CHAPTER III
Archie did not often come into contact with Miss Schwarz, his sisters' governess; she was not a person to be lightly encountered. Sometimes, if Blessington was busy, he and Jeannie went out for their walk with his eldest sister and Miss Schwarz, and on these occasions Miss Schwarz and Marjorie would talk together in an unknown guttural tongue, very ugly to hear, which Archie vaguely understood was German, and the sort of thing that everybody spoke in the country to which Miss Schwarz went for her holiday at Midsummer and Christmas. That uncouth jargon, full of such noises as you made when you cleared your throat, was quite unintelligible, and it seemed odd that Marjorie should converse in it when she could speak ordinary English; but it somehow seemed to suit Miss Schwarz, who had a sallow face, prominent teeth, and cold grey eyes. Otherwise he did not often meet her, for she led an odd secret existence in his sisters' school-room, breakfasting and having lunch downstairs in the dining-room, but eating her evening meal all by herself in the schoolroom. She had a black, unrustling dress for the day, and a black rustling dress for the evening, and a necklace of onyx beads which she used to finger with her dry thin hands, which reminded Archie of the claws of a bird. His mother had told him that, after Christmas, he would do his lessons with Miss Schwarz, and this prospect rather terrified him. He supposed that Miss Schwarz would probably teach him in the guttural language that Jeannie was beginning to understand too, and he had
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