"This," said the lady superior of the establishment,
"is Mademoiselle Espréménil, the head
governess. She will take you into the school-
room and tell you your duties. In all things she
is to be obeyed even as I am. Woe be to
you if you are insubordinate. Now go."

And, without another word, she turned on her
heel and disappeared. The lady addressed as
Mademoiselle Espréménil took Lily's hand, and,
in equal silence, led her away.

They traversed the hall and another room,
which was Mademoiselle Marcassin's private salle
à manger. Lily noticed that all this part of the
house, though it was bare and comfortless, was
very stately and polished, and had a curious
pervading odour of cold stones—for cold stones have
an odour—and beeswax. But when the head
governess pushed aside a green baize door, and
they crossed a high walled gravelled playground,
they entered upon quite another region.

Everything was barer, everything more
comfortless; everything, moreover, had a squalid,
frowning, prison-like aspect. From the moment
Lily entered that house to the moment she left
it, she could not divest herself of the notion that
she had done something, that she had committed
some crime, and that she was in tribulation for
it, under the especial auspices of Mademoiselle
Marcassin and her subordinates.

There might have been twenty girls, between
the ages of ten and fifteen, in the first whitewashed
schoolroom they entered. It was a frightful looking
room; its sepulchral whiteness relieved only
by the dingy black of the transverse desks, a big
black stove in one corner, from which a blacker
pipe crawled along the ceiling like a serpent, and
a black board supported by a double frame—a
kind of elephantine easel.

All these girls looked as though they had done
something, and were much disturbed in their
minds in consequence. The teachers, however,
of whom there were two present, seemed to be
of a contrary opinion, and to hold that they had
done nothing, and did not mean to do anything,
at least of what was good. For which reason
they continuously girded at the twenty pupils.

"The first-class," remarked Mademoiselle
Espréménil, dryly, to Lily, as she marched her
through. She made the observation in a tone
similar to that which a female turnkey might use
in pointing out the refractory ward.

A girl with a merry face and wavy black hair
could not resist the temptation, as Lily passed
her, of pulling slyly at her dress, and making (in
perfect good nature, be it understood) a face at
her. But the quick eye of the head governess
caught the grimace in transit, and she was down
on the merry one in a moment, like Thor's
hammer.

"Five bad points for Mademoiselle Marygold,"
she exclaimed; and then, turning to the
culprit, continued, "you are becoming a
Rothschild in bad points. Beware of the day of
reckoning."

Mademoiselle Marygold set up a whimper, as
a governess—whose profile was so like a hatchet,
that when she bent over the girls at their writing
lessons, they were apt to feel the backs of their
necks to make sure that they were safe on their
shoulders—chalked five crosses against the
Marygoldian name on the black board. She had a
tremendous balance of black marks already in
her disfavour.

"The second class room," said the head
governess, as they entered another apartment,
somewhat smaller than the first, but holding
an equal number of scholars.

None of the girls ventured beyond a quick and
furtive moment of looking up as the two passed
through. At the door was a young lady aged
apparently about eleven, with a very dirty face,
the result of her having rubbed her countenance
with inky hands, and the carbon therein having
mingled with the tears which streamed from her
eyes. This young lady was on her knees in a
corner by the door; and very uncomfortable in
that attitude she seemed to be. There was
reason enough for it, as she was kneeling on a
square wooden ruler, the sharpest edge upwards,
specially provided for the mortification of her
flesh. And, furthermore, the young lady's head
was decorated with an enormous fool's cap of grey
paper, decorated at either side by lengthy bows
or ears of black crape, and which gave the
poor little thing somewhat of the appearance of
Mr. Punch in half mourning.

"Again!" said the head governess, regarding
this forlorn little personage with severe disdain.
"Again, Mélanie! Thou goest the way for the
Prix Monthyon, truly. A pretty Rosière, my
faith! She is in penitence," she continued,
turning to Lily. "She passes half her time in
abject degradation."

Here a fresh burst of sobs came from the
unhappy Mélanie, whose face, as it could not be
much blacker, became absolutely fairer for the
outbreak; for the tears traced little white channels
for themselves on her cheeks till she scumbled
them all together in a muddy neutral tint. They
left this luckless Niobe, and went into another
schoolroom.

It was the largest of all, and there were perhaps
forty pupils in it. But they were all very little girls
—none of them older, and many younger, than
Lily. Likewise there were no desks in this
room, save those which served as rostra for the
governesses. And the forms on which the children
sat were slightly raised one above the other in a
kind of amphitheatre.

"This is the third class, and you belong to it,"
said Mademoiselle Espréménil, with a slight yawn,
as though tired of officiating as mistress of the
ceremonies to this very insignificant guest.
"Mademoiselle Hudault, here is a little one to
be put sur le banc des petites. Her name is
—my faith! Madame forgot to tell me her name,
but you will know it in good time."

This she said in French to the teacher. She
continued in indifferent English to the child,

"What your name of baptism, eh?"