The "cabinet" was a square comfortless apartment,
not unlike a refrigerator in its chilly atmosphere
and light wooden fittings. The Marcassin
was the ice in the refrigerator, and froze all
who approached her. In the "cabinet" she
collated the register of the young ladies' studies
and conducts, and made disparaging marginal
notes thereon. At her tall desk in the "cabinet"
she drew up the alarming "memoirs,"
or half-yearly bills of the pupils. To the
"cabinet," offenders of more than ordinary
turpitude were doomed to repair, to undergo the
anguish of prolonged and solemn reprimand.
Finally, to the cold grey and white papered wall
of this cabinet was affixed an enormous framed
and glazed pancarte of pasteboard, bearing, in
elaborate French engrossing, and with many
flourishes, in which the forms of swans, eagles,
and griffins preponderated, the names of the
pupils of the establishment who had
distinguished themselves from six months to six
months by assiduity in study, or propriety of
conduct. This placard was called the "Tableau
d'Honneur." It was renewed at the commencement
of every fresh half-year; and a rumour ran
through the Pension Marcassin that
M. Lestiboudois, the writing-master, received no less a
sum than one hundred francs for executing it in
ornamental caligraphy.

Lily stood, her hands meekly folded, her head
decorously bent, her feet well set together—
"position de recucillement humble et attentive,"
as it was set forth in the codex of disciplinary
etiquette observed in the pension—before her
instructress. She was mentally wondering of what
misdeed she could have rendered herself guilty
during the past week to merit a summons to the
refrigerating cabinet.

"Fille Floris, called Pauline," said the Mar-
cassin, sternly, and no longer deigning to give
Lily a title of courtesy, "you and I must have
some conversation together. The affairs have
been going on too long in a deregulated manner.
They must be regulated now, in a manner definitive.
Do you hear me, Fille Floris?"

She spoke in French now, and Lily understood
her well. The girl could speak the lively
language fluently—so fluently, that she sometimes
found herself thinking or addressing the people
of the Imaginary Empire in French, and as often
discovered her tongue tripping and stumbling
when she essayed to sing some little English
rhyme of old times.

The Marcassin slowly unlocked one of the
drawers in her tall bureau, and took forth two
packets of neatly folded papers. One packet
was slim and sparse, the other dense and
heavy.

"Do you see this, Fille Floris?" she resumed,
in a cold and bitter tone, pointing to the slim
packet. "One, two, three, four, half-years'
memoirs, bills for your pension and education, and
which have been duly paid by the persons who
placed you here. And now observe." She
untied the other packet, undoing with a vengeful
wrench of her teeth an obstinate knot in the
string which confined it. "One, two, three,
four, five, six—three years' memoirs—nearly three
thousand francs for your pension and education;
and not one centime of those three thousand
francs have been paid. Do you hear
me?"

Lily heard, and turned white as her name.

"Three years, then," pursued the pitiless
Marcassin, "you have been eating bread and
drinking wine to which you have no right. Three
years you have been living on my charity. Pale,
impertinent, worthless, insubordinate"—poor
Lily!—"you have always been; and I have been
often obliged to tell you so; but not till this
moment have I informed you that you are a
pauper and a beggar. Who are the robbers and
felons who have left you here to impose on my
credulity, and fatten on the fruit of my industry?
Speak, little impostor."

"Oh, madame, madame!" the girl urged,
tearfully, "I'm not an impostor. It is not my
fault. Madame knows much more than I do of
the persons who brought me here. I was such a
little girl then. I have always done my best,
and tried to learn, and to be good. Oh! don't
reproach me with what I am innocent of; for I
am quite, quite, alone."

"Insolent!" retorted the Marcassin. "You
will reason, will you? Ah! it is I who will
bring you to reason. Tell me instantly the
names of the swindlers who owe me three
thousand francs."

"Indeed I don't know, madame. How can I
tell? From the day I was brought here, I have
never had a single letter, a single visitor, a single
friend, except that dear Mademoiselle Marygold,
who is gone."

"You dare to mention the name of that rebellious
and ungrateful girl to me?" interrupted the
schoolmistress, with a furious look. "Allons!
It is of a piece with your other impertinence."

Lily could only sob and wring her hands in
reply.

"The very clothes you have on your back
have been paid for or renewed by me these two
years past. You are a burden, a pest, an
encumbrance to the school. It is by fraud that you
have learnt the piano, the dance. You have
robbed me of lessons in drawing and geography.
Why do I not give you up to the police for the
escroquerie of your parents—if you have any
parents—little miserable, who ought to have been
put into the crèche of the Enfants Trouvés? Why
do I not send you to the Dépôt of Mendicity?
Tell me, little beggar brat!"

In a bodily as well as a mental rage at last,
which was strange with this frigid woman, she
rose and seized Lily by the shoulders and shook
her. The terrified girl fled into a corner of
the room, too much alarmed to shriek, but
trembling and holding her hands before her
face.

Mademoiselle Marcassin resumed her self-
possession. She was a coldly logical lady, and