy of 
 early youth, the unfailing panacea of all 
 youthful ills ; but in how many delicate
 
 a woman's trials. 171 
 
 frames did such training sow the seeds of 
 disease and premature decay ? 
 
 On one, less youthful than the rest, its 
 baneful influence was daily telling with 
 slow but steady hand. Miss Jones, whose 
 altered appearance had struck even her 
 heedless pupils, was now after the first 
 month of unmitigated frost, so strikingly 
 changed that Madame St. Simon could no 
 longer blind herself to the fact. It was 
 Thursday evening, the 'premieres were in 
 the salon taking tea ; even to Miss Jones, 
 the wretched trash was welcome, because 
 it was hot. 
 
 Madame St. Simon, seated in her luxu- 
 rious fauteuil beside the fire, watched the 
 teacher's face as she drained the cup 
 eagerly, and laid it down beside her with- 
 out asking to have it replenished. Poor 
 jaded face, pale with such a sad, toil-telling 
 paleness ! 
 
 The Frenchwoman's heart smote her. 
 
 " Mees does not think our French tea 
 worthy of being called for twice," she said, 
 playfully. 
 
 The semblance of a badinage from her 
 employer took Miss Jones so much by
 
 172 a woman's trials. 
 
 surprise that she could hardly believe it 
 was addressed to herself. But the bright 
 eye was fixed on her with a more kindly 
 glance than she had ever met there before. 
 Self-denying in little as in great things, 
 she had not asked for the second cup, lest 
 it might be depriving another of her due. 
 Smiling her thanks to Madame St. Simon, 
 she now held out her empty cup to Miss 
 Jackson, who was presiding over the tea- 
 pot. 
 
 " Too late, old lady, unless you like it 
 from the kettle. Oh, here's a cup poured 
 out that nobody has claimed ; so much the 
 worse for them, and the better for you." 
 
 It was her own cup, which in obedience 
 to the maxim, charity begins at home, 
 Milly had wisely secured at an early stage 
 of her hospitable dispensations; but she 
 did not choose to say so ; it would have 
 prevented Miss Jones from accepting it. 
 
 " Approchez-vous du feu, Mees," was 
 the next expression of newly- awakened 
 solicitude that greeted her from Madame 
 St. Simon. She took her cup of tea, and 
 sat down near the fire. " You do not look 
 well this evening. Are you suffering ?"
 
 a woman's teials. 173 
 
 " No, Madame," and a grateful smile 
 lighted up the wan face. " I feel a little 
 tired, but not ill." 
 
 " Ah, I fear you overwork yourself in 
 your anxiety for improvement ; it is praise- 
 worthy, no doubt, and I wish ces jeunes 
 teles would take a lesson from you; but 
 remember health is more precious than 
 learning ; you must take care of your health, 
 chere Mees" 
 
 Take care of her health ! What a 
 mocking sound the words had, coming from 
 such lips. The woman whose selfish ava- 
 rice denied her the common necessaries of 
 life, fire and meat, in return for her honest, 
 devoted labour, tells her to take care of 
 her health ! Perhaps some too intelligible 
 answer was visible in the quivering lip that 
 could cast back no word of well-earned 
 reproach, for Madame St. Simon, turning 
 aside, touched a little timbre beside her as 
 a signal for the dancing to begin, and 
 during the remainder of the evening took 
 no farther notice of Miss Jones. 
 
 There is nothing so hard to forgive as 
 the sight of suffering in others, caused by 
 our own injustice.
 
 174 a woman's teials. 
 
 There is a voice in such testimony of our 
 evil deeds which cannot be silenced, until 
 remorse, that last hope of cure for the 
 guilty conscience, be put to death. 
 
 With Madame St. Simon this forlorn 
 hope was not yet quite dead. There were 
 moments when her conscience awoke and 
 summoned her to its angry tribunal, 
 dragging up her unjust deeds into the light 
 of that truth that lies deep at the bottom 
 of every immortal soul. In moments like 
 these, the selfish, calculating woman of 
 the world would shrink within herself, and 
 try to escape the searching scrutiny that 
 she dared not meet with the frank humility 
 of Christian self-reproach, mourning over 
 the past, and honestly resolving for the 
 future. She could not attempt a reforma- 
 tion, whose first act must be an unsparing 
 blow at her own interest. After all, other 
 schools were no better than hers. The 
 mistresses were paid the same salaries as 
 in the best institutions in Paris; sixteen 
 pounds a year to the mattresses de premiere 
 and deuxieme, twelve to the troisieme and 
 quatrieme. Miss Jones had nothing ; but 
 then no one paid an English Governess
 
 a woman's trials. 175 
 
 now-a-days. In many schools they are 
 even obliged to pay half price, and Miss 
 Jones paid nothing; she had, over and 
 above her board and lodging, permission 
 to assist at the French lessons gratis. If 
 the food in the refectory was not strength- 
 ening enough for a woman of her age and 
 apparently delicate health, she might, by 
 paying fifty francs a month extra, have 
 her dinner with the parlour-boarders. 
 This was a great concession on the part of 
 Madame St. Simon, who had proposed it 
 to Miss Jones when engaging her; but 
 Miss Jones had declined, from motives of 
 unwise economy, Madame St. Simon con- 
 sidered. However that was her affair, and 
 if her health suffered, she had no one to 
 blame but herself. So sophistry pleaded 
 in defence of self-love, and little by little 
 conscience grew fainter in its pleadings, 
 till at last they ceased to be heard at all.
 
 176 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 MISS JONES was growing every day 
 paler and weaker, till one morning, 
 on attempting to rise, she fell back exhaust- 
 ed on her pillow. There was no bell in 
 her room, so she made up her mind to lie 
 there till some one passed to whom she 
 could call out. 
 
 Her room was situated in the top of the 
 house, amongst the chambres des domes- 
 tiques ; the roof slanted down towards the 
 outer wall, so that it was only possible to 
 stand upright on a space of about three 
 feet, 
 
 The furniture consisted of an iron bed, 
 a deal table, on which stood a Delft basin 
 and a jug without a handle, a large trunk 
 that contained the governess's small stock 
 of clothes, and did double duty as a writing 
 table, two cane chairs, and two wooden 
 pegs fastened in the door.
 
 a woman's teials. 177 
 
 The only window, an ceil de boeuf'm the 
 roof, closed so badly, that in wet weather 
 Miss Jones' precaution of pasting an old 
 number of the " Times" against it, did not 
 prevent the rain from dropping through 
 and freezing into icicles along the wall and 
 on the foot of the bed. There was no 
 means of placing the bed differently, ex- 
 cept by blocking up the door. Miss Jones 
 had borne it while she could, but human 
 strength has its limits of endurance, and 
 a day came when the frozen limbs re- 
 fused their services ; they could work no 
 longer. 
 
 What was to ' become of her ? Where 
 was she to go to ? 
 
 The poor woman sobbed out loud in her 
 helplessness. One of the maids, passing 
 down to her morning's work, put her ear 
 to the key-hole and listened. The sobs 
 continued — she tapped gently at the door. 
 " Entrez," said Miss Jones. 
 
 " Mademoiselle est souffrante ?" in- 
 quired the girl kiudly. 
 
 " Yes, Louise, I fear very ill. Will you 
 strike a light for me, please ; you will find 
 my candle on the trunk close to you ; the 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 a woman's trials. 
 
 matches are here, on the chair beside 
 my bed." 
 
 Louise struck one of them, and groped 
 for the candlestick. 
 
 " Is there nothing else I can do ?" she 
 asked ; " would Mademoiselle like a tisane ? 
 I could get something ready tout de suite" 
 
 " Thank you, ma bonne Louise, I had 
 rather not ask for anything just yet, till I 
 know' what is best for me to take." 
 
 " Can you tell me what the hour is ?" 
 
 " It is five minutes past six. Made- 
 moiselle is thinking there is no fire down- 
 stairs, perhaps ; but the cook will light 
 the kitchen one in half-an-hour, and she 
 can do it a little earlier if Mademoiselle 
 wishes ; or I'll ask ces dames to lend me 
 their spirit of wine lamp, and we'll boil up 
 some water in a few minutes." 
 
 The sous-maitr esses had clubbed together 
 and bought the lamp Louise alluded to, in 
 order to heat'as much water every morning 
 as would melt the ice in their basins, and 
 enable them to wash more or less satis- 
 factorily. 
 
 Louise was the dormitory maid, and 
 thus came to be aware of the purchase made
 
 a woman's trials. 179 
 
 by Madame Laurence and her colleagues. 
 
 Miss Jones thanked the good-natured 
 girl, but persisted in saying she wanted 
 nothing for the present. 
 
 " I was not thinking of the fire, when I 
 asked you the hour," she added, " I was 
 wondering whether any of the demoiselles 
 en cliambres were up ; I suppose not, it is 
 too early yet. If you will knock at Miss 
 Mabel's door in about half-an-hour, and 
 ask her to come to me when she is dressed, 
 I will be very grateful to you." 
 
 Louise promised to do so, and went away 
 straight to Mabel's room. 
 
 "I had better send her at once," she 
 thought, " that poor creature looks too ill 
 to be kept waiting. I suppose she thinks 
 Miss Mabel will be able to do something 
 for her." 
 
 Mabel sprang out of bed before Louise 
 had finished her message, and in less than 
 ten minutes they were beside the sufferer. 
 Louise had not exaggerated. Miss Jones 
 looked dying ; whether she was or not the 
 young girl could not say, but that she was 
 seriously ill it required no practised eye to 
 see. 
 
 n 2
 
 180 a woman's trials. 
 
 " Dear Miss Jones, I fear you are very 
 poorly; Louise had better go at once to 
 Madame St. Simon, and have the doctor 
 sent for ?" 
 
 " Yes, I fear there is no help for it, I 
 must see a doctor I" 
 
 There was a quiet desperation in the 
 way she said it, that struck Mabel to the 
 heart. She stooped down and kissed Miss 
 Jones without speaking. 
 
 " You must go directly to Madame," 
 she said, turning to the maid, " and ask if 
 the doctor may be sent for at once." 
 
 " Der anger Madame a six heures du 
 matin !" echoed the girl in a tone of stupe- 
 faction. " Par exemple !" 
 
 " It is nearly half-past six now ; but 
 that is nothing to the purpose, Madame 
 will understand the necessity there was for 
 disturbing her, when she hears what you 
 have got to say. Don't stand there staring 
 at me, Louise, but do as I tell you," she 
 added impatiently, seeing the girl did not 
 move. 
 
 " Madame is never called till half-past 
 seven. If every mistress in the house 
 were ill, it would be as much as my place is
 
 a woman's trials. 181 
 
 worth to wake her up at this hour," replied 
 Louise doggedly. " I dare riot do it, aud I 
 won't — there's not one of us that would." 
 
 Miss Jones had not spoken ; but a low 
 moan escaped her now. 
 
 "I must go myself — there is nothing 
 else for it," concluded Mabel, and she 
 left the room, telling Louise to stay with 
 Miss Jones till she returned. 
 
 Mabel Stanhope was a brave girl, with 
 many a crusader's blood in her veins ; but 
 as she drew near the door of Madame St. 
 Simon's dressing-room, her heart beat like 
 the veriest coward. She took no heed of 
 its throbbing, but opened the door with a 
 steady hand. The fire was already burn- 
 ing brightly; great logs piled up in the 
 wide chimney sent out a blaze that made 
 the luxurious cabinet cle toilette look cheer- 
 ful in the dim, grey dawn. What a con- 
 trast the room was, with its soft carpet 
 and rich crimson portieres glowing in the 
 firelight, to that other room she had come 
 from ! The little oeil cle bceuf in the roof 
 was visible at right angles from the win- 
 dow where she stood. The curtains had 
 been drawn aside by Madame' s femme de
 
 182 a woman's teials. 
 
 chambre ; it was light enough for her mis- 
 tress to dress without candles, when she 
 left her room at a quarter to eight. 
 
 Mabel's knock aroused the sleeper ; she 
 thought it was her maid coming with the 
 cafe an lait at a quarter past seven. 
 
 " Deja vous, Jeannette !" she cried, in a 
 sleepy voice from under the downy edredon 
 that nestled about her head and shoulders. 
 
 " I am sorry to disturb you, Madame, 
 but no one else had the courage to do so," 
 was Mabel's apology, in a slightly sarcastic 
 tone. " Miss Jones is ill, and requests per- 
 mission to have Monsieur Royer sent for." 
 
 " Is Miss Jones so ill as to make it ne- 
 cessary for me to be disturbed at this un- 
 seasonable hour ?" was the sharp retort. 
 
 " Yes, too ill to be kept waiting a mo- 
 ment more than is absolutely necessary. 
 May I send for the doctor ?" 
 
 " Certainly ; and another time, if you 
 should have any early message for me, you 
 can send it by one of the servants." 
 
 " No servant in your house, Madame, 
 would venture to disturb you at so un- 
 seasonable an hour," with a slight empha- 
 sis on the word ; " this was the answer I
 
 a woman's trials. 183 
 
 got when I requested one of them to take 
 you the message." 
 
 Madame St. Simon raised herself on her 
 elbow, and pushed aside the curtain that 
 concealed her from Mabel's view; she 
 could not see the face that was turned to- 
 wards her, but her own was visible enough 
 in the clear blaze of the fire-light that came 
 streaming in upon it from the open door 
 of the dressing-room. It was never a plea- 
 sant face to look upon, but now there was 
 an expression in the green eyes that made 
 it absolutely repulsive. 
 
 " Mademoiselle, my servants know their 
 duty better than you," she cried, thrown 
 off her usual self-command, " you would 
 do well to take a lesson from them, and 
 learn a little of the respect due to your 
 superiors." 
 
 " I am sorry you consider the perform- 
 ance of my duty to Miss Jones a want of 
 respect towards you, Madame," Mabel re- 
 plied apologetically. 
 
 " I hate that girl," muttered Madame 
 St. Simon, as the young girl disappeared ; 
 " with all her douceur, she has a spirit that 
 would not quail before Lucifer."
 
 184 a woman's trials. 
 
 Mabel rang for the concierge, and putting 
 a five franc piece into his hand, desired 
 him to take a fiacre and drive as quickly 
 as possible to the Rue Richelieu. 
 
 On returning to Miss Jones, she found 
 Louise waiting with some anxiety to hear 
 the result of her daring step. 
 
 " Monsieur Royer will be here imme- 
 diately. Madame desired me to send for 
 him at once," she said, smiling at Louise's 
 eager look of inquiry. " But we can't 
 leave you here, dear Miss Jones ; you will 
 die of cold before you have time to get 
 well ; we must get you down to my room. 
 Now you need not protest ; there's no pos- 
 sible difficulty in the way except your own 
 entetementy and that I don't intend to 
 listen to." 
 
 " The sofa with your mattress on it 
 will make a delightful bed for me, and 
 we shall be as snug as two kittens to- 
 gether." 
 
 Miss Jones shook her head, and smiled 
 at the bright comforter. 
 
 " I'll let the doctor see you first," 
 Mabel went on. " I dare say it will help 
 him in his treatment of the case to see the
 
 a woman's teials. 185 
 
 luxurious way you have been pampering 
 yourself." 
 
 She looked round the wretched den — it 
 could hardly be called a room ; and her 
 thoughts grew bitter as they went back to 
 the scene she had just left. 
 
 " Louise," she said, turning to the maid, 
 " go and light the fire in my room and put 
 the little kettle beside it. Get the bed 
 ready for Miss Joues, and then come back 
 to me." 
 
 The maid left them. 
 
 " You are shivering, my poor child," 
 said the sick woman in a voice, so low that 
 it was scarcely audible; " go to your room, 
 it is too cold for you to stay here." 
 
 "My dressing-gown is wadded;" re- 
 plied Mabel, drawing the blue cashmere 
 closely round her, " I don't feel the least 
 cold. Oh ! dear Miss Jones, how you 
 must have suffered in this dreadful 
 place, while we, in our selfish comfort, 
 never thought of you. How unjust it 
 seems !" 
 
 Miss Jones laid her feverish hand on 
 the young girl's arm. " The fox has his 
 den, and the birds of the air their nests,
 
 186 a woman's teials. 
 
 but the Son of Man had not whereon to 
 lay his head," she murmured. 
 
 Mabel's heart was too full to speak. 
 She drew the thin, hot hand under the 
 coverlet, and sat silent, in a kind of awe- 
 struck reverence, like one who had been 
 thrust suddenly into the sanctuary while 
 some great mystery was being evolved. 
 And what a sublime mystery it is, that 
 wrestling of the soul with God in the 
 moon-lit darkness of Gethsemane ! 
 
 " Would you like me to read a little ?" 
 Mabel asked, after a pause. 
 
 " Yes ; you will find it under my pillow." 
 
 Mabel knew what the "it" meant, and 
 putting her hand gently under the pillow, 
 drew out the little worn black book that 
 lay, like a talisman, under the sufferer's 
 head. Her last thought on lying down, 
 her first on waking, was given to that 
 book. 
 
 It was her one earthly comfort. 
 
 What wonder if she grew to reverence 
 the silent friend with an almost supersti- 
 tious worship ! 
 
 There was no priest, no sacrifice, no 
 power of oblation to come as helpmate
 
 a woman's tiuals. 187 
 
 between her soul and God in its hour of 
 struggle. She turned to the Bible with 
 the simple trust of a child, and in her 
 child-like faith drew strength and consola- 
 tion from its pages. It was her enlightener 
 in every doubt, her solace in every grief, 
 her shield in every clanger ; she turned to 
 it now in her sore distress, and listened 
 with grateful love to the words of wisdom 
 that fell from its sacred leaves. 
 
 Mabel opened at hazard the sixth chap- 
 ter of St. Luke, " Blessed are ye that 
 weep .... blessed are ye that hunger .... 
 woe unto you that are rich, for you have 
 received your consolation in this world." 
 
 The words swept like notes of divine 
 harmony over the stricken spirit, and a 
 smile full of " the peace that is not of this 
 world" overspread her features. 
 
 Mabel went on reading till the bougie 
 had burnt low in the socket of the brass 
 candlestick, and flickered feebly in the day- 
 light, struggling through the " Times " 
 against the window. She closed the book, 
 and, on a sign from Miss Jones, laid it 
 back in its old resting place. 
 
 " Is the window broken ?" she asked,
 
 188 a woman's tbjals. 
 
 passing her hand inside the paper. It was 
 crackly with frozen rain-drops, and a keen 
 draught came searching through the fis- 
 sures. 
 
 " Has Madame St. Simon ever been up 
 here, Miss Jones ?" 
 
 "'No. I daresay she thinks I am very 
 comfortable." 
 
 Mabel had her own opinion on that 
 head, but made no remark, only blew out 
 the light and sat down again. 
 
 "How long the doctor is coining!" 
 Miss Jones said, as if speaking to herself. 
 " I wonder if they really sent for him ?" 
 
 " I sent the concierge myself," Mabel 
 replied ; " but even in a cab he could 
 hardly have been to the Rue Richelieu and 
 back by this. It has not struck seven 
 
 yet." 
 
 "Yes, I forgot that; the time seems so 
 long when one suffers." 
 
 There was a noise on the staircase — a 
 heavy step followed by a lighter one. It 
 must be the doctor. 
 
 Mabel opened the door and stood wait- 
 ing. 
 
 Monsieur Royer was a stout, comfort-
 
 a woman's trials. ISO 
 
 able man, well-to-do in his profession, and 
 cultivating a proper degree of benevolent 
 interest in his patients, no more ; not a 
 man to be carried away by his heart, or 
 surprised into any imprudent display of 
 feeling ; but when he entered that garret, 
 and looked at the breathing figure on the 
 bed, his professional phlegm was startled 
 out of its placidity. Of course he took 
 for granted his patient was one of the 
 servants, but even for a servant, accus- 
 tomed as they are in Paris to be stowed 
 away in pigeon-hoJes, this was cruelly 
 comfortless. Not a scrap of carpet on 
 the cold red bricks for the feet to rest 
 npon in turning out of bed ; no fire-place ; 
 no window. 
 
 But he was there to cure, not to pity. 
 He asked a few conventional questions, 
 and felt the sick woman's pulse. 
 
 Miss Jones had little to say. The room 
 told her tale better than she could. 
 
 There was no chance, no . possibility of 
 cure while she remained there. 
 
 The case was one of rheumatic fever, 
 brought on apparently by cold and priva- 
 tion of every bodily comfort.
 
 190 a woman's trials. 
 
 " Is there no infirmary for the servants 
 attached to the house ?" inquired Monsieur 
 Royer of Louise. 
 
 " Ma foi, non, Monsieur, ce serait trop 
 de luxe pour nous !" answered the girl, 
 without seeing the drift of his question. 
 
 "Mademoiselle is the English gover- 
 ness," interposed Mabel, blushing violent- 
 ly; she thought he meant to insult her 
 poor friend. 
 
 "Ah, pardon ! II me semblait impossible," 
 and he cast an explanatory glance at the 
 ceiling that almost touched his head. 
 
 " Yes, Monsieur, you could not believe it 
 possible for a gentlewoman to be lodged in 
 such sorry plight ! But we can remove Miss 
 Jones to a better room, she cannot remain 
 here." 
 
 " You are right, Mademoiselle," he said, 
 looking at Mabel for the first time. What 
 a fair vision she looked in that frozen attic, 
 standing in her fresh beauty like the very 
 incarnation of pure and gentle woman- 
 hood ! 
 
 " She cannot remain here, and if there 
 be a room ready for Mademoiselle, she had 
 better be taken there without delay"
 
 a woman's trials. 191 
 
 " Oh, yes ; Louise and I will carry her 
 down at once." 
 
 " You carry her I" echoed the French- 
 man, bending a look of mingled admiration 
 and contempt on the slight, young figure. 
 " Pauvre enfant ! I think my patient had 
 better trust herself to my arms ; she will 
 run a better chance of coming out of them 
 with her limbs whole." 
 
 " Merci, Monsieur," replied Mabel 
 laughing, " though I'm stronger than you 
 think, perhaps you could carry Miss Jones 
 more comfortably." 
 
 He would have carried every patient on 
 his list up and down stairs for another such 
 " merci" from those bright eyes. French- 
 man that he was. 
 
 It was a very bold step to take with- 
 out consulting Madame St. Simon, but 
 Mabel had no time to think of that. If 
 she had, it would probably have made no 
 difference in her determination. 
 
 The medical man asked no questions. 
 It was not his concern. One thing was 
 clear, he could do nothing for his patient 
 while she remained in an ice-house. The 
 responsibility of taking her out of it did
 
 192 a woman's teials. 
 
 not rest with him. That beautiful Anglaise 
 seemed to have full authority in the matter. 
 She was no doubt some great heiress, and 
 allowed to have her own way at Belle-Vue. 
 So Miss Jones being rolled up in her 
 blanket, Monsieur Royer lifted her up in 
 his powerful arms as easily as if she had 
 been a baby. He did it all so kindly; 
 carrying his heavy bundle carefully down 
 the narrow stairs, and laying it gently 
 on the bed. 
 
 Mabel thought him the .dearest old man 
 in the world, (he was about five and forty). 
 She held out her hand to him, with some- 
 thing like a tear glistening in her hazel 
 eyes, and vowed he was the best garde- 
 malade she had ever seen. Monsieur 
 Royer pressed the dainty pink fingers in his 
 rough palm, and thought himself well paid 
 for his trouble. 
 
 . " If you should ever want a demenageur, 
 Mademoiselle, I am always at your service." 
 
 " I shall send for you if I do," replied 
 the young girl, with a blush aud a smile. 
 
 " Pas tant de chance ! muttered the 
 doctor, shaking his head. " Donnez-moi 
 de quoi ecrire."
 
 a woman's trials. 193 
 
 He wrote his prescription, and giving 
 Mabel some verbal directions about the 
 invalid, with a pleasant " Bon jour, Mes- 
 dames, a demain," took his leave. 
 
 Miss Jones had made no resistance to 
 Mabel's peremptory orders for her removal, 
 and now that it was over, she lay with an 
 indescribable sensation of well-being in the 
 warm bed, watching the fire crackling 
 merrily in the chimney. Mabel tucked her 
 in, and managed her altogether in a 
 motherly sort of way, that was in itself 
 exquisite enjoyment to the poor uncared for 
 woman, in spite of her acute physical pain. 
 
 Louise went about, French-housemaid 
 like, touching everything with the tip of 
 her plumeau, and conscientiously blowing 
 all the dust into the air. When that was 
 done, Mabel sent her to fetch some milk. 
 
 Monsieur Royer had said Miss Jones 
 might have a cup of weak tea, and her 
 young hostess set about making it with as 
 much pleasure as haste. 
 
 The pretty blue and gold tea-service, a 
 parting present from Lady Stanhope, 
 was symmetrically ranged on the tray 
 round the bright little English tea-pot. 
 
 vol. i. o
 
 194 a woman's teials. 
 
 The rattling of the cups and saucers, 
 and the singing of the sooty little French 
 bouillotte sounded in Miss Jones' ear like 
 the sweetest music. 
 
 No one knows how to manage a tea- 
 tray like an English girl. There is a 
 knack in it, from the making of the tea 
 to the dipping of the cups into the hot 
 water, and then popping of the lumps of 
 sugar into the smoking liquid, that no 
 foreigner can ever catch. 
 
 Miss Jones watched her pupil as she 
 went about it, and thought no one had 
 ever done it so gracefully, and wondered 
 it had never struck her before what a 
 pretty, interesting operation it was. 
 
 The doctor had said she might have 
 some dry toast, so Mabel sliced the re- 
 mainder of a petit pain that had served 
 the evening before at her tea ; she knelt 
 down before the fire to toast it, hard work 
 enough with a French fire to deal with. 
 
 A firm, sharp step sounded along the 
 corridor ; it stopped, for a moment, at Num- 
 ber Fifteen, but passed on again. 
 
 Mabel did not heed it, but the sick- 
 woman did, and her heart grew faint at the
 
 A WOMAN'S TErALS. 195 
 
 sound. It was Madame St. Simon going 
 to see how it fared with the occupant of 
 the garret ; full of wrath against the 
 woman whose sufferings were a living 
 condemnation of herself. Then came the 
 thought, if Miss Jones should die in the 
 the house ! Of course the English girls 
 would give the true version of the story 
 in their letters home, and what an esclandre 
 pour cette chere maison ! An esclandre was 
 Madame St. Simon's greatest earthly fear ; 
 she dreaded it more than sin or sorrow, 
 and no sacrifice would be too great to ward 
 off such a calamity. 
 
 " I'll have her carried to the hospital, if 
 Monsieur Royer says there is danger," she 
 mentally resolved. " He has not come yet. 
 I must tell Fanchette to let me know when 
 he does." 
 
 She knocked at Miss Jones's door, and 
 hearing no answer, opened it noiselessly, 
 supposing the governess to be asleep. 
 
 The tenantless bed undeceived her on 
 that point. Where was she gone ? 
 
 Madame St. Simon stood for a moment 
 half-doubting her senses. She saw at a 
 glance that the room had been slept in 
 
 o 2
 
 196 a woman's trials. 
 
 the previous night, the candle-stick was 
 on the chair, pushed into a corner, and the 
 slippers lay beside the bed just as their 
 owner had quitted them the night before. 
 The whole air of the room was that of 
 poverty in its sharpest form — cold, com- 
 fortless, and stinging. The blast from 
 the paper-covered window, struck like a 
 knife upon her head, as she stood, angry 
 and revengeful under the slanting ice- 
 sprinkled roof — revengeful against the 
 victim of her selfish avarice. 
 
 Not one gentler feeling, not one pang of 
 remorse, tempered her thoughts as she 
 turned away. 
 
 " Cette petite Stanhope is at the bottom 
 of this; she has taken Jones to her own 
 room, no doubt. Well, I am just as glad. 
 Royer won't see her iu this barraque." 
 
 This reflection seemed to bring relief to 
 Madame St. Simon, and to mollify her 
 towards her daring pupil. Perhaps, after 
 all, it was the luckiest thing that could 
 have happened. She held to keeping up 
 her prestige with the medical man who 
 attended her establishment, and the sight 
 of Miss Jones in such a place as the room
 
 a woman's trials. 197 
 
 she had just left, would be somewhat calcu- 
 lated to lessen it. 
 
 In a moment her mind was made up ; 
 self-interest carried the day against self- 
 love. Mabel had braved her as no one 
 ever dared to do, but she would let that 
 pass ; it was better policy to act the femme 
 de coeur, and seem grateful for her pupil's 
 kindness to the governess. 
 
 The resolve cost her a struggle, but it 
 would prevent an esclandre. No blow at 
 her own heart, or anyone else's, was too 
 high a price to pay for that. Then when 
 Miss Jones was recovered she could find a 
 pretext for dismissing her 
 
 With this palliative in her heart, her face 
 composed into a smile that left no trace 
 of the recent storm, she knocked at Num- 
 ber Fifteen, and without waiting for Mabel's 
 (i Entrez," opened the door. 
 
 " Chere enfant," she exclaimed, drawing 
 the young girl towards her, and kissing her 
 forehead, " how must I thank you for your 
 goodness to Miss Jones ? I am au desesjooir 
 to see the comfortless room she has been 
 living in. I shall never forgive myself for 
 having trusted so completely to servants,
 
 198 a woman's trials. 
 
 instead of going myself to see how she was 
 lodged ; but with my head full of business, 
 to which no one can attend for me, you 
 can make allowance for my want of thought 
 about such matters ; still, it is unpardon- 
 able, et j'en suis au desespoir." 
 
 Mabel was young enough to be duped 
 by the display of feeling, and believing it 
 genuine, grew remorseful for the angry 
 thoughts she had harboured against her 
 mistress. Miss Jones had no atonement 
 to make ; she had seen in her employer's 
 cruelty the dispensation of a Will before 
 which her heart bowed in meekest adora- 
 tion. Whatever instrument He used, good 
 or evil, towards the chastening of her 
 spirit, it was well. She had felt no resent- 
 ment against Madame St. Simon, and when 
 the latter held out her hand, Miss Jones 
 placed her own within it, and answered her 
 inquiries as graciously as if the questioner 
 had been her kindest friend. 
 
 " You must ask for everything she 
 wants," Madame St. Simon said, turning 
 to Mabel ; "I will see the doctor myself when 
 he comes. Imprudente ! are you giving 
 her tea without permission ?"
 
 a woman's trials. 199 
 
 " Monsieur Royer said Miss Jones might 
 have some," Mabel replied, putting in a 
 second lump of sugar ; Miss Jones liked 
 her tea sweet. 
 
 " Oh ! he has seen her then !" The thin 
 lips grew thinner, and the face a shade 
 paler. Neither the invalid nor her nurse 
 noticed the change. Miss Stanhope an- 
 swered, unconscious of the stab her words 
 were giving : 
 
 " Yes, Madame, and he was so kind ! he 
 would not allow Louise and me to carry 
 Miss Jones down stairs, but insisted on 
 doing it himself." 
 
 If the speaker had been looking at 
 Madame St. Simon, she would have been 
 startled by the glance of hyena-like hatred 
 that shot from the light grey eyes; but 
 Mabel was busy arranging pillows for the 
 invalid, and placing the tea and toast in 
 her hands. 
 
 Then she had gained nothing by her 
 cowardly condescension, the Frenchwoman 
 thought ; Monsieur Royer has seen • the 
 governess in that reduit, and drawn his 
 own conclusions. Well, she must only 
 put a bold face* on it, and wheedle him into
 
 200 a woman's tkials. 
 
 believing her guiltless in the matter, as she 
 had the other two. 
 
 But she had enough of the business 
 for this day ; so with a few more sweet 
 words and recommendations to Mabel not 
 to gener herself in asking everything neces- 
 sary to make Miss Jones comfortable she 
 took her leave. 
 
 The Doctor came the next day, as he 
 had promised, and every day for many 
 weeks longer. He was paid by the year 
 for attending the school, so his visits cost 
 no extra charge, and her pupils took care 
 that no comfort should be wanting to 
 ensure their teacher's recovery. 
 
 It was slow, and for a long time doubt- 
 ful ; but in the midst of her sufferings there 
 came to Miss Jones new and unsuspected 
 revelations of love and gratitude that glad- 
 dened her heart, and sweetened the bitter 
 cup she was drinking so resignedly. From 
 her English pupils she had always met 
 with respect and consideration, there was 
 nothing very strange in their redoubled 
 kindness now that she was ill and espe- 
 cially dependent on them ; but that those 
 rough, unruly French girls who had spared
 
 a woman's trials. 201 
 
 no pains pour lui /aire la vie dure as they 
 expressed it, should come flocking at all 
 hours, full of affectionate anxiety, to inquire 
 for her, this was more than she had looked 
 for. With all their thoughtless turbulance, 
 they were kind and tender-hearted. It 
 was fair game to turn Miss Jones' phrase- 
 ology into ridicule, and to mimic her 
 peculiarities. In the first place she was 
 English, and in the next place she was 
 their teacher. Two titles to the insolence 
 and dislike of every French child, boy or 
 girl, which they never fail practically to 
 acknowledge. They had worried Miss 
 Jones, and teazed and mocked her, till 
 the poor woman grew to look forward to 
 these daily lessons in the salle a" etude as 
 her bitterest hours in the twenty-four. 
 
 The results of ' 93' are no wmere more 
 strongly visible than in the irreverent con- 
 tempt for authority that seems inherent 
 in French children. They are republicans 
 at heart, every one of them. The fact 
 of being their superior is synonymous 
 with being their enemy. Authority is 
 always tyranny. They rebel against it, 
 and defy it in a way that would be ludi-
 
 202 a woman's trials. 
 
 crous in the child, if it were not full of 
 fatal consequences to the man and wo- 
 man. 
 
 Miss Jones was too little acquainted 
 with the national characteristic of her 
 pupils, to see in their conduct towards 
 herself anything but mere personal dislike. 
 She was accustomed to say there was " no 
 reverence in them," and deplored the 
 absence of that civilising element in their 
 character. 
 
 They had a laisser-aller manner towards 
 all their teachers, which grated harshly on 
 her English notions of decorum and re- 
 spect for the " powers that be ;" but they 
 were kept in check to a certain extent, by 
 the bons et mauvais points system in force 
 amongst the French mistresses. Miss 
 Jones was not furnished with this aide-de- 
 camp, to assist her in governing the ob- 
 streperous pensionnaires. Add to this, her 
 stay at Belle-Yue was much less certain 
 than that of the French sous-mattresses, 
 her position was less defined, and her 
 influence consequently less telling with the 
 head of the house. 
 
 The children felt all this without rea-
 
 a woman's trials. 203 
 
 soning about it, and Miss Jones felt it 
 too. She was a sort of safety-valve in 
 which any extra spirit of revolt found 
 vent. 
 
 But things were changed now ; the ill- 
 used teacher was suffering and unhappy, 
 and that pure under-current of tenderness 
 that forms one of the most touching 
 beauties in the French nature, rose up to 
 the surface in bright bubbles of sympathy 
 and kindness. Even the few who had 
 really disliked Miss Jones, grew full of 
 affectionate pity for her when the news 
 went round the school-room that she was 
 laid up, and might perhaps never be able 
 to appear amongst them again. 
 
 " C'est peut-etre tout le mauvais sang 
 que nous lui avons fait faire, qui la tue," 
 Madeleine Renard observed naively, with 
 a sigh of remorse. 
 
 All vied with each other in showing 
 their sympathy and contributing little 
 delicacies for the sick-room. These were 
 brought by parents and friends on the 
 jparloir day, and smuggled up clandes- 
 tinely by the parlour-boarders, with notes 
 from the donors scribbled on fly-sheets of
 
 204 a woman's trials. 
 
 school-books, as mysteriously as if the 
 contents had been the most compromising 
 of billets-doux. At first, when Miss Jones 
 felt ill, the children made no secret of 
 their anxiety about her, and kept asking 
 permission during the day to go and see 
 her, naturally supposing that their doing 
 so could only gratify Madame St. Simon, if 
 she noticed the fact at all. But this newly 
 awakened solicitude for her half-starved 
 governess annoyed Madame St. Simon, 
 and affronted her like a personal insult. 
 
 The children were not slow to perceive 
 it, and instead of running up boldly in 
 batches of three and four, as they had 
 hitherto done, they stole surreptitiously to 
 No. 15, one by one, evading stealthily the 
 observation of their mistresses, or when 
 detected, accounting for their absence by 
 some unblushing falsehood. 
 
 The sous-mattresses had been sharply 
 rebuked by their superior, for allowing 
 those escapades into the precincts of the 
 parlour-boarders, and were ordered to 
 prevent them, under pretext that the least 
 noise in the corridor was prejudicial to 
 Miss Jones. None of her French col-
 
 a woman's trials. 205 
 
 leagues were duped by this, but they 
 seemed to be so, and acted accordingly. 
 
 Had anything been wanting to stimulate 
 their obedient pupils' sympathy for the 
 invalid, and desire to see her, this prohi- 
 bition would have answered the purpose 
 more effectively than any amount of en- 
 couragement. No terror of Racine, or 
 mauvais points, could deter them from 
 stealing up to the forbidden ground, while 
 Miss Jones' recovery was held to be un- 
 certain. They crept on tip-toe along the 
 dark corridor, knocking gently at the 
 door, which one of the parlour-boarders 
 was always on the watch to answer. They 
 feared at first that Miss Jones was fatigued 
 by the constant opening of the door, and 
 wanted to forbid the pensionnaires coming 
 so often, but Miss Jones would not hear 
 of it. 
 
 " Oh, no, let them come in, it does my 
 heart good. I never guessed they cared 
 so much about me," she answered; and 
 so the tapping at the door was kept up 
 briskly.
 
 206 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ci IT is an ill wind that blows nobody 
 
 1 good." 
 
 Since Miss Jones's illness, the parlour- 
 boarders had been escorted in their daily 
 walk by Mademoiselle Eugenie, a circum- 
 stance that met with much approbation 
 from both Miss Jackson and Henrietta 
 Wilson. 
 
 They had seen the dark-eyed Hussar 
 once while walking down the Champs 
 Elysees with Miss Jones, but an inter- 
 change of glances was all that passed 
 between them. Monsieur de Perronville 
 understood by a significant gesture from 
 Henrietta, that he must not venture any 
 further recognition. So, laying his hand 
 upon his heart, he stood looking at her 
 from amongst the leafless trees, till she 
 passed out of sight. 
 
 Milly Jackson had fairly given up the
 
 a woman's tkials. 207 
 
 prize to Her friend, and touched by Hen- 
 rietta's appeal to her generosity, promised 
 to assist her as far as she could in carrying 
 on the romantic acquaintanceship they had 
 commenced together. She stipulated how- 
 ever, that Henrietta was to 'hide nothing 
 from her ; she would get any fan out of it 
 that was going. With an indignant pro- 
 test against this matter-of-fact view of her 
 grande passion, Henrietta agreed that, 
 in return for Milly's friendly co-operation, 
 she was to be treated with the most perfect 
 frankness. As far as concerned her meet- 
 ing with the gentleman, the young lady 
 kept her word. 
 
 She had not expected to receive a letter 
 from him, and when one was brought to 
 her room by the concierge, she did not 
 think it necessary to impart the joyful 
 tidings to her friend, and expose her trea- 
 sure to Milly's irreverent observations. 
 
 Henrietta locked her door, and sat down 
 to devour the contents of her precious 
 missive — her first love-letter, aod alas ! 
 •poor, foolish child, her first step towards 
 sorrow and guilt, the very name of which 
 would have stricken her to the earth, had
 
 208 a woman's teials. 
 
 it been whispered in her ear at that 
 moment. 
 
 But there was no mother at hand to 
 warn off the tempter, and he had gained 
 too much power now to be conquered by 
 the vague foreboding that came side by 
 side w r ith her joy, marring ever so slightly 
 the happiness that letter brought her. 
 When she had read it, till every word had 
 grown into her memory, so that she could 
 have repeated the effusion by heart, from 
 one end to the other, it occurred to her 
 that she must answer it ; in French of 
 course, her lover did not understand 
 English. Oh ! how it mortified her to be 
 obliged to put into lame, ungraceful French, 
 the feelings she could have expressed so 
 fluently, so tenderly, in her own language. 
 Would he laugh at her blunders, he who 
 wrote so exquisitely himself? Henrietta 
 shuddered at the thought. Yet she could 
 ask no one to help her. Milly spoke 
 French much better than she did, and 
 would, no doubt, be delighted to help her 
 as far as she could, "just for the fun of it." 
 
 There was profanation in the bare idea ! 
 No, she must manage it alone, answering
 
 a woman's trials. 209 
 
 in a few lines the four pages of hyperbo- 
 lical rhodomontade, to which, in Henrietta's 
 eyes, all the poetry of Byron and Corneille 
 was pale and passionless. 
 
 What an incentive she had now to study ! 
 what courage in mastering the difficulties 
 that seemed insurmountable before ! 
 
 The sudden transition from lazy indiffer- 
 ence to indefatigable zeal surprised and 
 delighted her professors ; they laid it down 
 as the effect of their advice, and the ex- 
 hortations they never spared to incite their 
 pupils' industry. 
 
 Happy had it been for the infatuated 
 girl, had her newly-awakened energy 
 sprung from no other cause. She studied 
 with an ardour that astonished her com- 
 panions, and most of all her confidante, 
 Miss Jackson. " What has come over 
 Henrietta P" was the constant inquiry, as 
 they noticed the feverish excitement that- 
 seemed spurring her on through the mazes 
 of analyse, rhetorique, and style epistolaire. 
 Nothing was too difficult or too dry. 
 Their astonishment would have been still 
 greater, if they could have seen her por- 
 ing over her books night after night, when 
 
 vol. i. . P
 
 210 a woman's trials. 
 
 every soul in the house was fast asleep. 
 Milly had joked her on the absurdity of 
 bothering her head about such stuff, and 
 wanted to know why she had been seized 
 with a learning fit. " Study kills thought," 
 was the sententious reply. 
 
 " Pas possible," Milly exclaimed, " I 
 thought they call rhetoric Tart de penser, 
 and you're particularly smitten on that 
 chapter, judging by the compliments Mon- 
 sieur Belille paid you this morning on your 
 essay, sur la Sympathie ; besides I'd fancy 
 your thoughts were too pleasant to want 
 to be killed just now, mais je ne me connais 
 pas dans le sentiment."
 
 211 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE schism between the followers of 
 Mr. Brown and his more puritanical 
 brother, Mr. Marks, had terminated as 
 proposed by some of the High Church 
 party, in their going to the Catholic Church, 
 accompanied by a sous-maitresse, or occa- 
 sionally by Mademoiselle Eugenie. 
 
 To the greater number, the ceremonies 
 represented some superstitious idea which 
 they neither tried nor cared to understand ; 
 the music was beautiful, the sermon preach- 
 ed in excellent French, and the whole 
 formed a pleasing contrast to the cold 
 monotony of their own service. Probably, 
 if the Belle- Vue part of the congregation 
 had consulted their parents on the proprie- 
 ty of thus frequenting regularly a temple 
 of Catholic worship, the proceeding would 
 have been indignantly forbidden, as both 
 dangerous and un edifying. The young 
 
 p 2
 
 212 a woman's trials. 
 
 ladies, however, contented themselves with 
 their own consent ; and Sunday after Sun- 
 day, some five or six of them were to be 
 seen at High Mass, or the afternoon service 
 of Vespers and Benediction, according as 
 the convenience of their chaperon decided. 
 There was hardly one of them who, in 
 England, would have been seen standing 
 under the portico of a Catholic church ; 
 but abroad it was different, every body 
 w r ent ; they went to hear a good French 
 sermon, and see the pretty pageant, in 
 which wax-lights and flowers were the 
 principal performers. To many, to most, 
 the pageant told no other tale ; they listen- 
 ed to the prone as they would have listened 
 to a prologue at the theatre, or a lecture 
 at the College de France ; but there were 
 a few on whose ear the glowing words of 
 the preacher fell with a deeper meaning, 
 and who saw in the mysterious rites of the 
 altar, something more solemn, more divine, 
 than a mere outward ceremonial. Some 
 there were who came away full of long- 
 ings to know more of the faith which took 
 their soul by storm, while their reason 
 stood armed to the teeth against it.
 
 a woman's tetals. 213 
 
 Miss Jones had assisted once at High 
 Mass at Notre Dame. There was no other 
 way of securing a seat during the sermon 
 that followed immediately from the most 
 celebrated preacher of the day. She was 
 too firm in her own belief to be shaken in 
 it by controversy, however able, and too 
 calmly unimpressionable to allow external 
 circumstances to influence her inward con- 
 victions ; but her judgment told her 
 how much danger there must be in such 
 scenes to others yonnger, more ardent, 
 more imaginative than herself. She warn- 
 ed her pupils against frequenting the 
 Catholic Churches, urging them to write, 
 at least, and consult their parents on the 
 subject. They laughed, for the most part, 
 at her unnecessary alarm, and went their 
 own way, quite satisfied it was the right 
 one. 
 
 "What a fussy old party it is!" Miss 
 Jackson respectfully remarked, alluding 
 to Miss Jones's conscientious interference; 
 and her companions agreed with her that 
 they knew their own minds better than 
 Miss Jones did, and were not to be spirited 
 over to Rome by all the preaching and
 
 214 a woman's teials. 
 
 singing from Notre Dame to the Vatican. 
 
 Mabel Stanhope went occasionally to 
 St. Roch, or the Madeleine, when an 
 unusually eloquent preacher was an- 
 nounced. Miss Jones, knowing the 
 strength of her religious convictions, saw 
 less danger for her than for any of 
 the others. 
 
 Since she had been ill, Mabel had spent 
 every spare moment beside her. There 
 had been much heart communion between 
 the two during that time of trial for the 
 one and ministering charity for the other. 
 Often, during the long hours of the night, 
 when Miss Jones lay still and wakeful, 
 fancying her nurse was fast asleep, Mabel 
 was watching, wakeful as herself, and at 
 the lightest sign or sound from the suf- 
 ferer, would glide noiseless as a shadow to 
 the bed-side. When pain kept Miss Jones 
 from sleeping, Mabel would draw her 
 chair close to the bed, and sit talking, and 
 trying by every gentle artifice to distract 
 her friend, till sometimes they both dropt 
 off asleep, one talking, the other listening. 
 It happened somehow that the subject of 
 revealed belief was never dwelt on betw T een
 
 a woman's trials. 215 
 
 them. The young girl shrank from it with 
 a sort of superstitious dread that she could 
 not account for ; Miss Jones from a feeling 
 of reverence for sacred things which made 
 the handling of them out of the pulpit, ex- 
 cept in prayer, seem to her a kind of 
 profanation. She liked to hear the Bible 
 read to her, and would comment on various 
 texts and parables in a simple, reverent 
 way; but the question of revelation, and 
 the interpretation of its mysteries, she 
 never touched upon. Her heart was at 
 rest in its child -like faith, and no doubt 
 from her reason rose up to trouble its con- 
 tentment. 
 
 The young spirit beside her had lost that 
 blissful tranquillity, and longed to recover 
 it, with a yearning that those only can 
 know who have held the treasure and lost 
 it. If she had sounded the depths of her 
 own heart, she would have seen that this 
 it was which made her shrink so sensitively 
 from discussing the subject with Miss 
 Jones. 
 
 " I cannot feel as she does, and why 
 should I pain her by talking of my own 
 feelings, when she could neither understand
 
 216 a woman's trials. 
 
 them, nor set my mind at rest?" Mabel 
 often said mentally. Had Miss Jones been 
 a shrewd observer, she must have noticed 
 that a change was gradually stealing over 
 the young girl whose sympathy had been 
 to her like sunshine to the frozen sparrow ; 
 but the good soul no more heeded it than 
 she did the wrinkles growing day by day 
 deeper on her own face. 
 
 Four weeks had glided past since she 
 had been transferred from the attic to her 
 pupil's room. 
 
 She had suffered cruelly, and was still so 
 enfeebled as to be incapable of the least 
 exertion ; but all danger was past, and 
 she looked forward to being able in a few 
 days to appear at her old seat in the 
 school-room, and recommence her labours, 
 so reluctantly interrupted. 
 
 Madame St. Simon had inquired for 
 Miss Jones every day at dinner with 
 punctilious civility. She had taken the 
 trouble of going herself several times to 
 ascertain personally how the invalid was 
 going on, and had been particularly gra- 
 cious to Mabel in her manner. 
 
 " Faire bonne mine a mauvais jeu," was
 
 a woman's trials. 217 
 
 a maxim she approved of, and practised 
 with a skill and tact that many a diploma- 
 tist might have envied. Meanwhile her 
 great pre-occupation was how to find a 
 plausible excuse for getting rid of Miss 
 Jones. 
 
 There was no likelihood of the poor 
 teacher's furnishing one by any irregularity 
 in the discharge of her duty. She would 
 work while she could stand, whatever it 
 cost her. To turn her back into the pigeon- 
 hole she had formerly occupied, after going 
 through such an illness as she was emerg- 
 ing from, was not possible. Allow her to 
 remain in Miss Stanhope's room Madame 
 St. Simon would not It was against the 
 rules, and her having tolerated it so long 
 was an infringement on them that she 
 attributed to her tender consideration for 
 Miss Jones, and wish to gratify Mabel. 
 
 Both were duped by the apparent kind- 
 ness of the mistress. 
 
 They believed her sincere in her expres- 
 sions of regard for Miss Jones, and admi- 
 ration for the devoted ness of her young 
 friend. When the latter was summoned 
 one morning to an audience in the sanctum
 
 218 ' a woman's trials. 
 
 sanctorum, she presented herself before 
 its smiling priestess with less trepidation 
 than she had ever felt under the trial 
 before. 
 
 " Ma petite, I want to have a little 
 conversation with you on a matter that 
 interests us both;" Madame St. Simon 
 closed her portfolio, and taking Mabel by 
 the hand drew her to her side on the 
 sofa. 
 
 "Monsieur Eoyer tells me that Miss 
 Jones is so far convalescent as to be able 
 to go out to-morrow, if the day be fine. 
 He says that she owes her recovery more 
 to your care than to his. I know how 
 true this is, dear child, and Miss Jones 
 herself cannot be more grateful to you 
 than I am ; but the time is come when 
 I can no longer allow your privacy to 
 be trespassed on, and your generosity 
 abused." Mabel looked up in wondering 
 inquiry. " In suffering Miss Jones to re- 
 main so long an intruder on you," Madame 
 St. Simon continued, " I yielded to the 
 impulse of my heart, against every protest 
 of my judgment. Unfortunately there 
 was no room vacant which I could have
 
 a woman's teials. 219 
 
 given to our malade, or I should never 
 have been guilty of such a breach of my 
 duty towards you." 
 
 " Towards me, Madame ?" 
 
 " Yes, towards you, in allowiug you to 
 breathe at night an air so unwholesome as 
 to be almost poisonous to one in health. 
 I fear my imprudence has already told 
 upon you, chere enfant, although Monsieur 
 Royer assured me from the first there was 
 not the shadow of danger in allowing you 
 to remain together." 
 
 Monsieur Royer had assured her of no- 
 thing of the kind ; she had never said a 
 word on the subject to him, beyond asking 
 if the fever was contagious, or the least 
 likely to become so. 
 
 It was an idea that just struck her at the 
 moment, suggested perhaps by the delicate 
 pallor of the fair cheek she was caressing 
 so affectionately. 
 
 " But, Madame, Miss Jones will fall ill 
 again if she goes back to her old room," 
 Mabel urged, taking no notice of the 
 motherly anxiety expressed on her own 
 account. " She is still very weak, and 
 suffers a great deal at times ; the rheumatic
 
 220 a woman's teials. 
 
 pains in her back are quite dreadful to- 
 wards evening." 
 
 " I do not intend that she shall return 
 to her former room. For the present she 
 can have a bed in the dormitory; the 
 weather is now so mild there is no risk in 
 her making the change." 
 
 " But I am sure there is, Madame," the 
 young girl pleaded; " indeed there is; and 
 it is not the least inconvenience to me 
 having Miss Jones to share my room. It 
 would look so unkind to let her go into 
 the dormitory, when she is not the least 
 in my way." 
 
 Madame St. Simon shook her head. 
 
 " It cannot be. What would your dear 
 mother say if she knew I had allowed it? 
 You do not understand the risk, and many 
 other reasons that make such an arrange- 
 ment impossible. All that I can do 
 to make Miss Jones comfortable, be 
 assured I will do. Later, I hope to raise 
 the roof at this end of the house, and 
 make some changes in the upper rooms 
 that will enable Miss Jones to return to 
 hers ; for the present she must sleep in the 
 dormitory."
 
 a woman's trials. 221 
 
 " Then, dear Madame St. Simon," 
 pleaded Mabel, taking the Frenchwoman's 
 smooth hand in her own two, " grant me 
 one favour. Since you cannot allow Miss 
 Jones to stay with me, let me arrange the 
 little room upstairs so that she can occupy 
 it. I will buy a small stove, and a carpet, 
 and a curtain for the window ; and with a 
 good fire I am sure she would be very 
 comfortable in it even as it is. You know 
 I always have more pocket-money than I 
 know what to do with, and it will be so 
 kind of you to let me spend some of it on 
 Miss Jones ; it may be the means of saving 
 her life." 
 
 Had Mabel Stanhope been a little more 
 versed in worldly wisdom, and the ways 
 and windings of self-love, she might have 
 gained her cause with Madame St. Simon. 
 As it was she had lost it. 
 
 Her generosity was too stinging a 
 reproach to her superior's stinginess, and 
 that final allusion to saving Miss Jones' 
 life gave the death blow to her last chance 
 of success. The sallow features grew as 
 stony as the cameo that fastened the 
 hard linen collar under the sharp chin.
 
 222 a woman's trials. 
 
 Madame St. Simon withdrew her hand 
 from her pupil's, and said haughtily : 
 
 " You take a strange liberty, Mademoi- 
 selle, in offering charity to one in my 
 employment, and dwelling under my roof. 
 I do not require your assistance to furnish 
 my house, or your advice as to how it 
 should be done. It is just now impossible 
 for me to commence the improvements 
 I intend making later, Miss Jones must 
 therefore share the sleeping apartment of 
 her pupils and fellow-teachers. You may 
 make known my intention at once to her ; 
 she must leave your room to-morrow." 
 
 Mabel dared not trust herself to speak ; 
 she would only injure Miss Jones by any 
 outburst of indignation, and further en- 
 treaty was useless, if she could have 
 stooped to offer it. 
 
 " Cruel, heartless woman !" muttered 
 the young girl, as the door of the elegant 
 boudoir closed behind her, "I'd not stay 
 here an hour if I could help it." 
 
 With this indignant exclamation, Mabel 
 went to deliver her unwelcome news to 
 Miss Jones. 
 
 " My sweet Mabel, you are very unjust
 
 a woman's teials. 223 
 
 to Madame St. Simon," was the reproof 
 that met her angry comment on the 
 message. " I only wonder she allowed 
 me to remain here so long ; it was a most 
 unexpected condescension, and I can never 
 thank her enough for it ; you, I do not 
 attempt to thank." 
 
 "I'd never forgive you if you did; but 
 I cannot see the semblance of a reason for 
 sending you to the dormitory, unless that 
 woman wants to freeze you to death, which 
 she very nearly succeeded in doing up 
 there." 
 
 Miss Jackson walked in without the 
 preliminary of knocking. 
 
 "What's the matter, Mab ? you look 
 as mournful as a magpie !" she exclaimed. 
 
 "I'm going to write to papa, and tell 
 him to come over by return of post and 
 take me away. I'll grow too wicked if I stay 
 any longer near that bad-hearted woman." 
 
 " Miss Jones ?" cried Milly, with three 
 sharps in the note of interrogation. 
 
 "Juno, you absurd Milly; she's a bad, 
 selfish, unfeeling woman, and I mean to 
 write home every word of her conduct." 
 
 " And so get Miss Jones turned out of
 
 224 a woman's tkials. 
 
 doors," said the governess, taking the 
 flushed face between her hands, and gazing 
 with unspeakable tenderness into the 
 liquid eyes. 
 
 "Yes, that you would," maintained 
 Milly, with an expressive nod. 
 
 " Promise me, Mabel, that you will not 
 say one word about me in your letters 
 that could injure Madame St. Simon," 
 said Miss Jones, " and that you will not 
 make her conduct towards me a reason 
 for leaving a day sooner than your parents 
 wish. Will you promise me this ?" 
 " If you insist upon it." 
 " I do. It would bring no good to any 
 one, and to me positive harm. Believe 
 me, you exaggerate my grievances. I ac- 
 cepted the terms offered me ; Madame St. 
 Simon only stands on her bargain; it 
 was fairly made. 
 
 " So was Shylock's." 
 " Why, I thought you and Juno were 
 as loving as turtle doves," observed Milly, 
 puzzled at her companion's angry tone to- 
 wards their mistress. " Hasn't she been 
 all benevolence to Miss Jones since her 
 illness?"
 
 a woman's trials. 225 
 
 " Yes, and I was unsophisticated enough 
 to believe in it," replied Mabel, bitterly. 
 
 They were interrupted by the portress, 
 who came to say Miss Jones was wanted 
 au parloir to receive some English visitors. 
 This duty, as well as answering and trans- 
 lating English letters, devolved on the 
 English governess. 
 
 The visitors to-day were a lady and 
 gentleman, who wished to place their 
 daughter at a French school, and to whom 
 Belle-Vue had been recommended by a 
 friend whose daughter was already there. 
 
 Miss Browning was a regular boarder, 
 dining in the refectory, and sleeping in 
 the dormitory. Mrs. Sharp had asked to 
 see her ; but on inquiry it was found she 
 had been taken to the dentist's, and had 
 only just left the house. The Sharps were 
 disappointed ; they fancied the young lady 
 would be more likely to give them satis- 
 factory particulars about the kind of food 
 supplied in the refectory, and other im- 
 portant details, than they could get from 
 one of the mistresses. 
 
 Miss Jones showed them over the es- 
 tablishment, calling their attention to the 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 
 
 cleanliness and order everywhere visible, 
 the brightness of the polished floors, the 
 snowy whiteness of the counterpanes in 
 the dormitory. She made the most of 
 every favourable point, and praised the 
 school as far as she could do so consist- 
 ently with truth. 
 
 " I have no doubt the teaching is first- 
 rate, and all that sort of thing," observed 
 Mr. Sharp, " but I want to hear something 
 of the feeding. What kind of food do 
 you give the young ones ?" 
 
 " They seem to thrive on it," replied 
 Miss Jones, evasively, " and I don't think 
 Madame St. Simon hears any complaints 
 from the parents. Children don't feel 
 hungry without crying out." 
 
 " I didn't ask if they were starved," 
 retorted the gentleman, stiffly, " I asked 
 what kind of food they got. Do you give 
 them plenty of roast beef and mutton?" 
 
 " I must inform you," said Miss Jones, 
 addressing Mrs. Sharp, " that I am simply 
 a teacher of English here, and have no 
 voice whatever in the domestic arrange- 
 ments. I dine in the refectory, and share 
 the meals of the regular pupils. The par-
 
 a woman's trials. 227 
 
 lour-boarders breakfast and dine with Ma- 
 dame.'' 
 
 " Tell me frankly, then, since you are 
 an independent authority, whether you 
 consider the living wholesome and suffi- 
 ciently strengthening for girls growing, 
 and accustomed to plain, solid English 
 food." 
 
 Miss Jones coloured. 
 
 " I would rather you asked those ques- 
 tions of Madame St. Simon. I am in her 
 employment, and owe her a duty wmich I 
 should be sorry to betray." 
 
 " I ask you as a favour," urged the 
 lady, laying her hand on Miss Jones' arm, 
 11 to answer my question. You have my 
 word that whatever you say shall be 
 sacred. You can understand my anxiety 
 in leaving my children at so great a dis- 
 tance, to know whether in sacrificing my 
 own feelings I am not risking the sacrifice 
 of their health." 
 
 Miss Jones was embarrassed and dis- 
 tressed, but made no answer. 
 
 " Just tell me this," put in Mr. Sharp, 
 "Do you get roast meat every day ?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 n 9
 
 228 a woman's trials. 
 
 " On Sundays ?" 
 
 " Oftener than that." 
 
 " Twice a week?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " What do they give you the rest of the 
 time?" 
 
 " Fricandeau, or ragout, sometimes, 
 but generally boiled beef." 
 
 " Bouilli, which means boiled rags." 
 
 "And what sort of drink?" 
 
 "Wine and water," replied Miss Jones, 
 growing very nervous. 
 
 " One part wine, three parts vinegar, 
 four parts water." Mr. Sharp looked grim- 
 ly at his wife. " My good lady," he said, 
 " it appears to me that learning may be a 
 good thing, but one may pay too high a 
 figure for it. This French scheme is no 
 
 go-" 
 
 " I fear not," assented Mrs. Sharp, re- 
 luctantly. 
 
 " Could you not place your daughters 
 here as parlour-boarders?" asked Miss 
 Jones, painfully agitated, and feeling very 
 like a traitor. 
 
 " That is an amendment that would suit 
 my paternal conscience very well," replied
 
 a woman's trials. 229 
 
 Mr. Sharp," but as I have eight more pina- 
 fores at home, I cannot afford to pay three 
 hundred a year for the two eldest; I 
 suppose it would be about that ?" 
 
 " At least," replied Miss Jones. 
 
 M My dear," observed the gentleman to 
 his wife, "we must manage to let the 
 young ones £ parler frangsay ' by some less 
 expensive process." 
 
 " We might speak to Madame St. Si- 
 mon about it, at all events," answered 
 the lady meekly ; "it seems such a pity the 
 dear children should not have the advan- 
 tage of a year's continental finish ; it 
 improves young people so much, gives 
 them style, and that sort of thing, does it 
 not ?" appealing to the governess. 
 
 Miss Jones had her own notions on 
 that point ; but she was suddenly seized 
 with a cold in her head, and so prevented 
 answering. 
 
 " My good lady," protested Mr. Sharp 
 emphatically, " if our ten daughters turn 
 out as learned and as good as their mother, 
 they'll be ten times too good for the best 
 man in the realm. My wife never crossed 
 the Channel till now," continued the hus-
 
 230 a woman's trials. 
 
 band proudly, "and who dare say she ain't 
 a woman of style and ton ?" 
 
 Miss Jones allowed that an English- 
 woman wanted no foreign polish to make 
 her perfect in every good quality; still, 
 there was no denying the Continent was 
 very improving. 
 
 " I don't believe in the Continent," 
 snapped Mr. Sharp, " it's a good place 
 for wearing out one's old clothes, that's 
 all." 
 
 He had never hankered after this fancy 
 of his wife's, and the result of his cross- 
 questioning had considerably strengthened 
 his previous prejudices. 
 
 " I am very much indebted to you, Ma- 
 dam," he said to Miss Jones, " for the 
 frankness with which you have answered 
 my questions; very much indebted." 
 
 " I fear Madame St. Simon has reason 
 to be less so," remarked the governess. 
 
 " She shall never know from me directly 
 or indirectly a word of what has passed 
 between us ; you have the word of an 
 Englishman." 
 
 Mr. Sharp held out his hand to Miss 
 Jones, and gave hers a genuine English
 
 a woman's trials. 231 
 
 shake. "You will tell her from me," he 
 added, "that I have not made up my 
 mind what to do about this schooling busi- 
 ness, which is the truth; I expect I'll 
 have to import a French Mademoiselle to 
 manage the pinafores — ten pinafores, 
 Madam ! However I promised Browning, 
 or my wife did, which means me, that I'd 
 just look over this place, and I've done it, 
 and very much obliged to you for your 
 politeness in doing us the honors." 
 
 "Will you do me the favour to see 
 Madame St. Simon, and tell her this your- 
 self?" requested Miss Jones; "she knows 
 enough of English to understand what you 
 say to her, though she can neither speak 
 nor read it." 
 
 "Certainly if you prefer it; though I 
 own I would rather have shirked an inter- 
 view with the lady ; these French folk are 
 generally too much for me. I can speak 
 the language as well as any of them when 
 I'm at home ; but somehow they don't 
 take it in here, they're not used to our ac- 
 cent you see." 
 
 Miss Jones agreed that it was very odd 
 the difficulty one found in getting French
 
 232 a woman's trials. 
 
 people to understand their own tongue, 
 when one took every pains to make it 
 intelligible, talking twice as loud as in 
 English, and using the best words in the 
 dictionary. 
 
 She repeated the consolatory assurance 
 that Madame St. Simon knew enough of 
 English to save Mr. Sharp from having to 
 commit himself in French, and left them at 
 the parlour door. 
 
 On her way up stairs she could hear 
 Mr. Sharp's sonorous voice pealing through 
 the empty room in tones loud enough to 
 be heard all over the house, had the door 
 been open.
 
 233 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE change from Mabel Stanhope's 
 comfortable room to the bleak cur- 
 tainless bed in the dormitory was a severe 
 trial to an invalid still weak and ailing as 
 Miss Jones was ; but she bore it bravely, 
 making light of the discomfort, and jest- 
 ingly reproaching Mabel for having spoilt 
 her by too much luxury and indulgence. 
 She resumed her duties in the school, 
 giving her four hours of lessons, and 
 taking her surveillance in turn with the 
 other teachers. 
 
 She was not yet strong enough to take 
 the English girls for their daily walk, so 
 Mademoiselle Eugenie relieved her not un- 
 willingly from that part of her duty. Her 
 evenings she spent in the salle d* etude. 
 Soon after the first tea-party, Madame St. 
 Simon forbade her going to the parlour- 
 boarders' rooms, under pretence that her
 
 234 a woman's trials. 
 
 presence there was an encouragement to 
 the young ladies to speak English ; so even 
 the genial cup of tea had to be given up, 
 and, trivial as it seems, there were few 
 small sacrifices more painful than this. 
 But it was made unmurmuringly, and no 
 one guessed how much it cost her. 
 While Miss Jones conned her idioms in the 
 school-room, teaching by her patient en- 
 durance of cold, and comparative hunger, 
 many a lesson of self-negation and forti- 
 tude to the shivering little world around 
 her, the parlour-boarders were sipping 
 their tea in delicious comfort, listening 
 meanwhile to a novel which each one took 
 it in turns to read aloud. 
 
 By way of compensation for their dis- 
 obedience in constantly talking English, 
 they refrained from all English books, and 
 were guided chiefly by Mademoiselle Eu- 
 genie in their selection of French ones. 
 " The Mysteries of Paris " was their first 
 introduction to Eugene Sue, and after 
 that, most of his works had helped to wile 
 away the winter evenings. George Sand 
 and Dumas contributed largely to the 
 stock of useful knowledge thus gained,
 
 a woman's trials. 235 
 
 dazzling by the brilliancy of their too 
 gifted pens these young and innocent 
 girls, fresh from the pure atmosphere of 
 an English home. Their total ignorance 
 of vice served as a shield to ward off many 
 a fatal blow at purity and principle ; but 
 who dare say that many a drop of the 
 deadly poison did not sink into the lis- 
 teners' hearts, leaving its trace behind 
 like the serpent's slime ? 
 
 The stories were terribly fascinating, 
 decked in the glittering plumage that 
 genius too easily lends to vice ; and this 
 was the literature that Madame St. 
 Simon's pupils fed their hearts upon ! As 
 a " lecon de narration " it was no doubt 
 vastly improving, and they had been sent 
 to Paris to improve themselves. 
 
 Mabel Stanhope was not one of the 
 favoured hearers of these edifying lectures 
 — her companions had not pressed her to 
 join their soirees. There was not a more 
 popular girl in the school, yet, somehow, 
 her presence was often felt to be an unde- 
 finable restraint ; she never aimed at supe- 
 riority, or the right to arbitrate amongst 
 them ; still the one and the other were
 
 236 a woman's trials. 
 
 tacitly yielded to her. They went to her 
 fast enough when they were in trouble, 
 but there was something in the clear light 
 of those deep hazel eyes, that made levity 
 or falsehood shrink away shame-faced. 
 They let her into all their scrapes and 
 tricks, when there was nothing in them to 
 blush for, no underhand meanness or self- 
 ishness that would pain or mortify others, 
 and Mabel enjoyed the fun as much as any 
 one ; but they did not care to let her know 
 the kind of books they were reading just 
 then ; her presence in the darkest corner 
 of the room would have rebuked them like 
 a living conscience. Their own was not 
 dead, poor children, but it was silently 
 accommodating ; they were conscious of not 
 doing right, but not quite certain of doing 
 absolutely wrong. Had the foul romances 
 that captivated their imaginations been 
 written in English, the words would have 
 burned their tongues from very shame; 
 but French admitted so much more laxity 
 both in manner and matter ; then, although 
 unfortunately they knew the language too 
 well to miss the meaning of a single phrase 
 in its literal sense, the very fact of the
 
 a woman's trials. 237 
 
 lanofuas^e being: a foreign one, threw a sort 
 of mistiness over the reality of the descrip- 
 tions, and stood like a veil between the 
 guilty picture and their gaze. 
 
 The culprits felt that Mabel Stanhope 
 could not have endured the sight were the 
 curtain ten times as thick ; the cloud that 
 sheltered their less truthful eves, would 
 have scalded hers like smoke. So she 
 passed her evenings alone; studying, 
 drawing, or reading such books as she 
 might have read before her mother. 
 
 She missed Miss Jones sorely ; not that 
 the governess was what one might call 
 good company — but she was a good, true- 
 hearted woman, and loved the beautiful 
 girl who had cared and tended her, till 
 Mabel grew to lean upon her love with the 
 dependence of a child. There seemed no 
 likelihood of their coming together again ; 
 a month had passed since they had so un- 
 willingly dissolved partnership, and their 
 only meetings were during recreation, in 
 the cloisters or the garden, or during an 
 occasional walk out. 
 
 The parlour-boarders seldom conde- 
 scended to join the noisy group in the
 
 238 a woman's teials. 
 
 play-ground ; it was considered rather m- 
 fra dig. for the demoiselles en chambres to 
 join the romps and games of the ordinary 
 pensionnaires, many of whom were their 
 seniors in years, and generally far more 
 advanced in book-learning than the occu- 
 pants of the dark corridor. 
 
 It was a bright sunny day in the beginning 
 of March, and the scene in the garden was 
 as bright and pleasant as the day itself. 
 
 The school had just turned out for the 
 hour's play and idleness that came between 
 dinner and the classes des professeurs. 
 Buoyant and light-hearted, the youthful 
 band came singing and dancing along, 
 making the high brick walls that hemmed 
 in the play-ground, ring with their merry 
 peals of laughter. 
 
 The elder ones fell into groups, walking 
 arm in arm up and down under the naked 
 trees that stretched out their grey branches 
 in the sun, with a green bud peeping out 
 here and there like a far off promise of 
 coming spring. 
 
 Les mioches, as dignified fourteen and 
 sixteen called the younger portion of the 
 flock, were shouting and jumping and
 
 a woman's trials. 239 
 
 vociferating in a way that might be ami- 
 cable for the moment, but looked unsatis- 
 factory if the effervescence lasted long. 
 The question at issue was : what game 
 was to be played ? Cries of colin-maillard, 
 cache-cache, crapand, with mingled cheers 
 and clapping of hands, and very decided 
 tones and gestures of disapprobation, rose 
 high and shrill from the young debaters. 
 
 Elbows and tiny fists argued the point 
 with more force than logic, and the combat 
 was evidently waxing warm. 
 
 Suddenly they stopped, and as if touch- 
 ed by a common spring, rushed one and 
 all to the garden door, rending the air 
 with cries of: "Vive Monsieur 1'Abbe ! 
 bon jour, Monsieur l'Abbe !" 
 
 There he stood in his black soutane, 
 towering above the baby forms that 
 swarmed around him, clinging to his 
 gown, pulling him by the sleeve, and 
 taking all manner of liberties with his ven- 
 erable person, bold and fearless, as it is 
 the privilege of childhood to be with virtue 
 and high holiness. 
 
 They were more in awe of the gentlest 
 of their mistresses than of this white-
 
 240 a woman's trials. 
 
 haired priest. Self-denying austerity was 
 stamped on his brow and in his every 
 movement, but the children felt, with the 
 true instinct of childhood, that the sever- 
 ity was all for himself, the benign gentle- 
 ness for them. His presence amongst 
 them was like the visit of a father ; they 
 reverenced him, as far as their nature was 
 capable of reverence, but they had not 
 learned to fear him. 
 
 The elder pupils, with a nearer approach 
 to courtesy than was visible in their man- 
 ner to any other superior, came to say 
 bon jour to the chaplain. He had a kind 
 word for each of them, but his weakness 
 was for the little ones. 
 
 When their garrulous greeting had sub- 
 sided into comparative quiet, the old man 
 suggested they should go on with the game 
 he had interrupted. 
 
 " Non, non, Monsieur l'Abbe, a story, 
 we want a story !" 
 
 It was his habit, when he came to see them 
 during the fine weather, to gather them 
 round his knee, and tell them some trait 
 from sacred or profane history, which they 
 listened to with rapt delight; invariably
 
 a woman's teials. 241 
 
 asking, before the tale began, " Is it a true 
 story, Monsieur l'Abbe ?" But to-day it 
 was too cold to sit down out of doors, so 
 the chaplain proposed their running a race, 
 instead. 
 
 This met with a flat refusal. 
 
 " C'est ennuyeux courir, nous voulons 
 une histoire." 
 
 Instead of arguing the point, the good 
 man drew from his pocket-book a small 
 picture, representing the Madonna holding 
 the divine infant in her arms. He held up 
 the image, with its delicate lace border, 
 before the wistful eyes of the children, 
 exclaiming, " Suppose we run for this, w T ill 
 any one try to win it ?" 
 
 " Oh, oui, moi, et moi, et moi I" came 
 from a dozen voices, and the pout dis- 
 appeared from every lip. 
 
 They scampered off to the gate, which 
 was to serve as their starting point. 
 
 Monsieur l'Abbe ranged the young com- 
 petitors side by side, and clapping his 
 hands three times, gave the signal to 
 start. 
 
 Miss Jones and Mabel stood to look at 
 the children as they took their flight like a 
 
 VOL. i. e
 
 242 a woman's trials. 
 
 covey of partridges, shrieking and panting 
 as they flew. 
 
 " Quel joli tableau I" exclaimed the 
 Abbe. 
 
 " Yes, they are very happy," murmured 
 Mabel, absently. 
 
 " What have you to envy them, my 
 child?" asked the chaplain, turning his 
 keen glance on the lovely speaker. 
 
 " Peace," answered the young girl. 
 
 Miss Jones started ; Mabel was leaning 
 on her, and felt it. She would have given 
 a great deal to call back the word that had 
 escaped from her unguardedly ; but it was 
 said, and she could not gainsay it. 
 
 Happily, or it may be unhappily, her 
 embarrassment was relieved, and any ex- 
 planation avoided by the advent of the 
 portress with several English letters. 
 
 She handed one to Mabel. 
 
 It was no unusual thing, as we have 
 seen, for Miss Jones to be sent for when 
 the English post arrived, and yet her 
 breath came quicker, when the woman 
 said, " Madame vous demande, Mees." 
 
 She followed her, and left Mabel de- 
 vouring her mother's letter.
 
 a woman's trials. 248 
 
 The return of the racers to the winning 
 post, called away the chaplain's attention, 
 and prevented his endeavouring to gain 
 any closer knowledge of the young stran- 
 ger whose words had awakened his interest 
 and curiosity. 
 
 If Miss Jones faltered a moment at the 
 door of the council- chamber with a vague 
 feeling of apprehension, the reception she 
 met with set her fears to rest. 
 
 Madame St. Simon was seated at her 
 writing-table, scanning carefully, and with 
 evident satisfaction, a list of names with a 
 figure opposite each ; it was the list of 
 contributions from the pupils towards pur- 
 chasing for their mistress a present on her 
 fete. 
 
 The said present was always supposed 
 to be une surprise, although every year it 
 was a matter of much discussion between 
 Madame St. Simon and the sous-maMresses, 
 admitted on this occasion to the confi- 
 dence of their superior, how the money 
 thus raised was to be spent. 
 
 Most of the drawing-room furniture and 
 Madame' s boudoir had been levied in this 
 way. 
 
 R 2
 
 244 a woman's trials. 
 
 The mistress of the first class, it was 
 believed, had adroitly extracted from her 
 employer what trifle she would most will- 
 ingly accept from her loving pupils. The 
 article was bought by Madame herself, 
 accompanied by Madame Laurence, and 
 when the day arrived, the surprise was 
 placed in the drawing-room, where the 
 young ladies, dressed in their Sunday 
 uniform, presented it to Madame St. Si- 
 mon in a pretty speech concocted with 
 labour by the premiere en rhetorique. 
 
 The astonishment and attendrissement of 
 the lady were touching to witness. She 
 embraced her cheres enfans, protesting that 
 she was never more surprised in her life. 
 It was just the very thing she had been 
 wishing for. How could they have guessed 
 it? 
 
 Madame Laurence then reminded her of 
 one particular day when she, Madame St. 
 Simon, had observed how dark the draw- 
 ing-room looked when there was company, 
 with only the two lamps on the chimney- 
 piece, and how Madame Laurence had 
 said what an improvement a lustre would 
 be, and how Madame then replied that she
 
 A WOMAN'S 
 
 TRIALS. 245 
 
 wished for one of all things, but could not 
 afford it. 
 
 At this elucidation of the mystery, Ma- 
 dame St. Simon embraced Madame Lau- 
 rence, declaring she was a very dangerous 
 person, and not to be trusted in future. 
 
 The day was drawing near on which 
 this annual comedy was to be played over 
 again. 
 
 The subscription list had been sent 
 round to pupils and teachers. 
 
 Madame St. Simon distinctly refused to 
 accept less than ten francs from any one. 
 So the sous-maitresses with twelve or fif- 
 teen pounds a-year, and the English go- 
 verness with nothing, were obliged to 
 submit to the yearly tax, or bear from 
 their superior such signs of gracious good- 
 will as she knew how to bestow. 
 
 Miss Jones had given ten francs like 
 the rest, and it was the sight of her name 
 on the list that won for her the cordial 
 "bon jour, chere Mees," which banished 
 her uneasiness on entering the room. 
 
 Madame St. Simon did not know that it 
 was the last of her little income of ten 
 pounds, which served to dress the teacher,
 
 246 a woman's trials. 
 
 and defray the chance expenses of her 
 self-depriving life. 
 
 Miss Jones had asked Mabel Stanhope 
 if she could advance her a little money, in 
 case she should want it before her own 
 came due, and the young girl, of course, 
 promised, urging in vain Miss Jones' ac- 
 ceptance of a five-pound note at once. 
 
 " Half my year's income ! What should 
 I want with such a sum ?" Miss Jones had 
 replied. 
 
 " Well, I shall not touch it," said Mabel, 
 " till your money comes; so if you want 
 it, there it is." 
 
 There were two letters to be translated, 
 and Madame St. Simon handed them to 
 Miss Jones, that she might have less diffi- 
 culty in turning them into French. 
 
 The first was from an English trades- 
 man, soliciting the honour of supplying 
 coals to the far-famed establishment of 
 Belle-Vue. He hinted at the possibility 
 of sending his daughter Araminta to be 
 finished off there, in case Madame St. 
 Simon favoured him with her patronage. 
 He bad heard a great deal of her school 
 from his respected and wealthy friend, Mr,
 
 a woman's trials. 247 
 
 Huggins, who did an extensive trade in 
 the soap and candle department, and whose 
 daughter had spent six months at Belle- 
 Vue, where she had learned manners that 
 made her the admiration and envy of a 
 large circle at Plymouth. 
 
 • Miss Jones smiled at this characteristic 
 epistle, and having satisfied herself that 
 she could render it in tolerable French, 
 proceeded to open the second letter. 
 
 On looking to the signature, she gave 
 an involuntary start — " Bessy Sharp." It 
 was from one of Mr. Sharp's pinafores to 
 her friend, Mary Browning. This was 
 Miss Bessy's letter : 
 
 " Dearest Mary, 
 " We arrived at home only a few days 
 ago, or you should have heard from me 
 sooner. Such a beautiful tour as we 
 have had ! although we only staid three 
 days at that most enchanting of cities — 
 Paris. How I envy you living there ! it- 
 must be delightful. London looks so dull, 
 and Englishmen so slow and awkward 
 after those bewitching Frenchmen, with 
 their exquisite moustaches that make them
 
 248 a woman's teials. 
 
 all look like heroes and brigands. I have 
 a great deal to confide to you, that 
 could not be said in a letter ; but I just 
 write that you may not think I've forgotten 
 you, and to say how awfully sorry Belinda 
 and I are, that pa didn't put us to the 
 same school with you ; but he was so fright- 
 ened at what the English governess told him 
 about the food you get, and so forth. 
 Indeed you must be half-starved, which I 
 lament deeply to think of. Still I should 
 have endured * boiled rags,' as pa calls your 
 French beef, to have reaped for a time the 
 harvest of learning you cannot fail to 
 acquire amongst the most accomplished 
 nation in the world. 
 
 "Adieu, dearest Mary. Write soon to 
 your devoted and attached 
 
 " Bessy Shakp" 
 
 Miss Jones read the letter three times 
 over, trying to persuade herself that she 
 had mistaken the meaning, or the words ; 
 but there they stood in horrible relief upon 
 the rose-coloured paper, glaring at her 
 like a death-warrant. 
 
 Was ever sentence more cruelly dealt
 
 a woman's trials. 249 
 
 than this ? She must denounce herself, 
 knowing for a certainty that the denuncia- 
 tion would throw her houseless, breadless, 
 friendless on the world. The judge, 
 before whom she stood, would shew no 
 mercy to her misdeed ; the very shadow 
 of such a hope did not cross her mind. 
 
 She might have saved herself by passing 
 over the damning passage, without fear 
 of detection. Madame St. Simon never 
 looked at the letters once translated by the 
 governess; but the truthful woman cast 
 the temptation from her with calm and 
 brave determination. No, she had done her 
 duty towards God and her fellow- man ; she 
 would not betray it now by a cowardly 
 deceit. 
 
 A much longer time elapsed than was 
 necessary for the perusal of the letters, 
 and still Miss Jones stood with the open 
 paper in her hand. 
 
 Madame St. Simon, considering she had 
 given her sufficient leisure to digest them, 
 called out, without looking up from her 
 account book, " Voyons ! quelles nouvelles 
 d'outre-manche ?" 
 
 Miss Jones approached her employer,
 
 250 a woman's trials. 
 
 and in a voice that played false to the 
 steady purpose in her heart, replied, "■ This 
 is an application from a tradesman, solicit- 
 ing your patronage ; and the other is from 
 the daughter of Mrs. Sharp to Miss 
 Browning. Which shall I read first ?" 
 
 The poor teacher put the question with 
 a shadowy hope that Madame St. Simon, 
 as it sometimes happened, might refuse to 
 hear the young lady's letter, under pretext 
 of being pressed for time. Besides holding 
 those interesting effusions in slight con- 
 tempt, Miss Jones's translation was a 
 severe trial to her nerves, and when there 
 was a plausible excuse for so doing, she 
 would cut it short. But Miss Jones' star 
 was low in the horizon just now. The lady 
 had, apparently, time enough to spare, and 
 replied eagerly, [' Celle de la petite Sharp." 
 
 She had been greatly annoyed at seeing 
 the two young ladies escape her, especially 
 on becoming aware that there were eight 
 more in the rear, as Mr. Sharp had taken 
 pains to make her understand. 
 
 She fell back in her fauteuil, and summon- 
 ed all her gravity to undergo the coming 
 ordeal.
 
 a woman's teials. 251 
 
 Then it was that, fixing her keen eye 
 upon Miss Jones, she saw how pale and 
 agitated the governess looked. 
 
 " Qu'avez-vous ?" she inquired uneasily. 
 
 Miss Jones supported herself against 
 the wall, and, without noticing the ques- 
 tion, said in as firm a voice as she could 
 command, " Madame, I have now been 
 eight months in your service ; you have 
 had every opportunity of forming a correct 
 opinion of my character and my principles. 
 I may not have been fortunate enough to 
 win your affec friend sympa- 
 thy, but I am conscious of a claim to your 
 respect." 
 
 She paused, in hopes of some sign or 
 word of encouragement. 
 
 Madame St. Simon bowed her acquies- 
 cence with a look that was expressive 
 enough of astonishment, but of no more 
 genial emotion. 
 
 " Have you ever found me guilty of a 
 falsehood ?" 
 
 " Never." 
 
 " Do you believe me capable of a false- 
 hood?" 
 
 " No."
 
 252 A WOMAN'S TE1ALS. 
 
 " Then if it should come to pass that I 
 must choose between a sacrifice of truth, 
 or of your interest, you would not expect 
 me to hesitate ?" 
 
 The stare grew colder, and the lips a 
 degree more rigid. 
 
 " I should expect you to clo your duty 
 by me while you ate of my bread," the 
 judge replied, evading a direct answer 
 to the delicate question. 
 
 " I have never failed in my duty to you, 
 as far as I know it, so help me Heaven ! 
 but a day came when I had to choose 
 between it and my duty to God, and — I 
 was true to my conscience !" 
 
 " What are these periphrases about ?" 
 cried Madame St. Simon, her green eyes 
 flashing fiercely ; " what do you mean me 
 to understand ? You must be dead to every 
 sense of justice and of honesty, if under 
 cover of puritanical fastidiousness you have 
 betrayed my interests or my honour by 
 word or look." 
 
 Miss Jones shook her head, but made no 
 reply. 
 
 " Let me have an end of this mystifica- 
 tion. How does it bear on the letter in
 
 a woman's trials. 253 
 
 your hand ? Translate it ; word for word, 
 remember. I shall have it read by another 
 person, and if I detect any trickery, gare 
 a vous /" 
 
 This last insult gave back to Miss Jones 
 all her wavering courage. 
 
 Instead of stuttering out an indignant 
 retort, more ludicrous in her dislocated 
 French than impresssive, she looked for a 
 moment with calm defiance at the excited 
 Frenchwoman, who in spite of her power 
 felt humbled before the penniless depen- 
 dant ; there was the majesty of truth, 
 something perhaps of the Martyr's halo 
 shining from that pale, wan face. Oh, 
 surely, many a martyr's palm was won 
 with less heroic faith ! 
 
 It was not the ghastly treason of a 
 Pagan sacrifice that was set up as the 
 price of her deliverance ; she might have 
 saved herself by a subterfuge, too guileless 
 to be called by the foul name of lie; she 
 had only to be silent, and rather than 
 sully her pure standard of Christian truth 
 by the unspoken falsehood, she would cast 
 herself afloat in the dark, dark night of 
 direst poverty, in a strange land, without
 
 254 a woman's trials. 
 
 a penny, a prospect, or a friend. Calmly, 
 in a voice strong with the strength 
 of victory, Miss Jones began the letter 
 at the beginning, and read it to the 
 end. 
 
 " You told him my pupils were starved," 
 Madame St. Simon said very quietly. 
 
 " No, all that my conscience could say 
 in favour of your house, I said. He put 
 direct questions to me about the quality 
 and kind of food supplied, and from my 
 answers inferred that it was not sufficiently 
 nourishing." 
 
 " You have robbed me of ten pupils," 
 observed Madame St. Simon with singular 
 coolness ; her excitement had either spent 
 itself in the first fiery ebullition, or had 
 been quelled by the deep, inward stillness 
 that seemed breathed into Miss Jones ; 
 "you have robbed me of ten pupils; I 
 shall not reproach you, since your con- 
 science does not ; but a servant with a 
 conscience so admirably sensitive, is a 
 luxury I cannot afford to keep. You are 
 free to seek another situation. I trust 
 you may find one where your integrity 
 will be duly valued."
 
 a woman's trials. 255 
 
 " When do you wish rne to leave ?" asked 
 the governess. 
 
 "At once." 
 
 " I am, as you know, a perfect stranger 
 in Paris; will you give me a few days 
 that I may look for a lodging before I 
 leave." 
 
 "You should have thought of that in 
 time," replied Madame St Simon. 
 
 " I did," answered Miss Jones, with 
 touching gentleness. 
 
 The spirit whence she drew her strength 
 for duty and for sacrifice faltered at the 
 prospect of hunting for a lodging in the 
 great wilderness without, on credit too. She 
 ought of course to have walked straight 
 away, scorning to ask a concession from 
 a woman she despised, but Miss Jones 
 was no heroine, except where there was 
 a duty to be done. 
 
 " May I sleep here to night?" she asked 
 meekly. 
 
 " No ; you leave my house at once, with- 
 out holding further communication with 
 any one in it, teachers or pupils;" and 
 the pitiless woman pointed sternly to the 
 door.
 
 256 a woman's trials. 
 
 " God forgive you, Madame St. Simon," 
 said Miss Jones, " and. . . God bless you !" 
 
 A curse would have stung her employer 
 less than such a blessing. 
 
 She seemed not to hear it, and taking a 
 ten franc piece out of the subscription box, 
 handed it to Miss Jones, saying : 
 
 " I don't wish to keep this ; you may 
 want it." 
 
 The governess took it without comment, 
 and left the room. 
 
 She went at once to Mabel's door, and 
 knocked; there was no answer; she open- 
 ed it, and stood for a moment looking 
 round the pleasant little room, where she 
 had suffered so much, and been so happy. 
 
 There was the pretty writing-desk in 
 which the young girl had put the five-pound 
 note Miss Jones refused. 
 
 She might have opened it, and taken 
 the note, leaving a line to tell Mabel she 
 had done so ; the bunch of keys was lying 
 on the dressing-table — (how often Miss 
 Jones had lectured on that careless habit 
 of Mabel's !) — but then it might be so 
 long before she could pay back the money. 
 Mabel would rather she never did, but
 
 a woman's trials. 257 
 
 that was not for the governess to consider. 
 "And must I go without seeing you 
 again, my own, my cherished one !" ex- 
 claimed Miss Jones, the big tears rolling 
 down her cheeks. Sorrow, and the flush 
 of a noble victory still upon her face, idea- 
 lized its ugliness. 
 
 " No, I must see her once more, bless 
 her, kiss her, if we are never to meet 
 again. Madame St. Simon had no right 
 to forbid it ; I will see my darling in spite 
 of her." 
 
 She hurried down to the play-ground, 
 expecting to find the school still there ; 
 but the study bell had rung without her 
 noticing it, and Mabel, with all the other 
 parlour-boarders, was assisting at the 
 examen d'histovre in the salle des profes- 
 seurs. It would last an hour, so Miss Jones 
 determined to get ready her few things at 
 once, and then return to take leave of 
 Mabel. 
 
 But she had reckoned without her host. 
 
 The governess's trunk was still in the 
 
 garret room, and had never been emptied 
 
 for want of a better wardrobe. Her books 
 
 and some articles of clothing in daily use 
 
 vol. i. s
 
 258 a woman's tktals. 
 
 were soon packed up, and she came down 
 to the dormitory to put on her bonnet. 
 
 The long, bleak room, with its double 
 row of bedsteads, had a cheerful, home- 
 look about it now, it had never worn 
 before. Carrying her leather bag on her 
 arm, and an alpaca umbrella in her hand, 
 she went down to the cloisters. She had 
 better wait there; Mabel might dally 
 about the classes when the lesson was 
 over, instead of returning at once to her 
 room. 
 
 Meanwhile the porter had carried down 
 the square, black box, and secured it on 
 the fiacre Madame St. Simon had sent for 
 the moment Miss Jones left her presence. 
 
 Jeannette met the governess at the foot 
 of the stairs, and said, respectfully, 
 
 " Tout est pret, Mees." 
 
 " What is ready ?" asked Miss Jones in 
 surprise. 
 
 " The fiacre, Mademoiselle ; if you keep 
 the man waiting, he will charge you for 
 the hour." 
 
 She would have paid the hour if it had 
 taken her solitary ten franc piece, rather 
 than go without one last sight of her dar-
 
 A WOMAN S TRIALS. 259 
 
 ling ; but the dining-room door opened, 
 and Madame St. Simon stood, like her evil 
 fate, upon the threshold. 
 
 A kind of despair seized the unhappy 
 creature. She would face her tyrant like 
 a stag at bay, and rebel against this last 
 act of cruelty. 
 
 " I wish to see Miss Stanhope before I 
 go ; if you allow me, Madame, I shall wait 
 here till she passes. " 
 
 " I thought I forbade your speaking to 
 any one in my house," replied the French- 
 woman haughtily. 
 
 " This is cruel — this is tyrannical, Ma- 
 dame St. Simon; I will not obey you," 
 answered Miss Jones. 
 
 " Ah, you think to brave me to the last ! 
 Nous verrons. Jacques !" she cried, in a 
 voice as shrill as an east wind, " if you 
 cannot walk alone, I shall have you as- 
 sisted." 
 
 Good Heavens ! did she mean to turn 
 her out by force, like a thief or a drunk- 
 ard ? 
 
 No servant in the house would have 
 raised a finger to Miss Jones; but she 
 could not guess that, or knowing it, be be-
 
 260 A WOMAN S TRIALS. 
 
 liolden to their pity to save her from such 
 galling outrage. 
 
 With a cry of anguish, she clasped her 
 hands, and casting towards the salle d? etude 
 a look that seemed as if it must have 
 pierced through the closed door, walked 
 past Madame St. Simon. 
 
 For many a day that cry rang with 
 avenging condemnation in the stern wo- 
 man's ear. 
 
 And so Miss Jones went forth under the 
 bright sky of Heaven into the busy streets 
 of Paris, more lonely to her than a desert, 
 with no solitary human being to turn to 
 for counsel or protection. 
 
 Yet not friendless, not alone. 
 
 There was One whose faithful guardian- 
 ship would not forsake her, One Eye that 
 would keep watch over the wanderer, One 
 Heart on whose great compassion she 
 could lay her own aching heart, and be at 
 rest. 
 
 No, she was not so utterly alone.
 
 261 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 MABEL STANHOPE was not the only 
 one who regretted Miss Jones, al- 
 though no one felt her loss so keenly. 
 
 Now that the governess was gone, no- 
 thing remained but the memory of her 
 goodness and gentleness. They remem- 
 bered how patiently she had always borne 
 with their waywardness ; no one had ever 
 heard a rough or angry word from her. 
 The greedy desire for improvement, which 
 they had ridiculed while she was amongst 
 them, grew respectable when they looked 
 back on the self-denying, unobtrusive in- 
 dustry with which Miss Jones seized every 
 opportunity that came in her way. 
 
 There was no explanation given as to 
 the cause of her sudden disappearance, ex- 
 cept that Madame St. Simon had detected 
 her in a gross breach of trust, and re- 
 quested Miss Jones' name might never be 
 mentioned in her presence.
 
 262 a woman's trials. 
 
 She spoke more in sorrow than in anger, 
 like one who had been pained by some un- 
 looked-for deceit in a friend. 
 
 Mabel Stanhope could no more have 
 doubted Miss Jones' truth and honour, 
 than she could have doubted the sun's 
 light at mid-day; but she gave Madame 
 St. Simon credit for sincerity when she 
 spoke so mildly, and with so little anger 
 of her late subordinate. Of course it was 
 all a mistake that could all be cleared 
 away with a word, were Miss Jones al- 
 lowed to speak it ; but, apparently, in her 
 indignation at the supposed breach of 
 trust, Madame St. Simon had dismissed 
 the culprit without giving her a chance of 
 iustifying herself. 
 
 Where had she gone to, and how was 
 she living ? 
 
 Mabel knew she had given her last franc 
 ■pour la fete de Madame. Had she left the 
 house without a penny in her pocket ? 
 
 At any cost Mabel should ascertain this. 
 Taking her courage in both hands, as the 
 French say, she went down to Madame 
 St. Simon's room. 
 
 " I am going to disobey you, Madame,"
 
 a woman's trials. 263 
 
 said the young girl, apologetically, " but 
 I am sure you will forgive me when you 
 hear my reason. Yesterday, when Miss 
 Jones left, she had not ten francs in her 
 possession. She may not have told you 
 so, but I know it for a fact. Will you en- 
 close her this," placing the five-pound note 
 in Madame St. Simon's hand, " with my 
 love, or let me have her address, that I 
 may send it myself?" 
 
 There was a pleading expression in the 
 fair face that would have softened a heart 
 less stony than the listener's, but Madame 
 St. Simon was proof against such weak- 
 ness. She answered, nevertheless, more 
 kindly than Mabel had expected. 
 
 " Miss Jones did not tell me where she 
 purposed going. As to her being without 
 money, you may be at rest on that point. 
 I took care she should not leave my house 
 without the means of providing another 
 shelter, culpable though she was. I have 
 said this much. Now remember, you never 
 mention the subject again." 
 
 Mabel took back the money, feeling 
 that any further remark or question would 
 be useless.
 
 264 a- woman's trials. 
 
 For days and weeks she hoped every 
 post would bring her a letter from Miss 
 Jones ; but weeks, and then months 
 passed, and no tidings came. 
 
 The governess had written of course, 
 but the letter was never allowed to reach 
 her pupil's hands. 
 
 She had said very little of herself, speak- 
 ing chiefly of her regret at not seeing her 
 darling before she left, but abstaining from 
 any reproach against Madame St. Simon. 
 She asked Mabel to let her have the five- 
 pound note she had refused at Belle- Yue, 
 promising to return it as soon as her own 
 money arrived. She had written to Lon- 
 don, desiring it might be forwarded to her 
 present quarters. She was looking out 
 for lessons, and had already found one, 
 thanks to Monsieur l'Abbe, whom she had 
 met the very day after leaving her old 
 employer. The letter was dated from the 
 Rue du Gard. 
 
 Miss Jones did not say that, bad as the 
 living was at Belle-Yue, it was luxurious 
 beside her present fare. She did not 
 mention, either, that the lesson, so grate- 
 fully accepted, was paid one franc an hour,
 
 a woman's trials. 265 
 
 and that it took her an hour to walk to it, 
 and the same back. She would not pain 
 the generous heart that would have bled 
 for her, and helped her. 
 
 The letter was almost cheerful, and if 
 Madame St. Simon could have understood 
 it, she might not have destroyed it. By 
 dint of slow and careful reading, she glean- 
 ed that Miss Jones was giving lessons. 
 This was a relief to her mind; for some- 
 how, since that morning's work, she had 
 never slept so comfortably. 
 
 Now that she knew Miss Jones was safe, 
 and had found employment, she was seized 
 with the desire to assist her by some small 
 donation, and thus lull her own scruples to 
 sleep for ever. 
 
 She would do a generous deed to atone 
 for an unjust one. The most sensitive 
 conscience could not do more. She wrote 
 down Miss Jones's address; Madame St. 
 Simon knew the place well. A house 
 where she would hesitate allowing any 
 servant, near her person, to set foot, so 
 total an absence of the commonest attempt 
 at cleanliness did it present. 
 
 She had called there once to take up the
 
 266 a woman's trials. 
 
 character of a maid, and , by some mistake 
 of the portress, supposing she had come to 
 see a sick inmate, had been shown into 
 the hall leading to the lodgers' rooms. 
 She recoiled in insurmountable disgust 
 from the stair-case that the woman told 
 her to ascend, and turned without further 
 inquiry from a reality the like of which she 
 could have imagined only amongst savages 
 devoid of the first elements of civilization. 
 
 This was the refuge Miss Jones had 
 found, and Madame St. Simon felt it was 
 vengeance enough for every wrong the 
 governess had done her. 
 
 She folded a twenty-franc piece in a 
 sheet of paper, sealed it with a wafer, and 
 addressed it with her left hand. Next day 
 she drove to the Rue du Gard, and left it 
 with the concierge. 
 
 Having so far thrown balm on the 
 troubled waters of her conscience, Madame 
 St. Simon dismissed Miss Jones from her 
 mind and thoughts for evermore. 
 
 The person who replaced the English 
 governess at Belle- Yue, was as great a 
 contrast to her predecessor as can well be 
 imagined.
 
 a woman's trials. 267 
 
 Miss Lavinia Laventine was small and 
 slight, with a long neck, and a stoop from 
 her shoulders, which she complacently 
 compared to the Grecian bend of the Venus 
 de' Medici. 
 
 She had been pretty in her youth, and 
 had never forgotten it ; for though fast 
 fading into fifty, her pretensions to admira- 
 tion were as high as in the sunniest days 
 of her girlhood. 
 
 Her father, she spoke of, as an emiment 
 physician, whose disinterestedness and 
 philanthropy had impoverished himself and 
 his family. 
 
 Mr. Laventine had been neither more 
 nor less than a village apothecary, eking 
 out a shabby livelihood amongst his coun- 
 try patients, and nursing the dream of 
 setting up some day in London on the 
 produce of their lumbago and rheumatism. 
 But this dream never came to be a reality. 
 He died amongst the village folk whom he 
 had doctored all his life, and mayhap, 
 sometimes dispatched before their time to 
 a better world. 
 
 His daughter, Lavinia Laventine, had 
 taught writing, fancy-work, and elegant
 
 268 a woman's tetals. 
 
 literature, to the younger portion of her 
 father's patients, and when the good man 
 betook himself to his rest, she left the 
 village to seek her fortunes on a wider 
 field. Miss Lavinia was a pretty, saucy- 
 eyed brunette in her spring-time, and the 
 great people at the Park, Hall, and Rectory, 
 patronized the merry little girl, as most 
 great county people like to do. 
 
 It is not for them to consider what harm 
 the patronage may do the modest village 
 maid, or simple farmer's daughter. 
 
 The modesty and simplicity, while they 
 last, make her an unobjectionable com- 
 panion for my lady at the big house. 
 
 Should the ill-advised condescension 
 prove too much for the protegee's head, 
 she is turned out as a forward minx that 
 doesn't know her place. " The jade ab- 
 solutely had the impudence to fall in love 
 with Augustus, because, forsooth, he took 
 a fancy to her, and did the creature the 
 honour to flirt with her, and make pretty 
 speeches to her ! Those low-born people 
 should be kept at a distance, or else they 
 are sure to forget themselves." 
 
 Miss Lavinia was given to this sort of
 
 a woman's trials. 269 
 
 forgetfulness, poor soul, and after being 
 the confidante and friend of more than one 
 county belle, had been ignominiously dis- 
 missed on its being discovered that, al- 
 though she was only the apothecary's 
 daughter, somehow, when she was in the 
 room, her dancing brown eyes attracted 
 more attention than their own. 
 
 An unlucky day it was for Miss Lavinia 
 when she found out what a pleasant thing 
 it was to be made love to by a gentleman ! 
 But for that, she might have been happy 
 as an honest man's wife, spending her time 
 and talent in the sweet labour of a wife's 
 and mother's duties, instead of toiling on 
 towards the close of her half century in 
 the questionable delights of a French 
 school-room. 
 
 But the well-to-do farmers were all so 
 many boors, and the thriving young trades- 
 men vulgar louts. She look at one of 
 them indeed, when young Lord Coldstone 
 had told her she was the prettiest girl in 
 the county, and Sir Charles Fitznimble 
 presented her with a rose before Lady Bar- 
 bara Belzie, who never forgave her for 
 taking it.
 
 270 a woman's trials. 
 
 When the eyes began to lose their 
 brightness, and the Spanish complexion 
 something of its bloom, Miss Lavinia began 
 to think the farmers improved in their 
 manners, and the tradesmen looked qnite 
 genteel driving out in their comfortable 
 gigs after the day's healthy work was done. 
 But, oddly enough, the quondam admirers 
 of the village beauty seemed perversely un- 
 conscious of this change in her sentiments 
 towards themselves, and were unmannerly 
 enough to court and marry other girls, 
 younger than Miss Lavinia, but less pretty, 
 and less scornful. 
 
 By degrees it dawned upon the lady, 
 that she had perhaps been a trifle too am- 
 bitious, and that it might have been better 
 for her if she had pitched her pretensions 
 less high. This was a mortifying discovery 
 to make, when the evil was past remedy. 
 She had jilted every marriageable man in 
 the town, and not a few beyond it, and 
 she could not whistle them back again. 
 
 But there were good husbands in the 
 world yet, and one fine morning Miss La- 
 vinia betook herself to London in search 
 of one.
 
 a woman's trials. 271 
 
 She advertised for a situation as go- 
 verness. 
 
 Her first trial was in a country gentle- 
 man's family. She remained there a year, 
 but though there was no lack of company 
 off and on, Miss Lavinia got no chance of 
 casting her nets amongst the handsome 
 young men who came down for the shoot- 
 ing and hunting. Her pupils, six in num- 
 ber, were all too young for the drawing- 
 room, and, of course, their governess never 
 appeared there without them. This was 
 evidently loss of time, and the conscious- 
 ness that there was very little time to lose 
 grew daily stronger and more imperative. 
 She should bestir herself while a chance of 
 success remained. Her next move was into 
 a wealthy merchant's family, where she was 
 to teach one little girl of seven years old. 
 The mother was young and pretty, and 
 thoroughly kind. A few days after the 
 governess's arrival in her new situation, the 
 pretty wife alluded with great satisfaction 
 to her good fortune in meeting with a 
 person so suitable in every way as Miss 
 Lavinia seemed to be. 
 
 " My husband and I being both young,
 
 272 a woman's teials. 
 
 and obliged to receive a good deal and go 
 out," she observed, " we held very much 
 to finding a lady of mature years and 
 steady manners, who would devote herself 
 entirely to our child. Until a woman is 
 past forty she never quite gives up the idea 
 of marrying, and a governess on the look- 
 out for a husband is such a calamity in a 
 house !" 
 
 Miss Lavinia, singularly enough, re- 
 ceived a letter the next morning, which 
 upset all her plans, and obliged her to give 
 up her situation at once. Her presence 
 was required in her native village, on ac- 
 count of some law business connected with 
 her late father's property, she said. 
 
 Four years more were spent in fruitless 
 search after the matrimonial prize. Clearly 
 England was not the place to win it. She 
 must spread her wings, and fly towards 
 the continent; so to the continent Miss 
 Lavinia flew. 
 
 An advertisement in Galignani for an 
 English governess in a school, induced 
 her to apply for the situation, en attendant 
 the arrival of the expected husband. 
 
 Madame St. Simon gave her the prefer-
 
 a woman's teials. 273 
 
 ence over nineteen others who flocked in 
 one day to offer their services. 
 
 Miss Lavinia was, as we have shown, 
 the very antipodes of Miss Jones in ap- 
 pearance and manners. To her new em- 
 ployer this was the best recommendation 
 she could have brought. Madame St. 
 Simon had learned that a genuine English 
 gentlewoman, sensible and well-bred, was 
 not the kind of person to suit her house. 
 Miss Lavinia she voted a fool on the first 
 glance at her simpering face. Judging 
 from the attempt at fashion and finery in 
 her dress, she was likely to be a vain fool. 
 There was no Fabrician integrity to be 
 frightened at. Roman virtue was not apt 
 to be-ribbon and be-flounce itself so flip- 
 pantly. 
 
 " Mademoiselle, je crois que nous nous 
 conviendrons," was Madame St. Simon's 
 conclusion to her mental commentaries. 
 
 That evening Miss Lavinia Laventine 
 was installed in her new office. 
 
 She was to sleep in the dormitory, and 
 keep the garret-room for her wardrobe, 
 much better stored, apparently, than poor 
 Miss Jones'. 
 
 vol. i. t
 
 274 a woman's tjbials. 
 
 Her first care was to ingratiate herself 
 with the parlour-boarders as the richest, 
 and consequently the most influential por- 
 tion of the school. 
 
 Her preference fastened almost at first 
 sight on Henrietta Wilson. The languid 
 sentimentality of that interesting young 
 lady seemed to point her out as a kindred 
 spirit to the tender-hearted Lavinia. 
 
 Milly Jackson she felt drawn to, as a 
 companion only, not one to be made a 
 friend of. Miss Lavinia regarded friend- 
 ship as a very solemn thing. She had 
 tried all through life to discover an ideal 
 friend, but had been as unsuccessful in 
 that as in another search. 
 
 Mabel Stanhope she thought the love- 
 liest girl she had ever seen, but somewhat 
 haughty. Mabel's haughtiness was chiefly 
 in the pose of her head ; but Miss Lavinia 
 was not physiognomist enough to see that, 
 so she made no attempt to become inti- 
 mate with Miss Jones' favourite. 
 
 About a week after her arrival, Miss 
 Lavinia was doing surveillance at the sol- 
 Jege lesson. She used to sing in her 
 younger days, and would have dearly liked
 
 a woman's trials. 275 
 
 to join in with the fresh young choristers 
 standing round the master. 
 
 Monsieur Beranger was a fine-looking 
 man, with a frizzly black beard that looked 
 very Italian, Miss Lavinia thought. 
 
 " What a handsome man 1" she whis- 
 pered to Milly Jackson. " I wonder is his 
 wife as handsome ?" 
 
 " He hasn't got a wife." 
 
 " Law ! what a pity !" exclaimed Miss 
 Lavinia, compassionately. 
 
 " He's looking out for one," observed 
 Miss Jackson, confidentially. 
 
 " You don't say so ! Well, I hope he'll 
 get a nice one. I'm sure he'd make a 
 delightful husband. I do admire a dark 
 man !" 
 
 " Mademoiselle Meely, avotre tour," in- 
 terrupted Monsieur Beranger. 
 
 Milly burst out into do, re, mi, with a 
 zest that astounded the audience. 
 
 She had discovered the new governess 
 to be a character, and likely to prove 
 capital fun. When the lesson was over, 
 she went up to Miss Lavinia, and remarked 
 very seriously, 
 
 " I'm so glad you admire Monsieur Ber- 
 
 t 2
 
 276 a woman's trials. 
 
 anger ; I do immensely. By-the-bye, did 
 you notice how he stared at you when he 
 was going out of the room ?" 
 
 " Law I no, did he ?" exclaimed the 
 credulous Lavinia. 
 
 " As if you didn't see it ! I promise you 
 he never looked at Miss Jones like that; 
 but then she was so ugly, and quite old, 
 at least forty." 
 
 " Who told you he was looking out for 
 a wife ?" inquired Miss Lavinia, coming 
 back to the main point. 
 
 " I overheard him talking about it one 
 morning with Madame St. Simon," replied 
 Milly audaciously. " He said he had a 
 decided preference for English women, 
 they were so much more home-loving than 
 French wives. You see if he doesn't pro- 
 pose to you before the month is out !" 
 
 u Did I ever!" tittered the governess 
 in an ecstasy. 
 
 " You might do worse," pursued the 
 incorrigible Milly ; " he must have lots of 
 money, and he goes into the best society ; 
 in Paris, you know, artists do, Miss Laven- 
 tine." 
 
 "Pray call me Lavinia. It sounds so
 
 a woman's trials. 277 
 
 stuck-up between girls, calling each other 
 Miss." 
 
 " Lavinia Beranger," said Milly; "how 
 pretty it sounds I" 
 
 " You dear creature, what a quiz you 
 are I" exclaimed the delighted Lavinia ; 
 "just think if any one heard you I" 
 
 Miss Jackson made it a point that every 
 one did hear her before the day was over. 
 
 The dialogue, as she gave it, placed the 
 new governess in a very dubious light 
 before her pupils, as far as her claims to 
 their respect were concerned. 
 
 " She's worth a dozen of stiff old Joe I" 
 cried Milly in great glee. 
 
 " She's not worth the string of Miss 
 Jones' old shoe!" protested Mabel Stan- 
 hope indignantly. 
 
 Milly knew that perfectly; but Miss 
 Lavinia would be a source of amusement 
 to her, and that compensated for more 
 sterling qualities.
 
 278 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 IT was Carnival time in Paris, and 
 Madame St. Simon always gave three 
 soirees dansantes during the gay season. 
 Nothing was so improving to young people 
 as mixing in good society, and those who 
 frequented the salon at Belle- Vue were 
 supposed to represent the flower of the 
 monde elegant de Paris. 
 
 The announcement that the first recep- 
 tion would take place in a fortnight was 
 received with great delight by the parlour- 
 boarders. The French pupils were never 
 invited, and this privilege shown exclu- 
 sively to their English companions was 
 regarded as an act of unjust favouritism on 
 the part of the mistress. 
 
 Madame St. Simon would gladly have 
 included some of her pretty French pupils 
 in the invitations, but French mothers are 
 wary of allowing their daughters to be seen
 
 a woman's trials. 279 
 
 in a drawing-room away from their own 
 guardianship. Then it was just possible that 
 their notions of good society might not cor- 
 respond exactly with Madame St. Simon's. 
 
 Be it as it may, the pensionnaires saw 
 nothing of the soirees dansantes beyond the 
 dresses of the parlour-boarders, which fur- 
 nished ample matter for comment and 
 criticism in the school. 
 
 Madame St. Simon held to the toilettes 
 being elegant. The young ladies of her 
 establishment being all heiresses and of 
 high family, it was, of course, necessary 
 their dress should be in keeping with their 
 position. 
 
 Miss Lavinia was busiest of the busy. 
 She spread her three English tarlatans on 
 three chairs in Henrietta Wilson's room, 
 and surveyed them with anxious scrutiny. 
 The pink one became her best, but it was 
 dolefully seedy ; the blue was in a less 
 advanced stage of decay, but the colour 
 was trying to her brunette complexion. 
 There remained the white. Madame St. 
 Simon had recommended pure white as 
 the most suitable to her young guests. 
 " C'est jeune, et toujours de bon gout," she
 
 280 a woman's teials. 
 
 said. The prevailing colour was, there- 
 fore, likely to be white. 
 
 Miss Lavinia's discoloured flounces would 
 make a sorry figure beside the immaculate 
 toilets of her pupils, all fresh from the 
 needle. They looked dingy enough all 
 alone in their glory, but surrounded by 
 snowy miracles of Paris millinery, they 
 would be ten times worse. 
 
 The question was put to Miss Lavinia's 
 intimates, whether it would be possible for 
 her to appear in the old dress. 
 
 One and all declared she could not. 
 
 It would be an injustice to herself, and 
 almost an inconvenance to the mistress of 
 the house. 
 
 Miss Lavinia accepted the opinion, and 
 resolved to invest in a new gown. 
 
 With a long-drawn sigh, heavy with 
 sweet reminiscences, she shook out the 
 discarded skirts one by one, and threw 
 them over her arm. 
 
 " In that dress," she said, caressing the 
 pink, and shaking her head, " in that 
 dress, I danced with the handsomest man 
 T ever beheld, except one ; he was an offi- 
 cer six feet tall in the Grenadier Guards,
 
 a woman's trials. 281 
 
 not the least like an Englishman. Every- 
 body took him for a Spaniard. He waltzed 
 with me three times that night. It's just 
 two years ago. Law ! how all the other 
 girls did scowl at me, to be sure !" 
 
 " No wonder," exclaimed Miss Woods, 
 who, being four feet two herself, thought 
 waltzing with a Guardsman of six, the 
 very acme of young-ladyish distinction. 
 
 " I daresay there won't be a man worth 
 dancing with on Tuesday, after our spend- 
 ing a mint of money on bedizening our- 
 selves," observed Milly Jackson. 
 
 " We are sure to have all the professors, 
 except poor old Herr Carl," remarked Hen- 
 rietta ; "bat they are not likely to be over- 
 come by our toilettes, if they have resisted 
 our beauty unadorned so long." 
 
 "A lot of old prigs!" sneered disre- 
 spectful Milly. " They won't know how to 
 put one foot before the other." 
 
 " The new Italian master is rather good- 
 looking," observed Miss Woods," if he 
 weren't such a tub." 
 
 On the priuciple of contrast, great 
 height in the male sex was the first 
 claim to this young lady's admiration.
 
 282 a woman's trials. 
 
 "Monsieur Beranger would be worth 
 setting one's cap at," suggested Milly, 
 with a sly look at Miss Lavinia, " if some- 
 one else hadn't done us out of any chance 
 in that quarter." 
 
 " Who can you possibly mean ?" simper- 
 ed the governess, with a blush and a toss 
 of her head. 
 
 "Whoever the cap fits," replied Milly. 
 
 "Well, I'm sure!" protested Miss La- 
 vinia, and flounced out of the room. 
 
 The whole week preceding the eventful 
 day, was devoted almost exclusively to 
 milliners, mantua-makers, and the numer- 
 ous tribe whose ingenuity is called in to 
 the completion of a ball dress. 
 
 Miss Lavinia scoured the Boulevards in 
 search of a bargain combining fashion, 
 taste, and economy. She was attracted by 
 a haute nouveaute figuring in a shop 
 window, and marked thirty-five francs, 
 ready-made. In England she would not 
 have hesitated a moment. The coarse, 
 stiff gauze, with its rows of pink and white 
 tuyotte flounces, would have ensured uni- 
 versal admiration ; but Paris had a differ- 
 ent standard of taste.
 
 a woman's trials. 283 
 
 Henrietta Wilson's dress had already- 
 come home, and thrown Miss Lavinia into 
 alternate paroxysms of despair and delight. 
 It was " une petite robe toute simple," the 
 milliner said, only costing two hundred 
 francs, and composed entirely of white 
 tulle over a silk petticoat ; but such a 
 marvel of bouillonnes and tuyottes and 
 ruches and puffings, that how human hands 
 had constructed the fabric, was a mystery 
 to Miss Lavinia. 
 
 After much and deep meditation, the 
 foolish woman decided on ordering a 
 similar dress from the same wonder- 
 worker. 
 
 Eight pounds was a great sum to spend 
 on a ball dress ; she had never committed 
 such a piece of folly in her life ; but then it 
 would prove a good investment. She had 
 every reason to believe Monsieur Beranger 
 serious in his views towards her. He 
 made a point of bowing to her, even when 
 she was not de garde during his lesson. 
 Once, when she had stopped him in the 
 cloisters with some silly inquiry about the 
 best method of solfege, which she said a 
 friend had requested her to ascertain, the
 
 284 a woman's trials. 
 
 polite and voluble Frenchman had answer- 
 ed her very graciously, remaining un- 
 covered while he spoke, and saying, after 
 the manner of his countrymen, in fifty 
 words what an Englishman would have 
 said in five. 
 
 Add to this satisfactory evidence of his 
 intentions, Milly Jackson's assertion that 
 he had fallen in love with the brunette at 
 first sight ; hare-brained as Milly was, that 
 had not escaped her. 
 
 Altogether Miss Lavinia was in a happy 
 frame of mind, and considered it incumbent 
 on her to spend eight pounds, being just 
 one-third of her earthly capital, in a white 
 tulle dress. 
 
 The evening came at last, and Belle- Vue 
 was astir, as it behoved it to be on so great 
 an occasion. 
 
 Two hair-dressers had been summoned 
 to shew their skill on the heads of the 
 parlour-boarders. There was hurrying to 
 and fro in the long corridor ; figures in 
 dressing-gowns rushing in and out of the 
 rooms where the capillary artists were 
 carrying on their avocations. Loud were 
 the complaints at the time each young
 
 a woman's trials. 285 
 
 lady exacted for the arrangement of her 
 hair. 
 
 " If Harriet Woods made the man do 
 hers three different ways before she was 
 satisfied, how was every one else to be 
 ready by eight o'clock ? It was past seven, 
 and there were six more heads to be done!" 
 
 " He made a fright of me the first 
 time," protested Miss Woods, " and I 
 don't believe I'm a bit better now." 
 
 " Yes, indeed you are," declared Miss 
 Lavinia, who was in a state of mind bor- 
 dering on insanity, lest her own head 
 should be left in the lurch; " you can't 
 think how nice you are behind." 
 
 " Mademoiselle est divinement coiffee !" 
 pronounced the hair-dresser oracularly, 
 as Miss Woods emerged from the white 
 peignoir that covered her ball dress. 
 
 " It's my turn now," said Henrietta 
 Wilson, ensconsing herself in the chair 
 before the looking-glass. 
 
 " Oh, that's too bad !" protested Miss 
 Lavinia, catching hold of the dressing- 
 gown, " when everybody knows I've 
 been waiting here since the man came. 
 N'est-ce pas, Monsieur ?"
 
 286 a woman's trials. 
 
 " Pardon, Madame," replied the coif- 
 feur, respectfully disengaging the wrapper 
 from her hands, and throwing it over 
 Henrietta's shoulders, " c'est a Mademoi- 
 selle." 
 
 " Well, I never !" ejaculated Miss La- 
 vinia, and walked out of the room in 
 disgust. 
 
 The man thought, no doubt, that Hen- 
 rietta's long brown hair offered more 
 scope for his talent than the governess's 
 bristly locks. 
 
 His brother artist was doing duty on 
 Milly Jackson, under the superintendence 
 of Mabel Stanhope, Olga Czerlinzka and 
 the three Miss Flemmings. 
 
 Every door was standing wide open, 
 and the flaming fires and bougies illumi- 
 nated the dark passage, making it so 
 bright that it hardly knew itself. 
 
 Miss Lavinia carried her grievances and 
 her dishevelled hair to coiffeur numero 
 deux. 
 
 " Monsieur," she began, " je prefere 
 votre style ; vous ferez mes cheveux." 
 
 The man bowed, and mumbled some- 
 thing about trop oVhonneur.
 
 a woman's trials. 287 
 
 " You'd have stood a better chance of 
 being done next door," put in Milly; 
 " we are three on the list here after me." 
 
 " Oh dear, oh dear !" bemoaned Miss 
 Lavinia, wringing her hands, " what am 
 I to do ? If you would let me pass before 
 you, Miss Stanhope, I wouldn't delay you 
 five minutes. I only want him to fix my 
 back hair." 
 
 " I'm the last on the list," replied Ma- 
 bel, " but if you like to take my place, 
 you may; I don't think it's possible for 
 him to do us all, so I'll dress my hair 
 myself." 
 
 " Don't go till he gets through with 
 me," pleaded Milly, seeing Mabel gather 
 up her brushes and blue ribbons. " Just 
 stay, and see that he doesn't make a Guy 
 of me." 
 
 " As if my seeing would prevent him!" 
 laughed Mabel ; " but he has almost 
 finished, and I think he has done you 
 very becomingly." 
 
 " How do I do?" cried Miss Woods, 
 rushing in with fan, gloves, and bouquet, 
 ready for the fight, and turning herself 
 round for inspection.
 
 288 a woman's trials. 
 
 "Beautifully!" exclaimed the six girls 
 in chorus ; Milly could see her in the glass. 
 
 Miss Lavinia said nothing. She felt 
 aggrieved and spiteful. 
 
 "What a time the man takes!" she 
 grumbled, " he's been at that bandeau these 
 five minutes." 
 
 " You needn't growl, old lady," observed 
 Milly maliciously, " he'll not go quicker 
 for that." 
 
 " Old lady" nettled Miss Lavinia, but 
 she swallowed her indignation in silence. 
 If she quarrelled here, her last chance was 
 gone. 
 
 In a few minutes Milly was pronounced 
 coiffee a ravir, and her place was taken by 
 the eldest Miss Flemming. 
 
 Mabel then betook herself to her own 
 room, and with some assistance from Olga 
 succeeded in intertwining the roll of light 
 blue ribbon through her hair, and arrang- 
 ing it in a way that was highly approved 
 of by her companions, and voted far more 
 artistic than anything achieved by the 
 coiffeurs. 
 
 Perhaps they were right. The hair and 
 the head were both so beautiful that no
 
 a woman's trials. 289 
 
 decoration could have increased their love- 
 liness. The thick rolls of silken hair were 
 twisted like ropes of gold round the small 
 graceful head, and formed a coronet more 
 perfect than anything art could weave. 
 
 Mabel's toilet was as simple as her head- 
 dress. Sir John Stanhope had sent his 
 daughter a much larger cheque for the 
 evening's finery than would have paid for 
 the most expensive dress there ; but Mabel 
 had refused to buy a new one, seeing that 
 Lady Stanhope had inserted a very elegant 
 white muslin dress into her daughter's 
 troussmu, in case the dear child should 
 have an occasion to wear such a thing. It 
 was quite dressed enough for the purpose, 
 Mabel thought. She was exquisitely neat 
 at all times, and wished to appear becom- 
 ingly attired this evening, with that natural 
 desire to please that is born with every 
 woman. 
 
 To say that Mabel did not know she wa$ 
 beautiful would be absurd. Beauty is a 
 royalty that is never held in ignorance, 
 one of God's good gifts, to be valued as 
 such ; a weapon mighty for good or evil. 
 
 Mabel was an artist in soul, and in re- 
 
 vol. i. u
 
 290 a woman's trials. 
 
 ality painted with no common skill ; it 
 was therefore impossible for her not to 
 perceive, in looking at her glass, that it 
 reflected a set of features faultless in every 
 line. The liquid hazel eyes, sheltered by 
 long, dark lashes, were perfect in colour 
 and in shape; the forehead was smooth 
 and fair as alabaster ; the mouth so ex- 
 quisitely pure in its full, chiselled outline, 
 was perhaps the greatest beauty of the 
 face. 
 
 Mabel had too keen a sense of the 
 beautiful not to see all this in her mir- 
 ror ; but she saw it as one sees a pic- 
 ture, with cold, dispassionate observation. 
 She was too ignorant of its power to set a 
 high price upon the gift ; she had still to 
 learn its value, and test her own strength 
 in wielding the two-edged sword. 
 
 Perhaps no woman awakes to the full 
 consciousness of her own beauty till she 
 sees it reflected in the eyes of the man she 
 loves. It breaks upon her then with a 
 sense of triumph and of power, that either 
 floods the heart with a pure, unselfish joy, 
 or swells it with unholy pride. 
 
 Unless a girl be an incipient coquette,
 
 a woman's trials. 291 
 
 (some people would say every girl is, but 
 we deny that), she is not likely to fall in 
 love with her own face till some one else 
 does. 
 
 Now Mabel Stanhope was in her seven- 
 teenth year, and perfectly heart-whole. 
 The flashing of her dark eyes, and the 
 witchery of her smile had, as yet, brought 
 no victims to awake her pride. She saw 
 that she was beautiful ; every one around 
 her saw it, and said so ; Mabel believed 
 them, and was glad of it, but no thrill of 
 triumphant vanity came with the know- 
 ledge. 
 
 She fastened on her broad blue sash, 
 and drew on her gloves with a pleasant 
 feeling, that there was no fear of her being 
 called a " guy" that evening. 
 
 Every one was now nearly ready, except 
 poor Miss Lavinia, who wandered in and 
 out of the different rooms, worrying every- 
 body with her complaints at the unfairness 
 of her not being attended to, and appeal- 
 ing to everybody to help her. 
 
 " Where is the use of whining and 
 whimpering ?" cried Milly Jackson, out of 
 patience with her grumbling; "it won't 
 
 V 2
 
 292 a woman's trials. 
 
 curl your hair, and you'll come down look- 
 ing as cross as two sticks." 
 
 " Oil my ! oh my !" cried Miss Lavinia, 
 distractedly, " there is eight o'clock ! I'll 
 never be done !" 
 
 " Do yourself as Mabel did," was Milly's 
 consolatory advice. 
 
 " Yes, and spoil my dress, or lose half 
 an hour taking it off, and putting it on 
 again !" scolded Miss Lavinia. " I never 
 knew such a selfish set of girls in my 
 life !" 
 
 "You don't mean it!" sneered Milly, 
 clasping her bracelet. 
 
 Coiffeur No. 2 came to the door where 
 the two ladies were interchanging compli- 
 ments, and called out : 
 
 " Je suis aux ordres de Madame." 
 
 Miss Lavinia could have embraced the 
 man, but had strength of mind not to do 
 it, and sat down before Miss Jackson's 
 dressing-table, laying hands on every ap- 
 pliance it presented for her deliverer's con- 
 venience : brushes, combs, powder, and 
 pomatum. 
 
 Milly was about to protest, but throw- 
 ing her eyes on the glass, she felt benignly
 
 a woman's trials. 293 
 
 disposed towards her fellow-creatures, and 
 took no notice of Lavinia's misdemeanor. 
 
 She sauntered out of the room to survey 
 and be surveyed, feeling decidedly satisfied 
 with her own appearance. Without being 
 handsome, she was a fine, striking girl, 
 with that clear, English complexion that 
 gave her imminently what the French call 
 "la beaute du diable." 
 
 Fanchette, the parlour-maid, with a 
 letter in her hand, came panting up the 
 stairs as Miss Jackson appeared in the 
 corridor. 
 
 "Pour moi !" cried the latter, laying 
 hold of the missive. 
 
 " Won, c'est pour Mademoiselle Hen- 
 riette," replied the woman, surrendering 
 the envelope to her scrutiny. " Ges 
 demoiselles are to come down at once ; 
 there is du monde already, and nobody in 
 the salon but Madame." 
 
 She left Milly puzzling over the writing 
 and the seal, and the postmark of her 
 friend's letter, and went on to deliver her 
 message to the others. 
 
 " A eoronet," said Milly, holding up the 
 letter to the quinquet on the wall, " and a
 
 294 a woman's trials. 
 
 Paris stamp, hem ! A man's writing, too. 
 Sly boots !" and she went to look for 
 Henrietta. 
 
 " Come here, Henrietta, I want you," 
 she cried, beckoning to her friend, who 
 was standing in Miss Wood's room, giving 
 a finishing shake to the folds of that 
 young lady's dress. 
 
 Henrietta came out. 
 
 " I have a word to say to you, come 
 into your own room ; that antique goose, 
 Lavinia, is in mine." 
 
 When they were alone, Milly dropped 
 the letter on the table from the folds of 
 her handkerchief. 
 
 " I wonder who that is from ?" she said, 
 fixing her eye on Henrietta. 
 
 Henrietta snatched at the letter with a 
 scream. 
 
 " Please don't get up a fainting fit ; 
 there's no time, and besides it would crush 
 your dress. Just read it, and let us hear 
 what he says." 
 
 Miss Wilson had nothing for it but to 
 break the seal. She trembled so violently 
 that Milly, in compassion, pushed a chair 
 towards her, and bade her sit down.
 
 a woman's trials. 295 
 
 " He is coming here to-night," she 
 cried, letting the paper drop on her 
 knees. 
 
 Miss Jackson, we blush to record it, but 
 the truth must be told, Miss Jackson gave 
 a low whistle ! 
 
 She put out her hand to take the letter. 
 Henrietta clutched it tightly. Expose 
 those rapturous lines to Milly's sarcasm ! 
 No, that she could not do. 
 
 " I'll tell you what he says, but I can't 
 show it to you," she said, looking up be- 
 seechingly at her confidante. 
 
 " Well !" protested Milly sulkily. 
 
 " Don't be angry, Milly dear, there's 
 nothing in it you'd care to see, in- 
 deed there isn't, and I'll tell you it 
 all." 
 
 " Very likely !" sneered Miss Jackson ; 
 " however, I ought perhaps to thank you 
 for sparing my nerves. Pray how is 
 Leander to reach his lady-love ? What a 
 pity there isn't a ditch, or a pond, or 
 something for him to swim across ! of 
 course he's not likely to walk on his feet, 
 and come in at the door like a common 
 mortal !"
 
 296 a woman's trials. 
 
 " Yes, lie is," dissented Henrietta, 
 meekly ; " he's been invited to the soiree 
 by Madame St. Simon. 
 
 "The girl is gone mad!" declared 
 Miss Jackson, starting two steps back- 
 ward. 
 
 " No, no, I'm not. He says a friend 
 got an invitation for him ; he is to be here 
 at nine, and of course says — " 
 
 " Depechez-vous, Mesdemoiselles !" cried 
 Fanchette, thundering at the door. 
 
 Henrietta thrust her letter into her 
 pocket, and kissing Milly, implored her 
 not to betray her by word or look. 
 
 Milly promised, in true school-girl 
 fashion, " on her sacred honour," to die 
 rather than compromise her friend. Then 
 the two sallied out together, and found 
 their companions assembled in the pas- 
 sage. 
 
 They mustered twelve in number, and 
 a pretty group they made, those fresh 
 young girls, all fluttering with excitement 
 and expected pleasure. 
 
 Miss Lavinia was still in the hands of 
 the coiffeur, and might be heard sending 
 forth piteous entreaties for " a few more
 
 a woman's teials. 297 
 
 hair-pins," as her pupils betook them- 
 selves down stairs. 
 
 There was a scuffle at the salon door, 
 not for precedence, but to escape it. 
 Little Miss "Woods declared Jemima 
 Long, being the tallest, should go first. 
 Jemima fell into the rear, alleging that 
 Henrietta Wilson as eldest of the party 
 was most fit to take the lead. Henrietta 
 uttered a faint, "oh, dreadful I" and fell 
 behind Jemima. 
 
 In fact the question ran a bad chance 
 of being settled at all, if Fanchette, 
 impatient at the delay, had not 
 thrown open the door, and ushered 
 the scufflers into the presence as they 
 stood. 
 
 Madame St. Simon came forward 
 with her blandest smile to welcome 
 her young guests. She had a petit 
 mot for every one, a compliment or a 
 caress. 
 
 The room was brilliantly lighted ; the 
 new lustre, " a surprise from ces cheres 
 r.;jans" Madame whispered to her friends, 
 was inaugurated for the occasion. There 
 were flowers here and there, and alto-
 
 298 a woman's teials. 
 
 gether the large, square salon, looked as 
 gay and pretty as need be. 
 
 Before nine, it was tolerably filled; the 
 company were not of that class who come 
 to take tea with a friend at eleven o'clock. 
 
 As the young ladies had prophesied, 
 all the professors were there; all except 
 Monsieur Beranger. 
 
 Miss Lavinia had made her appearance 
 about half-past eight, looking painfully 
 ridiculous in her fleecy toilet, her hair 
 tormented into the most distressing pre- 
 dicament on the top of her head. The 
 coiffeur had done his worst. The little 
 cork-screwy curls were gathered off her 
 face, making the sharp angles sharper, 
 and showing up every wrinkle that 
 used to shelter itself behind the curls in 
 their natural state. It was a pitiable 
 sight; but youth is pitiless to such folly 
 as Miss Lavinia' s. Her appearance in the 
 salon was followed by a suppressed titter 
 all round the room. She was too excited 
 to notice it, and casting about for some 
 eligible position, made her way to a vacant 
 seat near Miss Wilson. Their dresses 
 were alike, and Miss Lavinia thought
 
 a woman's trials. 299 
 
 they should probably be taken for sis- 
 ters. 
 
 Dancing had commenced. 
 
 Henrietta made a pretence of being ab- 
 sorbed in her neighbour's conversation, 
 and busied herself with some imaginary 
 complication in the buttons of her glove. 
 She was resolved Adrien should not find 
 her flying round the room in any one 
 else's arms, and was terrified she should 
 be asked to dance before he arrived. 
 
 Miss Lavinia was equally nervous on 
 her own account. What could M. Beran- 
 ger mean by not coming ? Of course he 
 was invited ; she had no doubt on that 
 score. Could he be ill ? Then her two 
 hundred francs would be thrown away, 
 after all ! 
 
 Henrietta might have set her heart at 
 rest if she had chosen ; but even to Milly 
 Jackson she had not explained how, and 
 through whom, Monsieur de Perronville 
 was bidden to the dance this evening. 
 She did not say that her lover had parti- 
 cularly inquired the names of the artists 
 attending Belle- Vue, in answer to a let- 
 ter in which she had mentioned the ap-
 
 300 a woman's trials. 
 
 proaching soiree, and expressed a vain 
 wish that he might be there. It was not 
 necessary to tell Milly that Adrien sang 
 divinely (since he sang at all, of course 
 it was divinely), and was taking lessons 
 from Monsieur Beranger, and how the 
 pupil and master had grown intimate over 
 their solfege, so that when, quite casually, 
 the master spoke of his being invited to a 
 soiree dansante at Belle- Vue, where there 
 was a very flower-garden of jolies An- 
 glaises, the pupil had said : " Ma foi ! je 
 voudrais bien voir cela I" and how Mon- 
 sieur Beranger had asked Madame St. 
 Simon for an invitation for his friend the 
 Yicomte de Perronville, dubbed " Vicomte" 
 for the occasion, which was graciously 
 granted by the mistress of the house. All 
 this, as it occurred, had been made known 
 to Henrietta, and if she were conscious 
 of Miss Lavinia's anxiety of mind, it was 
 certainly unkind not to relieve it, as she 
 might have done. 
 
 Ten minutes past nine, and still the 
 two sat in trembling suspense. The qua- 
 drille was over, and there was a lull in 
 the music. Ges messieurs bowed their
 
 a woman's trials. 301 
 
 partners to seats, plunged for their hats 
 under the vacant chairs, and stood about 
 in groups chatting together. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 LONDON: PEINTED BY A. SCHULZE, 13 POLAND STREET.
 
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