"She cannot think seriously of him, you know," Ellen Roper observed one day. "It is a match that could never be allowed by her family. He is quite a second-rate sort of Frenchman, and she is Miss Chandos of Chandos. He is a bit of a jackanapes too, vain and silly."
"Ellen Roper, I am within hearing, I beg to inform you," said Miss Chandos, from half way up the desk, her face in a lovely glow.
"That is just why I said it," returned Ellen Roper, who, however, had not known Emily was near, and started at the sound of her voice. "I daresay he has not above a thousand pounds or two a year; a very fair patrimony for a Frenchman, you know; but only fancy it for one in the position of Miss Chandos."
"Go on, Ellen Roper! I'll tell something of you by-and-by."
"And, setting aside everything else, there's another great barrier," went on Ellen Roper, making objections very strong in her spirit of mischief. "The De Mellissies are Roman Catholics; cela va, you know; while the Chandos family are staunch Conservative Protestants. Lady Chandos would almost as soon give Emily to the Grand Turk as to Alfred de Mellissie."
A sort of movement at the desk, and we looked round. Quietly seated on the low chair in the corner, her ears drinking in all, for we had been speaking in English, was Miss Johnstone. Had she been there all the time? Emily Chandos's bright cheek paled a little, as if there had fallen upon her a foreshadowing of ill.
I do not know that it would have come, but that circumstances worked for it. On this afternoon, this very same afternoon as we sat there, Emily was called out of the room by one of the maids, who said Mrs. Trehern had called to see her.
"Trehern?—Trehern?" cried Emily, as she went. "I don't know the name from Adam."
Back she soon came with a radiant face, and presented herself to Mademoiselle Annette, who was in class.
"Oh, Mademoiselle, some friends are here, and they wish me to go out with them. Will you give me permission? It is Mr. and Mrs. Trehern."