"No, not lately."
"Awful hole, wasn't it? I wonder we did not all hang ourselves, or go mad!"
"I liked it very much, I must confess," she replied, rather shyly.
"Oh!" shrugging his shoulders, "every one to their taste, of course. No doubt it seemed an earthly Paradise to a young lady just out from school; and you had it all your own way, you know. By-the-by, I wonder what has become of Lisle? Some one said he was in California,—I suppose you have not heard?"
There was a half-ironic, half-bantering look in his eyes, and the same amiable impulse that impelled him to pull the legs off flies when he was a pretty little boy, was actuating him now.
"I," she stammered, considerably taken aback by this unexpected question, and meeting his glance with a faint flush,—"Oh, no."
"Well, I see that I am detaining you now,"—with another glance at Clara—"I hope we shall meet again before long; good-bye," and with a smile and sweep of his hat, he walked away in a highly effective manner. He was scarcely out of earshot, ere Miss Platt burst forth, as if no longer able to restrain herself,—
"Helen, how could you! How could you tell him all our private affairs. I never was so disgusted in my life. What was the good of informing him that you were going to be a governess, and, as it were, thrusting the news down his throat?"
"What was the harm? For the future, of course, he will drop my acquaintance. Though there is nothing degrading in the post, I am quite certain that he, as he would call it, 'draws the line at governesses,' and, indeed,—from what I have heard you say—so do you."
"Don't be impertinent to me, if you please, Helen. I think you totally forget yourself sometimes, and all you owe to mother and to us."