“Then have you been here long?” Ella inquired. “Some months. I was fortunate in getting a daily engagement which has enabled me to save a little. So now I am going to Switzerland. I have never had a chance of speaking French, but I could not have gone without any money, you see.”
“Won’t you get a salary then?” said Ella.
The girl shook her head.
“Not the first year, and I’m not sure that I shall want to stay a second. A friend of mine has a girls’ school, and if I can speak French well she may be able to find work for me with her.”
“But should you like that as well as being abroad?” said Ella, opening her eyes. “I think Switzerland is so charming. I’ve been there a good deal.”
“Ah, yes—travelling or visiting there is charming no doubt. But to be a governess is very different. One has to put up with a good deal in such cases, but of course when it is a question of acquiring the language, one doesn’t mind anything, does one?”
“I can’t say,” replied Ella rather loftily. “I can speak French quite well. I don’t care about going abroad on that account.”
She rather resented the “rowing in the same boat” tone of her new acquaintance.
“Oh, I thought some one said you were going to Germany—to Wahlbrunn, I know about the place—au pair, as they say.”
“Perhaps I am,” said Ella dryly. Her companion glanced at her half curiously. She could not quite “make her out.”