"Quite well, thank you," she said in a low tone, pointing to a chair, and sitting down herself. "I am so much surprised to see you."
"No doubt you are. How is the little girl?"
"She is at school with some good ladies, and she is quite happy there," replied Madame Guise, speaking rather more freely. "I thought you were in Italy, Mr. North."
"I left Italy some weeks ago. Since then I have been wandering onwards, from place to place, sketching this, sketching that, in my usual rather vagabond fashion, and have at length turned up in England."
The laughing light was coming back to his eyes again: he momentarily turned them on Ethel as he spoke. Madame Guise seemed to consider she might be under an obligation to introduce him.
"Mr. George North, my dear. Miss Ethel Reene, sir; one of my pupils."
Mr. George North rose from his chair and bowed elaborately: Ethel bowed slightly, smiled, and blushed. She was very much taken with the young man: and perhaps, if the truth were known, he was with her. Certain it was, that she was looking very pretty in her summer dress of white muslin, with the silver-grey ribbons in her hair.
"Did you come straight to England from Italy?" asked Madame Guise.
"My fashion of coming was not straight but very crooked," he answered. "I took the Channel Islands in my way."
"The Channel Islands!"