But I have not got past the first day yet. In assorting her clothes after unpacking, Miss Chandos missed a new velvet mantle; there was some commotion about it, and she was told that she ought to have watched more narrowly the visiting her trunks in the custom-house. Miss Chandos took the loss equably, as she appeared to do most things. "Oh, if it's lost, mamma must send me over another," was her careless comment.
We were at our studies in the afternoon when Mademoiselle Annette entered. The mode of sitting was different here from what it had been at Miss Fenton's. There, we sat on a hard form for hours together without any support for the arms or back: stooping was the inevitable consequence, and many of the girls got a curve in the spine; or, as the saying ran, "grew aside." In France we sat at a sloping desk, on which our arms rested, so that the spine could not get fatigued: I never once, the whole period I stayed at Miss Barlieu's, saw a crooked girl. Mademoiselle Annette entered and accosted Miss Chandos.
"I understand, Miss Chandos, that you did not take any care of your boxes yourself at the custom-house; merely gave up your keys?"
A slight accession of colour, and Miss Chandos turned round her fair bright face, acknowledging that it was so.
"But, my dear, that was evincing great carelessness."
"I don't see it, Mademoiselle Annette," was Miss Chandos's smiling dissent. "What are the commissionaires for, but to take charge of keys, and examine baggage?"
"Well; they have been up from the customs to say that the mantle was not left there. The commissionaire himself is here now; he says everything taken out of your boxes was safely put in again."
"It was a beautiful mantle, Mademoiselle Annette, and I daresay somebody caught it up and ran away with it when the man's attention was turned the other way. It can't be helped: there are worse misfortunes at sea."
"What gentleman was it that you were walking about with?" resumed Mademoiselle Annette.
"Gentleman?" returned Miss Chandos, in a questioning tone, as if she could not understand, or did not remember. "Gentleman, Mademoiselle Annette?"