"Papa?"
"I mean, in what position?—was he in trade?"
"He was an officer in Her Majesty's service. Colonel Hereford."
"Colonel Hereford?" she returned, looking at me as though she wondered whether I was in error. "Are you sure?"
"Quite sure, Miss Dale. Mamma was Miss Carew of Keppe-Carew."
"Miss Carew of Keppe-Carew!" she exclaimed, with a little scream of surprise; for the Keppe-Carews were of note in the world.
"Mrs. Hemson was a Keppe-Carew also," I continued. "She forfeited her position to marry Mr. Hemson; and she says she has not repented it."
Miss Dale paused; said she remembered to have heard the noise it made when a Miss Carew, of Keppe-Carew, quitted her home for a tradesman's; but had never known that it related to Mrs. Hemson.
"I was a stranger to Dashleigh until I came here as teacher," she observed, beckoning up the two young ladies, Miss Tayler and Miss Peacock.
"When next you young ladies take a prejudice against a new pupil, it may be as well to make sure first of all of your grounds," she said to them, her tone sarcastic. "You have been sending this child to 'Coventry' on the score of her not being your equal in point of family; let me tell you there's not one of you in the whole school whose family is fit to tie the shoes of hers. She is the daughter of Colonel Hereford, and of Miss Carew of Keppe-Carew."