enceforward as Julie Le Breton. The Ursuline nuns, to
whose school she was sent, took the precaution, after her mother's
death, of having her baptized straightway into the Catholic faith, and
she made her _premiere communion_ in their church. In the course of a
few years she became a remarkable girl, the source of many anxieties to
the nuns. For she was not only too clever for their teaching, and an
inborn sceptic, but wherever she appeared she produced parties and the
passions of parties. And though, as she grew older, she showed much
adroitness in managing those who were hostile to her, she was never
without enemies, and intrigues followed her.

"I might have been warned in time," said Lady Henry, in whose wrinkled
cheeks a sharp and feverish color had sprung up as her story approached
the moment of her own personal acquaintance with Mademoiselle Le Breton.
"For one or two of the nuns when I saw them in Bruges, before the
bargain was finally struck, were candid enough. However, now I come to
the moment when I first set eyes on her. You know my little place in
Surrey? About a mile from me is a manor-house belonging to an old
Catholic family, terribly devout and as poor as church-mice. They sent
their daughters to school in Bruges. One summer holiday these girls
brought home with them Julie Dalrymple as their quasi-holiday governess.
It was three years ago. I had just seen Liebreich. He told me that I
should soon be blind, and, naturally, it was a blow to me."

Sir Wilfrid made a murmur of sympathy.

"Oh, don't pity me! I don't pity other people. This odious body of ours
has got to wear out sometime--it's in the bargain. Still, just then I
was low. There are two things I care about--one is talk, with the people
that amuse me, and the other is the reading of French books. I didn't
see how I was going to keep my circle here together, and my own mind in
decent repair, unless I could find somebody to be eyes for me, and to
read to me. And as I'm a bundle of nerves, and I never was agreeable to
illiterate people, nor they to me, I was rather put to it. Well, one day
these girls and their mother came over to tea, and, as you guess, of
course, they brought Mademoiselle Le Breton with them. I had asked them
to come, but when they arrived I was bored and cross, and like a sick
dog in a hole. And then, as you have seen her, I suppose you can guess
what happened."

"You discovered an exceptional person?"

Lady Henry laughed.