under which Miss Heathcote, as a stranger, might be allowed to take lessons from the professors attached to that institution. She was to take singing lessons from Monsieur Somebody of great renown, and music lessons from Madame Somebody of equal renown. She was to have in all four lessons a week, on four different days; and it seemed to Mdlle. Duprez that she would thus be too closely occupied to have leisure for brooding on her grief. The professors of the Parisian Conservatoire are very severe in their teaching, and a good deal of work is required of a pupil. The pianiste must play her portion of Chopin and her tale of Bach without book at the second time of hearing. The vocalist must give proof that she has laboured earnestly at her solfeggi.
After the business interview at the Conservatoire, where the name of Mdlle. Duprez was a power, the kindly little Frenchwoman ordered the coachman to drive by the Boulevard and the Parc Monceau to the Bois de Boulogne. She steeped her young friend in the glory and beauty of Paris, hoping to prevent the possibility of much thought amidst so new and bright a world. And then she proposed that they should get seats at the Comédie Française, where a new play of Sardou's was being acted.
Hilda roused herself from the lethargy in which she had looked at the splendours of the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, and the brightness of the Bois, to protest against the idea of the theatre.
"I am not going to pretend to amuse myself when I am miserable," she said. "I mean to forget Bothwell by and by, or to think of him only as a dear friend whose happiness makes me happy; but I cannot pretend to have forgotten him to-day. I won't go to the theatre and make believe to be amused. I should feel as if I were seeking pleasures abroad when there was some one that I loved lying dead at home. But that need not prevent your seeing Sardou's play, dear Mademoiselle. I can stay quietly at the hotel, and read myself to sleep."
"My child, I don't care a straw for Sardou's play, except as a means of making you forget your troubles. We will go and take a quiet cup of tea with Mdme. Tillet, so that you may get reconciled to your new surroundings. That will be much better; and then you must go to bed early and get a good night's rest."
They dined at the hotel, in the odour of sanctity, as it were, for a bishop and a curé were dining at the table next them, and dining uncommonly well with a nice appreciation of the plat du jour, and of some excellent chambertin which appeared towards the close of the entertainment.
"I hope you won't be horrified when you hear that the Tillets live over a shop," said Mdlle. Duprez, as she and Hilda
