What does it concern us, where she comes from?”

At that moment, a Mrs. Montague, who, with her husband, was conveying
a family of nine children over to Brussels, under the mistaken
impression, that they would be able to live cheaper there than in
England, came down the Hotel steps with half a dozen of them, clinging
to her skirts, and went straight up to Margaret Pullen. “O! Mrs. Pullen! What is that young lady’s name, who sat opposite to
you at dinner? Everybody is asking! I hear she is enormously rich, and
travelling alone. Did you see the lace on her dress? Real Valenciennes,
and the diamond rings she wore! Frederick says they must be worth a lot
of money. She must be someone of consequence I should imagine!”

“On the contrary, my nurse tells me she is English and her name is
Brandt. Has she no friends here?”

“Madame Lamont says she arrived in company with another girl, but they
are located at different parts of the Hotel. It seems very strange,
does it not?”

“And it sounds very improper!” interposed Elinor Leyton, “I should
say the less we have to say to her, the better! You never know what
acquaintances you may make in a place like this! When I look up and
down the _table d’hôte_ menagerie sometimes, it makes me quite ill!”

“Does it?” rejoined Mrs. Montague, “I think it’s so amusing! That
Baroness Gobelli, for instance----”

“Don’t mention her before me!” cried Miss Leyton, in a tone of disgust,
“the woman is not fit for civilised society!”

“She is rather common, certainly, and strange in her behaviour,” said
Mrs. Montague, “but she is very good-natured. She gave my little Edward
a louis yesterday. I felt quite ashamed to let him take it!”

“That just proves her vulgarity,” exclaimed Elinor Leyton, who had not
a sixpence to give away, herself, “it shows that she thinks her money
will atone for all her other shortcomings! She gave that Miss Taylor
who left last week, a valuable brooch off her own throat. And poor
payment too, for all the dirty things she made her do and the ridicule
she poured upon her. I daresay this _nouveau riche_ will try to curry
favour with us by the same means.”

At that moment, the girl under discussion, Miss Brandt, appeared on the
balcony, which was only raised a few feet above where they sat. She
wore the same dress she had at dinner, with the addition of a little
fleecy shawl about her shoulders. She stood smiling, and looking at
the ladies (who had naturally dropped all discussion about her) for
a few moments, and then she ventured to descend the steps between
the rampant gilded lions, and almost timidly, as it seemed, took
up a position near them. Mrs. Pullen felt that she could not be so
discourteous as to take no notice whatever of the new-comer, and so,
greatly to Miss Leyton’s disgust, she uttered quietly, “Good evening!”

It was quite enough for Miss Brandt. She drew nearer with smiles
mantling over her face. “Good evening! Isn’t it lovely here?--so soft and warm, something like
the Island, but so much fresher!”

She looked up and down the Digue, now crowded with a multitude of
visitors, and drew in her breath with a long sigh of content. “How gay and happy they all seem, and how happy I am too! Do you know,
if I had my will, what I should like to do?” she said, addressing Mrs.
Pullen. “No! indeed!”

“I should like to tear up and down this road as hard as ever I could,
throwing my arms over my head and screaming aloud!”

The ladies exchanged glances of astonishment, but Margaret Pullen could
not forbear smiling as she asked their new acquaintance the reason why. “O! because I am free--free at last, after ten long years of
imprisonment! I am telling you the truth, I am indeed, and you would
feel just the same if you had been shut up in a horrid Convent ever
since you were eleven years old!”

At the word “convent”, the national Protestant horror immediately
spread itself over the faces of the three other ladies; Mrs. Montague
gathered her flock about her and took them out of the way of possible
contamination, though she would have much preferred to hear the rest of
Miss Brandt’s story, and Elinor Leyton moved her chair further away. But Margaret Pullen was interested and encouraged the girl to proceed. “In a convent! I suppose then you are a Roman Catholic!”

Harriet Brandt suddenly opened her slumbrous eyes. “I don’t think so! I’m not quite sure what I am! Of course I’ve had any
amount of religion crammed down my throat in the Convent, and I had to
follow their prayers, whilst there, but I don’t believe my parents were
Catholics! But it does not signify, I am my own mistress now. I can be
what I like!”

“You have been so unfortunate then as to lose your parents!”

“O! yes! years ago, that is why my guardian, Mr. Trawler, placed me
in the Convent for my education. And I’ve been there for ten years! Is it not a shame? I’m twenty-one now! That’s why I’m free! You see,”
the girl went on confidentially, “my parents left me everything, and
as soon as I came of age I entered into possession of it. My guardian,
Mr. Trawler, who lives in Jamaica,--did I tell you that I’ve come from
Jamaica?--thought I should live with him and his wife, when I left the
Convent, and pay them for my keep, but I refused. They had kept me
too tight! I wanted to see the world and life--it was what I had been
looking forward to--so as soon as my affairs were settled, I left the
West Indies and came over here!”

“They said you came from England in the Hotel!”

“So I did! The steamer came to London and I stayed there a week before
I came on here!”

“But you are too young to travel about by yourself, Miss Brandt! English young ladies never do so!” said Mrs. Pullen. “I’m not by myself, exactly! Olga Brimont, who was in the Convent with
me, came too. But she is ill, so she’s upstairs. She has come to her
brother who is in Brussels, and we travelled together. We had the same
cabin on board the steamer, and Olga was very ill. One night the doctor
thought she was going to die! I stayed with her all the time. I used to
sit up with her at night, but it did her no good. We stopped in London
because we wanted to buy some dresses and things, but she was not able
to go out, and I had to go alone. Her brother is away from Brussels at
present so he wrote her to stay in Heyst till he could fetch her, and
as I had nowhere particular to go, I came with her! And she is better
already! She has been fast asleep all the afternoon!”

“And what will you do when your friend leaves you?” asked Mrs. Pullen. “O! I don’t know! Travel about, I suppose! I shall go wherever it may
please me!”

“Are you not going to take a walk this evening?” demanded Elinor Leyton
in a low voice of her friend, wishing to put a stop to the conversation. “Certainly! I told nurse I would join her and baby by-and-by!”

“Shall I fetch your hat then?” enquired Miss Leyton, as she rose to go
up to their apartments. “Yes!