In the grey dawn of an August morning, I stood on a steamer that was about to clear out from alongside one of the wharves near London Bridge. It was bound for a seaport town in France. Scarcely dawn yet, the night-clouds still hung upon the earth, but light was breaking in the eastern horizon. The passengers were coming on board--not many; it did not appear that the boat would have much of a freight that day. I heard one of the seamen say so; I knew nothing about it; and the scene was as new to me as the world is to a bird, flying for the first time from a cage where it has been hatched and reared.

"I was fifteen, and had left Miss Fenton\'s for good; thoroughly well-educated, so far. And now they were sending me to a school in France to finish.

"I will not say precisely where this school was situated: there are reasons against it; but what little record I give of the establishment shall be true and faithful. It was not at Boulogne or at Calais, those renowned seaports, inundated with Anglo-French schools; neither was it in Paris or Brussels, or at Dieppe. We can call the town Nulle, and that\'s near enough. It was kept by two ladies, sisters, the Demoiselles Barlieu. The negotiations had been made by my trustees, and Mrs. Hemson had brought me to London, down to the steamer on this early morning, and was now consigning me to the care of Miss Barlieu\'s English governess, whom we had met there by appointment. She was a very plain young person, carrying no authority in appearance, and looking not much like a lady. Authority, as I found, she would have little in the school; she was engaged to teach English, and there her duties ended.

"You had better secure a berth and lie down," she said to me. "The night has been cold, and it is scarcely light enough yet to be on deck."

"Any ladies for shore?" cried a rough voice at the cabin door.

"Shore!" echoed Miss Johnstone, in what seemed alarm. "You are surely not going to start yet! I am waiting for another young lady."

"It wont be more than five minutes now, mum."

"A pupil?" I asked her.

"I believe so. Mademoiselle Barlieu wrote to me that two----"

"Any lady here of the name of Johnstone?"

The inquiry came from a middle-aged, quiet-looking person, who was glancing in at the cabin door. By her side stood a most elegant girl of seventeen, perhaps eighteen, her eyes blue, her face brilliantly fair, her dress handsome.

"I am Miss Johnstone," said the teacher, advancing.

"What a relief! The steward thought no governess had come on board, and I must not have dared to send Miss Chandos alone. My lady----"

"You would, Hill; so don\'t talk nonsense," interrupted the young lady, with a laugh, as she threw up her white veil, and brought her beauty right underneath the cabin lamp. "Would the fishes have swallowed me up any the quicker for not being in somebody\'s charge? Unfasten my cloak, Hill."

"This young lady is Miss Chandos, ma\'am," said the person addressed as Hill, presenting the beautiful girl to Miss Johnstone. "Please take every care of her in going across."

The young lady wheeled round. "Are you our new English teacher?"

"I am engaged as English governess at Mademoiselle Barlieu\'s," replied Miss Johnstone, who had not at all a pleasant manner of speaking. "She wrote word to me that I might expect Miss Chandos and Miss Hereford on board."

"Miss Hereford!" was the quick response. "Who is she?"

But by that time I was lying down on the berth, and the rough voice again interrupted.

"Any lady as is for shore had better look sharp, unless they\'d like to be took off to t\'other side the Channel."

"What fun, Hill, if they should take you off!" laughed Miss Chandos, as the former started up with trepidation. "Now don\'t stumble overboard in your haste to get off the boat."

"Good-bye to you, Miss Emily, and a pleasant journey! You won\'t fail to write as soon as you arrive: my lady will be anxious."

"Oh, I will gladden mamma\'s heart with a letter, or she may be thinking the bottom of the steamer has come out," lightly returned Miss Chandos. "Mind, Hill, that you give my love to Mr. Harry when he gets home."

Those who were for shore went on shore, and soon we were in all the bustle and noise of departure. Miss Chandos stood by the small round table, looking in the hanging-glass, and turning her shining golden ringlets round her fingers. On one of those fingers was a ring, whose fine large stones formed a hearts-ease: two were yellow topaz, the other three dark amethyst: the whole beautiful.

"May I suggest that you should lie down, Miss Chandos?" said our governess for the time being. "You will find the benefit of doing so."

"Have you crossed the Channel many times?" was the reply of Miss Chandos, as she coolly proceeded with her hair: her tone to Miss Johnstone was a patronizing one.

"Only twice; to France and home again."

"And I have crossed it a dozen times at least, between school and Continental voyages with mamma, so you cannot teach me much in that respect. I can assure you there\'s nothing more disagreeable than to be stewed in one of these suffocating berths. When we leave the river, should it prove a rough sea, well and good; but I don\'t put myself in a berth until then."

"Have you been long with the Miss Barlieus?" inquired Miss Johnstone of her.

"Two dismal years. But I have outlived the dismality now--if you will allow me to coin a word. Mamma has known the Barlieus all her life: an aunt of theirs was her governess when she was young; and when we were returning home from Italy, mamma went to the place and left me there, instead of taking me on to England. Was I not rebellious over it! for three months I planned, every day, to run away on the next."

"But you did not?" I spoke up from my berth, greatly interested.

Miss Chandos turned round and looked at me. "No," she laughed, "it was never accomplished. I believe the chief impediment was, the not knowing where to run to. Are you the Miss Hereford?"

"Yes."

"What a bit of a child you seem! You won\'t like a French school, if this is your first entrance to one. Home comforts and French schools are as far apart as the two poles."

"But I am not accustomed to home comforts; I have no home. I have been for some years at an English school where there was little comfort of any sort. Do your friends live in England? Have you a home there?"

"A home in England!" she answered, with some surprise at the question, or at my ignorance. "Of course: I am Miss Chandos. Chandos is mamma\'s present residence; though, strictly speaking, it belongs to Sir Thomas."

All this was so much Greek to me. Perhaps Miss Chandos saw that it was, for she laughed gaily.

"Sir Thomas Chandos is my brother. Harry is the other one. We thought Tom would have retired from the army and come home when papa died, two or three years ago; but he still remains in India. Mamma writes him word that he should come home and marry, and so make himself into a respectable man; he sends word back that he is respectable enough as it is."

"Your papa was----?"

"Sir Thomas Chandos. Ah, dear! if he had but lived! He was so kind to us! Mamma is in widow\'s weeds yet, and always will be."

"And who was she who brought you on board?"

"Hill. She is the housekeeper at Chandos. Some one has always taken me over until this time, generally Harry. But Harry is away, and Miss Barlieu wrote word to mamma that the English governess could bring me, so Hill was despatched with me to town."

"What a beautiful ring that is!" I exclaimed, as the stones flashed in the lamp-light.

Her eyes fell upon it, and a blush and a smile rose to her face. She sat down on the edge of my berth, and twirled it over with the fingers of her other hand.

"Yes it is a nice ring. Let any one attempt to give me a ring that is not a nice one; they would get it flung back at them."

"Is Mademoiselle Barlieu\'s a large school?"

"There were seventy-five last trimestre."

"Seventy-five!" I repeated, amazed at the number.

"That includes the externes--nearly fifty of them--with whom we have nothing to do. There are three class-rooms: one for the elder girls, one for the younger, and the third (it\'s the size almost of the large hall at the Tribunal of Commerce) for the externes."

"Are there many teachers?"

"Six, including the English governess and the two Miss Barlieus; and six masters, who are in nearly constant attendance."

"Altogether, do you like being there?"

"Yes," she said, laughing significantly, "I like it very well now. I am going on deck to watch the day break; so adieu for the present.

"We had a rough passage; of which I cannot think to this day without--without wishing not to think of it; and late in the afternoon the steamer was made fast to the port it was bound for. In the midst of the bustle preparatory to landing, a gentleman, young, vain, and good-looking, leaped on board, braving the douaniers, who were too late to prevent him, and warmly greeted Miss Chandos.

"My dear Emily!"

"Speak in French, Alfred," she said, taking the initiative and addressing him in the language--her damask cheeks, her dimples, and her dancing eyes all being something lovely to behold. "I have not come alone, as I thought I should. A duenna, in the shape of the English governess, has charge of me."

"Miss Chandos, the men are calling out that we must land."

The interruption came from Miss Johnstone, who had approached, looking keenly at the gentleman. The latter, with scant courtesy to the governess, made no reply: he was too much occupied in assisting Miss Chandos up the landing-steps. Miss Chandos turned her head when she reached the top.

"Be so good as to look in the cabin, Miss Johnstone; I have left a hundred things there, odds and ends. My warm cloak is somewhere."

Miss Johnstone appeared anything but pleased. It is not usual for pupils to order their teachers to look after their things; and Miss Chandos was of somewhat imperious manner: not purposely: it was her nature. I turned with Miss Johnstone, and we collected together the items left by Miss Chandos. By the time we got to the custom-house, she had disappeared. Twenty minutes after, when we and our luggage had been examined, we found her outside, walking to and fro with the gentleman.

"Where are your boxes, Miss Chandos?" asked Miss Johnstone.

"My boxes? I don\'t know anything about them. I gave my keys to one of the commissionaires; he will see to them. Or you can, if you like."

"I do not imagine that it is my business to do so," was Miss Johnstone\'s offended reply. But Miss Chandos was again walking with her companion, and paid no heed to her.

"Halloa, De Mellissie! have you been to England?" inquired a passing Englishman of Miss Chandos\'s friend.

"Not I," he replied. `"I stepped on board the boat when it came in, so they took their revenge by making me go through the custom-house and turning my pockets inside out. Much good it did them!"

An omnibus was waiting round the corner, in which we were finally to be conveyed to our destination, Mademoiselle Barlieu\'s. Seated in it was a little, stout, good-tempered dame of fifty, Mademoiselle Caroline, the senior teacher. She received Miss Chandos with open arms, and a kiss on each cheek. The gentleman politely handed us by turn into the omnibus, and stood bowing to us, bareheaded, as we drove away.

"Do you think him handsome?" Miss Chandos whispered to me, the glow on her face fading.

"Pretty well. What is his name?"

"Alfred de Mellissie. You can be good-natured, can\'t you?" she added.

"I can, if I like."

"Then be so now, and don\'t preach it out to the whole school that he met me. He----"

"Is t............