n those
days."

Miss Keeldar perhaps thought that circumstances were changed since then;
however, she made no remark, but after a little reflection quietly
followed Henry.

Entering the schoolroom, she inclined her head with a decent obeisance,
as had been her wont in former times. She removed her bonnet, and hung
it up beside Henry's cap. Louis Moore sat at his desk, turning the
leaves of a book, open before him, and marking passages with his pencil.
He just moved, in acknowledgment of her curtsy, but did not rise.

"You proposed to read to me a few nights ago," said he. "I could not
hear you then. My attention is now at your service. A little renewed
practice in French may not be unprofitable. Your accent, I have
observed, begins to rust."

"What book shall I take?"

"Here are the posthumous works of St. Pierre. Read a few pages of the
'Fragments de l'Amazone.'"

She accepted the chair which he had placed in readiness near his own;
the volume lay on his desk--there was but one between them; her sweeping
curls dropped so low as to hide the page from him.

"Put back your hair," he said.

For one moment Shirley looked not quite certain whether she would obey
the request or disregard it. A flicker of her eye beamed furtive on the
professor's face. Perhaps if he had been looking at her harshly or
timidly, or if one undecided line had marked his countenance, she would
have rebelled, and the lesson had ended there and then; but he was only
awaiting her compliance--as calm as marble, and as cool. She threw the
veil of tresses behind her ear. It was well her face owned an agreeable
outline, and that her cheek possessed the polish and the roundness of
early youth, or, thus robbed of a softening shade, the contours might
have lost their grace. But what mattered that in the present society?
Neither Calypso nor Eucharis cared to fascinate Mentor.

She began to read. The language had become strange to her tongue; it
faltered; the lecture flowed unevenly, impeded by hurried breath, broken
by Anglicized tones. She stopped.

"I can't do it. Read me a paragraph, if you please, Mr. Moore."

What _he_ read _she_ repeated. She caught his accent in three minutes.

"Tres bien," was the approving comment at the close of the piece.

"C'est presque le Francais rattrape, n'est-ce pas?"

"You could not write French as you once could, I dare say?"

"Oh no! I should make strange work of my concords now."

"You could not compose