e.

Early one morning, long before daybreak, I was startled out of my sleep
by a hurried knock at my door. I cried out, "Who is there?" and a
voice, indistinct with sobbing, replied, "C'est moi."

The "moi" proved to be Mademoiselle Morel. I opened the door for her,
and she appeared in her bonnet and walking-dress, carrying a lamp in her
hand, which lit up her weary and tear-stained face. She took a seat at
the foot of my bed, and buried her face in her handkerchief.

"Mademoiselle," she said, "here is a grand misfortune, a misfortune
without parallel. Monsieur and madame are gone."

"Gone!" I repeated; "where are they gone?"

"I do not know, mademoiselle," she answered; "I know nothing at all.
They are gone away. The poor good people were in debt, and their
creditors are as hard as stone. They wished to take every sou, and they
talked of throwing monsieur into prison, you understand. That is
intolerable. They are gone, and I have no means to carry on the
establishment. The school is finished."

"But I am to stay here twelve months," I cried, in dismay, "and Minima
was to stay four years. The money has been paid to them for it. What is
to become of us?"

"I cannot say, mademoiselle; I am desolated myself," she replied, with a
fresh burst of tears; "all is finished here. If you have not money
enough to take you back to England, you must write to your friends. I'm
going to return to Bordeaux. I detest Normandy; it is so cold and
_triste_."

"But what is to be done with the other pupils?" I inquired, still lost
in amazement, and too bewildered to realize my own position.

"The English pupil goes with me to Paris," she answered; "she has her
friends there. The French demoiselles are not far from their own homes,
and they return to-day by the omnibus to Granville. It is a misfortune
without parallel, mademoiselle--a misfortune quite without parallel."

By the way she repeated this phrase, it was evidently a great
consolation to her--as phrases seem to be to all classes of the French
people. But both the tone of her voice, and the expression of her face,
impressed upon me the conviction that it was not her only consolation.
In answer to my urgent questions, she informed me that, without doubt,
the goods left in the two houses would be seized, as soon as the flight
of madame and monsieur became known.

To crown all, she was going to start immediately by the omnibus to
Falaise, and on by rail to Paris, not waiting