"I'm afraid I've given you a wrong impression; it is only a personal feeling with me, Miss Marr. I—I met this girl, Dorothea,—they called her 'Dolly' then,—five years ago, when I was only ten years old. She has forgotten me, but I never forgot her, for she spoke so rudely, so unkindly to me at the time, that I can't get over it. That's all. I dare say the other girls will like her, and I—I've nothing else against her."
Miss Marr touched Hope's cheek with her finger,—a caressing way she had at times, and said gently,—
"Thank you, Hope, for being so honest; I can always trust you."
Hope had been with Miss Marr for the past year, and had won her confidence and love by the fine sweet strain of her character.
"She's such an upright, sympathetic little soul, I can trust her with anything," the Frenchwoman had said to her friends.
It was one of these friends,—the wife of a scientific man,—that the Benhams had become acquainted with in Paris, who had suggested Hope as a pupil to Miss Marr, and told her something of John Benham's career.
"Such an interesting man," the friend had said, in summing up her account of him,—"what we call a self-made man, because he has had to cultivate his tastes by books and private study unhelped by the schools; but God-made after the finest pattern if ever a man was, and with a nice sensible wife and this dearest little daughter, whom they have so wisely determined to send home to their own country to complete her education."
Angelique Marr recalled these words as she looked at Hope. It was just at that moment that a door farther down the corridor was energetically flung open, and Miss Dorothea Dering appeared with her arms full of books. Hope started, and was turning away in the other direction, when Dolly called out,—
"Oh! Miss—Miss—er—er—Benham, wait a minute; I want to ask you something."
Hope waited, putting a detaining hand at the same time upon Miss Marr, who made a movement to step back into her parlor.