"Et assez jaune!" said the other.
"Proud and yellow," repeated Margaret, "but unfortunately not deaf or dumb."
"Goodness! Who could fancy you understood French! What an unlucky blunder we have made."
"Our respect for Mrs. Grey—"
"Rules of good-breeding—"
"Difficult position—"
cried the sisters in chorus, each warbling a different tune, and each pretty thoroughly mortified and embarrassed. There was nothing left for it but to take leave.
"What a disagreeable scrape that girl has got us into!" said Miss Grosgrain, as soon as they were safe in their carriage.
"Well, it's rather hard, I must say," complained another, "to have to demean one's-self to visit a creature about whose antecedents one knows nothing. Where can she have picked up French, I wonder?"
"Very likely from some fellow-servant, some nursery-governess, where she has lived," cried Miss Mary.