ved him. Poor, remorseful, conscientious, struggling,
faithful heart! Why had she fled from him? It did not occur to him that
she was fleeing from herself.

He arrived at Valley City at eleven o'clock, and had the very room with
gaudy carpet he had pictured to himself. The next morning, disgusted
with everything and out of temper as he was, he yet so far postponed his
return journey as to make inquiries concerning schools for girls--one in
particular, in which a certain Mademoiselle Pitre had been teaching
French and music for several years. The clerk thought it must be the
"Young Ladies' Seminary." Heathcote took down the address of this
establishment, ordered a carriage, and drove thither, inquiring at the
door if Mademoiselle Pitre had arrived.

There was no such person there, the maid answered. No; he knew that she
had not yet arrived. But when was she expected?

The maid (who admired the stranger) did not take it upon herself to deny
his statement, but went away, and returned with the principal, Professor
Adolphus Bittinger. Professor Bittinger was not acquainted with
Mademoiselle Pitre. Their instructress in the French language was named
Blanchard, and was already there. Heathcote then asked if there were any
other young ladies' seminaries in Valley City, and was told (loftily)
that there were not. No schools where French was taught? There might
be, the professor thought, one or two small establishments for day
scholars. The visitor wrote down the new addresses, and drove away to
visit four day schools in succession, sending a ripple of curiosity down
the benches, and exciting a flutter in the breasts of four French
teachers, who came in person to answer the inquiries of monsieur. One of
them, a veteran in the profession, who had spent her life in asking
about the loaf made by the distant one-eyed relative of the baker,
answered decidedly that there was no such person in Valley City.
"Monsieur" was beginning to think so himself; but having now the fancy
to exhaust all the possibilities, he visited the infant schools, and a
private class, and at two o'clock returned to the hotel, having seen
altogether about five hundred young Americans in frocks, from five years
old to seventeen.

According to the statement of the little shop-keeper at Lancaster,
mademoiselle had been teaching in Valley City for a number of years:
there remained, then, the chance that she was in a private family as
governess. Heathcote lingere