A sudden resolution on the doctor's part to delay the
dread moment of consigning Bessie to the school-mistress until evening,
and a descent on Thunby's hotel. A walk down the Rue St. Jean to the
Place St. Pierre, and by the way a glimpse, through an open door in a
venerable gateway, of a gravelled court-yard planted with sycamores and
surrounded by lofty walls, draped to the summit with vines and ivy; in
the distance an arcade with vistas of garden beyond lying drowsy in the
sunshine, the angle of a large mansion, and fluttering lilac wreaths of
wisteria over the portal.
"If this is Madame Fournier's school, it is a hushed little world," said
the doctor.
Bessie beheld it with awe. There was a solemn picturesqueness in the
prospect that daunted her imagination.
Harry Musgrave referred to his guide-book: "Ah, I thought so--this is
the place. Bessie, Charlotte Corday lived here."
Above the rickety gateway were two rickety windows. At those windows
Charlotte might have sat over her copy of Plutarch's "Lives," a
ruminating republican in white muslin, before the Revolution, or have
gazed at the sombre church of St. Jean across the street, in the happier
days before she despised going to old-fashioned worship. Bessie looked
up at them more awed than ever. "I hope her ghost does not haunt the
house. Come away, Harry," she whispered.
Harry laughed at her superstition. They went forward under the irregular
peaked houses, stunned at intervals by side-gusts of evil odor, till
they came to the place and church of St.
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