We continue our serialisation of Anne by Constance Fenimore Woolson

“She rose, kissed the young girl lightly on each cheek”

Now the bishop lived five miles farther. It was not evident, therefore, to the ordinary mind what aid these reverend gentlemen could give to Anne, all living, as they did, at the western beginning of her railway journey; but Miss Lois, who, like others of her sex, possessed the power (unattainable by man) of rising above mere logical sequence, felt that she had conquered.

“I have no bishops to offer,” said Père Michaux, with mock humility; “only ordinary priests. I will therefore leave Anne to your care, Miss Lois—yours and Dr. Gaston’s.”

So the discussion ended, and Miss Lois came off with Protestant colors flying. Nonetheless Père Michaux wrote his letters; and Dr. Gaston did not write his. For the two men understood each other. There was no need for the old chaplain to say, plainly, “I have lived out of the world so long that I have not a single clerical friend this side of New York upon whom I can call”; the priest comprehended it without words. And there was no need for Père Michaux to parade the close ties and network of communication, which prevailed in the ancient Church to which he belonged; the chaplain knew them without the telling. Each understood the other; and being men, they could do without the small teasing comments, like the buzzing of flies, with which women enliven their days. Thus it happened that Anne Douglas travelled from the northern island across to the great city on the ocean border in the charge of the Roman Catholic Church.

She arrived in New York worn out and bewildered, and having lost her sense of comparison by the strangeness and fatigue of the long journey, she did not appreciate the city’s size, the crowded streets, and roar of traffic, but regarded everything vaguely, like a tired child who has neither surprise nor attention to give.

At length the carriage stopped; she went up a broad flight of stone steps; she was entering an open door. Some one was speaking to her; she was in a room where there were chairs, and she sank down. The priest who had brought her from the other side of the river was exchanging a few words with a lady; he was going; he was gone. The lady was coming toward her.

“You are very tired, my child;” she said. “Let me take you a moment to Tante, and then you can go to your room.”

“To Tante?” said Anne.

“Yes, to Tante, or Madame Moreau, the principal of the school. She expects you.”

Madame Moreau was a Frenchwoman, small and old, with a thin shrewd face and large features. She wore a plain black satin gown, the narrow skirt gathered in the old- fashioned style, and falling straight to the floor; the waist of the gown, fastened behind, was in front plaited into a long rounded point. Broad ruffles of fine lace shielded her throat and hands, and her cap, garnished with violet velvet, was trimmed with the same delicate fabric.  She was never a handsome woman even in youth, and she was now seventy-five years of age; yet she was charming.

She rose, kissed the young girl lightly on each cheek, and said a few words of welcome.  Her manner was affectionate, but impersonal.  She never took fancies; but neither did she take dislikes. That her young ladies were all charming young persons was an axiom never allowed to be brought into question; that they were simply and gracefully feminine was with equal firmness established.  Other schools of modern and American origin might make a feature of public examinations, with questions by bearded professors from boys’ colleges; but the establishment of Madame Moreau knew nothing of such innovations. The Frenchwoman’s idea was not a bad one; good or bad, it was inflexible.  She was a woman of marked character, and may be said to have accomplished much good in a manner less generation and land. Thoroughly French, she was respected and loved by all her American scholars; and it will be long ere her name and memory fade away.

Miss Vanhorn did not come to see her niece until a week had passed. Anne had been assigned to the lowest French class among the children, had taken her first singing lesson from one Italian, fat, rosy, and smiling, and her first Italian lesson from another, lean, old, and soiled, had learned to answer questions in the Moreau French, and to talk a little, as well as to comprehend the fact that her clothes were remarkable, and that she herself was considered an oddity, when one morning Tante sent word that she was to come down to the drawing-room to see a visitor.

The visitor was an old woman with black eyes, a black wig, shining false teeth, a Roman nose, and a high color (which was, however, natural), and she was talking to Tante, who, with her own soft gray hair, and teeth which if false did not appear so, looked charmingly real beside her.