“I like you none the worse for a proper exhibition of spirit,” he said, nodding kindly, and settling himself once more to his paper composedly.  “Sit still, miss, and compose yourself by the time Madame La Vigne comes in, or she may think you high-tempered, and I am sure you are nothing of the kind—­only very properly proud.  There, now, that is right!  You seem to be a very sensible, well-conditioned young person indeed, and I think you will suit.  You are the tenth since yesterday morning,” smiling and bowing blandly, “and the only one that could read intelligibly.  Elocution, you see, is my hobby.  I forgot to say,” looking up from his paper, after a pause, “the salary is six hundred dollars—­not enough, perhaps, for a lady of your merit—­but quite as much as we can afford to give.  This I call a modicum.”

“It is not very important,” I remarked, “what I receive in the shape of money, so that I am at no expense beyond my clothing, and other personal matters, and that I find myself well situated.  My engagement will, in no case, extend beyond a year.  You have your peculiarities, I see, and I have mine.  The question is, might they not jar occasionally?”

“Oh, never, never! ‘noblesse oblige,’ you know,” with a wave of the hand, soft and urbane.  “I hope I shall know how to treat a lady and a teacher, both in one, and a member of my household.  Besides that, I shall have very little to do with you, indeed.  Just now it is different—­we are coming to terms; we have not made them yet, however.  I always save my wife this trouble, if possible.—­Ah! there she comes, at last,” as a mild, lady-like looking woman emerged from an adjoining chamber, somewhat elaborately dressed for that early hour, and followed by a stream of pale, pretty little girls.  “Madame La Vigne,” he said, rising ceremoniously, “permit me to introduce to you Miss Miriam Harz,” reading the name slowly from the card again, which he took from the wall, “’a candidate for the position of instructress at Beauseincourt.’—­Say, how do you like her looks?”

I had come to the conclusion by this time that Mr. La Vigne was decidedly as eccentric as his advertisement, and that his vagaries and personalities were not worth minding or estimating in the consideration in question.

So, when Madame La Vigne replied to his abrupt query, “Oh, very, very much, indeed!” and held out her kind hand to me, I took it without misgiving, and the first glance we interchanged contained freemasonry.  From that time Colonel Prosper La Vigne fell gracefully back into his proper position, and I talked away fluently enough with his lady, as he pompously called his wife.  In short, at the end of an hour it was settled that I was to join them the same evening, at their hotel, and proceed with them thence to New York, there to take the packet for Savannah (their first destination) on the same night.  The plantation on which they lived, they informed me, was nearly a day’s journey, by carriage-conveyance, beyond that city, but eligibly situated for health (though not for productiveness), among a low range of hills known as the “Les Dernier” Mountains, the name being anglicized into “Less derneer,” with the accent on the last syllable, so as to metamorphose it completely to the ear, instead of translating it.