“Your sister Nellie is of the angel type; but perhaps—I say not anything to a certainty—she may be rewarded sooner than she thinks.”
“Why, Mademoiselle,” cried Pauline, opening her eyes in astonishment, “do you know anything?”
“Whisper it not, dear. I have at present nothing to say. At present—remember; but there may be news in the future. Allow me, my little one, to examine your bangle with its heart of the ruby—still more close than I have hitherto done.”
Pauline allowed the bangle to be removed from her wrist Mademoiselle noticed the curious and very beautiful engraving of the delicate gold.
“And the other was an exact counterpart, was it not?” she queried.
“Precisely the same,” said Pauline, “only that it held a turquoise and mine holds a ruby.”
Mademoiselle took a pencil from her pocket, and also a little notebook. She made some almost invisible tracings in the notebook and then returned the bangle to Pauline.
“You will speak no words,” she said, “but you will cultivate a soupçon of that precious hope which sustains the heart.”
Pauline promised, and went away, feeling more uncomfortable than glad. Mademoiselle spent the rest of her day in quite an agreeable manner. She had dropped all those traits which had made her disliked at Hazlitt Chase, and amused the young people by her witty talk and her gay demeanour. The strange children at Castle Beverley thought her altogether delightful: her pupils also considered her delightful, but with a reserve in their minds which confined that delight to holidays and differentiated it from the working days.
Mademoiselle could not be induced to stay to supper. No, she said she must hurry home. She was staying in the same house where that sweet girl, Brenda Carlton, with her dear little pupils, was living.