The youth and prettiness of Miss Grimshaw after the first pleasing shock did not trouble him in the least. A straight-minded man and a soul of honour in everything not appertaining to bill discounters, the propriety or impropriety of the situation did not cause him a moment's thought. The only thing that worried him for a second or two was the remembrance of Mr. Giveen. How would that gentleman act under the intoxication sure to be produced by the newcomer's youth and prettiness?
"She'd have been down herself to see you, miss," said Norah as she led the way upstairs, "only she's gone in the legs. This way, miss, along the passidge; this is the door."
A scuffling noise made itself evident as Norah turned the door-handle, and Miss Grimshaw, entering a brightly and pleasantly furnished room, found herself face to face with Miss French, who was sitting up on a sofa, flushed and bright-eyed and with the appearance of having suddenly returned to her invalidhood and position on the couch after an excursion about the apartment.
"Oh, will you look at her?" cried Norah. "And the rug I put round her legs all over the place! You've been off the couch, Miss Effie!"
"I only put my feet on the ground," protested the child. "You needn't be going on at me. Bother my old legs! I wish they was cut off!"
"And so you are Effie?" said Miss Grimshaw, taking her seat on the edge of the couch. "Do you know who I am?"
"Rather," replied Miss French. "You're Miss Grimshaw."
There was a subdued chuckle in the tone of her voice, as though Miss Grimshaw was a joke that had just come off, rather than a governess who had just arrived--a chuckle hinting at the fact that Miss Grimshaw had been the subject of humorous discussion and speculation in the French household for some time past.
"You'll ring, miss, when you want me to show you your room?" said Norah. Then she withdrew, and Miss Grimshaw found herself alone with her charge.
The room was half nursery, half sitting-room, papered with a sprightly green-sprigged and rose-patterned paper. Pictures from Christmas numbers of the _Graphic_ and pictures of cats by Louis Wain adorned the walls; there were a number of yellow-backed books on the book-shelf, and in one corner a pile of old comic papers--_Punches_, _Judys_, and _Funs_--all of an ancient date.