“On the whole I am pleased with your general intelligence, and I think you have good capacities, Hester,” she said in conclusion. “I shall ask Miss Good, our very accomplished English teacher, to place you in the third-class. You will have to work very hard, however, at your French, to maintain your place there. But Mdlle. Perier is kind and painstaking, and it rests with yourself to quickly acquire a conversational acquaintance with the language. You are aware that, except during recreation, you are never allowed to speak in any other tongue. Now, go back to the school-room, my dear.”
As Mrs Willis spoke she laid her finger on a little silver gong which stood by her side.
“One moment, please,” said Hester, colouring crimson, “I want to ask you a question, please.”
“Is it about your lessons?”
“No—oh, no; it is—”
“Then pardon me, my dear,” uttered the governess, “I sit in my room every evening from eight to half-past, and I am then at liberty to see a pupil on any subject which is not trifling. Nothing but lessons are spoken of in lesson hours, Hester. Ah, here comes Miss Good. Miss Good, I should wish you to place Hester Thornton in the third-class. Her English is up to the average. I will see Mdlle. Perier about her at twelve o’clock.”
Hester followed the English teacher into the great school-room, took her place in the third-class, at the desk which was pointed out to her, was given a pile of new books, and was asked to attend to the history lesson which was then going on.
Notwithstanding her confusion, a certain sense of soreness, and some indignation at what she considered Mrs Willis’s altered manner, she acquitted herself with considerable spirit, and was pleased to see that her class companions regarded her with some respect.
An English literature lecture followed the history, and here again Hester acquitted herself with éclat. The subject to-day was “Julius Caesar,” and Hester had read Shakespeare’s play over many times with her mother.
But when the hour came for foreign languages, her brief triumph ceased. Lower and lower did she fall in her school-fellows’ estimation, as she stumbled through her truly English-French. Mdlle. Perier, who was a very fiery little woman, almost screamed at her—the girls coloured and nearly tittered. Hester hoped to recover her lost laurels in German, but by this time her head ached, and she did very little better in the German which she loved than in the French which she detested. At twelve o’clock she was relieved to find that school was over for the present, and she heard the English teacher’s voice desiring the girls to go quickly to their rooms, and to assemble in five minutes’ time in the great stone hall, equipped for their walk.