“Ha! my wee wee friend,” said Clara Hope, “are you here?—I was just thinking of you, just wishing for you. By gude luck, have you the weeny locket about you that the young lady gave you this morning?—the weeny locket, my bonny boy?”
“Plait-il?” said little Louis.
“He don’t understand one word,” said Miss Burrage, laughing sarcastically, “he don’t understand one word of all your bonnys, and wee wees and weenies, Miss Hope; he, unfortunately, don’t understand broad Scotch, and maybe he mayn’t be so great a proficient as you are in boarding-school French; but I’ll try if he can understand me, if you’ll tell me what you want.”
“Such a trinket as this,” said Clara, showing a locket which hung from her neck.
“Ah oui—yes, I comprehend now,” cried the boy, taking from his coat-pocket a small case of trinkets—“la voilà!—here is vat de young lady did give me—good young lady!” said Louis, and he produced the locket.
“I declare,” exclaimed Miss Burrage, catching hold of it, “‘tis Miss Warwick’s locket! I’m sure of it—here’s the motto—I’ve read it, and laughed at it twenty times—L’Amie Inconnue.”
“When I heard you all talking just now about that description of the young lady in the newspaper, I cude not but fancy,” said Clara Hope, “that the lady whom I saw this morning must be Miss Warwick.”
“Saw—where?” cried Lady Frances, eagerly.
“At Bristol—at our academy—at Mrs. Porett’s,” said Clara; “but mark me, she is not there now—I do not ken where she may be now.”
“Moi je sais!—I do know de demoiselle did stop in a coach at one house; I was in de street—I can show you de house.”