the same time great mental alarm, corporeal
distress, and clear-starching derangement.

When Miss Pupford and her assistant first
foregathered, is not known to men, or pupils.
But, it was long ago. A belief would hare
established itself among pupils that the two once went
to school together, were it not for the difficulty
and audacity of imagining Miss Pupford born
without mittens, and without a front, and without
a bit of gold wire among her front teeth, and
without little dabs of powder on her neat
little face and nose. Indeed, whenever Miss
Pupford gives a little lecture on the mythology
of the misguided heathens (always carefully
excluding Cupid from recognition), and tells how
Minerva sprang, perfectly equipped, from the
brain of Jupiter, she is half supposed to hint,
"So I myself came into the world, completely
up in Pinnock, Mangnall, Tables, and the use of
the Globes."

Howbeit, Miss Pupford and Miss Pupford's
assistant are old old friends. And it is thought
by pupils that, after pupils are gone to bed, they
even call one another by their christian names in
the quiet little parlour. For, once upon a time
on a thunderous afternoon, when Miss Pupford
fainted away without notice, Miss Pupford's
assistant (never heard, before or since, to address
her otherwise than as Miss Pupford) ran to her,
crying out "My dearest Euphemia!" And
Euphemia is Miss Pupford's christian name on
the sampler (date picked out) hanging up in the
College-hall, where the two peacocks, terrified
to death by some German text that is waddling
down hill after them out of a cottage, are
scuttling away to hide their profiles in two
immense bean-stalks growing out of flower-pots.

Also, there is a notion latent among pupils,
that Miss Pupford was once in love, and that the
beloved object still moves upon this ball. Also,
that he is a public character, and a personage of
vast consequence. Also, that Miss Pupford's
assistant knows all about it. For, sometimes of
an afternoon when Miss Pupford has been reading
the paper through her little gold eye-glass
(it is necessary to read it on the spot, as the boy
calls for it, with ill-conditioned punctuality, in
an hour), she has become agitated, and has said
to her assistant, "G!" Then Miss Pupford's
assistant has gone to Miss Pupford, and Miss
Pupford has pointed out, with her eye-glass,
G in the paper, and then Miss Pupford's
assistant has read about G, and has shown
sympathy. So stimulated has the pupil-mind been
in its time to curiosity on the subject of G, that
once, under temporary circumstances favourable
to the bold sally, one fearless pupil did actually
obtain possession of the paper, and range all over
it in search of G, who had been discovered therein
by Miss Pupford not ten minutes before. But no
G could be identified, except one capital offender
who had been executed in a state of great hardihood,
and it was not to be supposed that Miss
Pupford could ever have loved him. Besides,
he couldn't be always being executed. Besides,
he got into the paper again, alive, within a
month.

On the whole, it is suspected by the pupil-mind
that G is a short chubby old gentleman, with
little black sealing-wax boots up to his knees,
whom a sharply observant pupil, Miss Linx, when
she once went to Tunbridge Wells with Miss
Pupford for the holidays, reported on her return
(privately and confidentially) to have seen come
capering up to Miss Pupford on the Promenade,
and to have detected in the act of squeezing Miss
Pupford's hand, and to have heard pronounce the
words, "Cruel Euphemia, ever thine!"—or
something like that. Miss Linx hazarded a guess that
he might be House of Commons, or Money
Market, or Court Circular, or Fashionable
Movements; which would account for his getting
into the paper so often. But, it was fatally
objected by the pupil-mind, that none of those
notabilities could possibly be spelt with a G.

There are other occasions, closely watched and
perfectly comprehended by the pupil-mind, when
Miss Pupford imparts with mystery to her
assistant that there is special excitement in the
morning paper. These occasions are, when Miss
Pupford finds an old pupil coming out under the
head of Births, or Marriages. Affectionate tears
are invariably seen in Miss Pupford's meek little
eyes when this is the case; and the pupil-mind,
perceiving that its order has distinguished itself
—though the fact is never mentioned by Miss
Pupford—becomes elevated, and feels that it
likewise is reserved for greatness.

Miss Pupford's assistant with the Parisian
accent has a little more bone than Miss Pupford,
but is of the same trim orderly diminutive cast,
and, from long contemplation, admiration, and
imitation of Miss Pupford, has grown like her.
Being entirely devoted to Miss Pupford, and
having a pretty talent for pencil-drawing, she
once made a portrait of that lady: which was so
instantly identified and hailed by the pupils, that
it was done on stone at five shillings. Surely the
softest and milkiest stone that ever was quarried,
received that likeness of Miss Pupford! The lines
of her placid little nose are so undecided in it that
strangers to the work of art are observed to be
exceedingly perplexed as to where the nose goes
to, and involuntarily feel their own noses in a
disconcerted manner. Miss Pupford being
represented in a state of dejection at an open window,
ruminating over a bowl of gold fish, the pupil-
mind has settled that the bowl was presented by
G, and that he wreathed the bowl with flowers of
soul, and that Miss Pupford is depicted as waiting
for him on a memorable occasion when he was
behind his time.

The approach of the last Midsummer holidays
had a particular interest for the pupil mind, by
reason of its knowing that Miss Pupford was
bidden, on the second day of those holidays, to
the nuptials of a former pupil. As it was
impossible to conceal the fact—so extensive were
the dress-making preparations—Miss Pupford
openly announced it. But, she held it due to