But when the hour came for foreign languages, her brief triumph ceased. Lower and lower did she fall in her schoolfellows' estimation as she stumbled through her truly English-French. Mdlle. Perier, who was a very fiery little woman, almost screamed at her--the girls colored and nearly tittered. Hester hoped to recover her lost laurels in German, but by this time her head ached and she did very little better in the German which she loved than in the French which she detested. At twelve o'clock she was relieved to find that school was over for the present, and she heard the English teacher's voice desiring the girls to go quickly to their rooms, and to assemble in five minutes' time in the great stone hall, equipped for their walk.