“Oh, mine was a clergyman, but he is long since dead, and my own mother too.  The father and mother who have taken care of me since live at Beechhurst in the Forest, and he is a doctor.  It is my grandfather who sends me here to school, and he is a country gentleman, a squire.  But I like my common friends best—­far!”

“If you have a squire for your grandfather you may speak as you please—­Miss Hiloe will not call you common.  Oh, I am shrewd enough:  I know more than I tell.  Miss Foster says I have the virtues of my class, but I have no business at a school like this.  She wonders what Madame Fournier receives me for.  Oh, I wish father may come over next month!  Nobody can tell how lonely I feel sometimes.  Will you call me Janey?” Janey’s poor little face went down upon her knees, and there was the sound of sobs.  Bessie’s tender heart yearned to comfort this misery, and she would have gone over to administer a kiss, had she not been peremptorily warned not to risk it:  there was the gleam of a light below the door.  When that alarm was past, composure returned to the master-mariner’s little daughter, and Bessie ventured to ask if the French girls were nice.

The answer sounded pettish:  “There are all sorts in a school like this.  Elise Finckel lives in the Place St. Pierre:  they are clock and watchmakers, the Finckels.  Once I went there; then Elise and Miss Hiloe made friends, and it was good-bye to me! but clanning is forbidden.”

Bessie required enlightening as to what “clanning” meant.  The explanation was diffuse, and branched off into so many anecdotes and illustrations that in spite of the moonlight, her nerves, her interest, and her forebodings, Bessie began to yield to the overpowering influence of sleep.  The little comrade, listened to no longer, ceased her prattle and napped off too.

* * * * *

The next sound Bessie Fairfax heard was the irregular clangor of a bell, and behold it was morning!  Some one had been into the dortoir and had opened a window or two.  The warm fragrant breath of sunshine and twitter of birds entered.

“So this is being at school in France?  What a din!” said Bessie, stopping her ears and looking for her comrade.

That strange child was just opening a pair of sleepy eyes and exhorting herself by name:  “Now, Miss Janey Fricker, you will be wise to get up without more thinking about it, or there will be a bad mark and an imposition for you, my dear.  What a blessing! five dull days yet before the arrival of the tormentors!” She slipped out upon the floor, exclaiming how tired she was and how all her bones ached, till Bessie’s heart ached too for pity of the delicate, sensitive morsel of humanity.

They had soup for breakfast, greasy, flavorless stuff loaded with vegetables, and bread sour with long keeping.  This was terrible to Bessie.  She sipped and put down her spoon, then tried again.  Miss Foster, at the same table, partook of a rough decoction of coffee with milk, and a little rancid butter on the sour bread toasted.