"My boxes? I don't know anything about them. I gave my keys to one of the commissionaires; he will see to them. Or you can, if you like."
"I do not imagine that it is my business to do so," was Miss Johnstone's offended reply. But Miss Chandos was again walking with her companion, and paid no heed to her.
"Halloa, De Mellissie! have you been to England?" inquired a passing Englishman of Miss Chandos's friend.
"Not I," he replied. "I stepped on board the boat when it came in, so they took their revenge by making me go through the custom-house and turning my pockets inside out. Much good it did them!"
An omnibus was waiting round the corner, in which we were finally to be conveyed to our destination, Mademoiselle Barlieu's. Seated in it was a little, stout, good-tempered dame of fifty, Mademoiselle Caroline, the senior teacher. She received Miss Chandos with open arms, and a kiss on each cheek. The gentleman politely handed us by turn into the omnibus, and stood bowing to us, bareheaded, as we drove away.
"Do you think him handsome?" Miss Chandos whispered to me, the glow on her face fading.
"Pretty well. What is his name?"
"Alfred de Mellissie. You can be good-natured, can't you?" she added.
"I can, if I like."
"Then be so now, and don't preach it out to the whole school that he met me. He——"