in the drawing-room, and how to get her away
from Lily?

The stranger seemed to divine her thoughts.
"Ring the bell, if you like," she said, "and tell
the other women to come here. I'm not afraid
of twenty of them. But I'll tell you what!
Before I leave this room without the child, I'll
smash every window, and set fire to the house."
And the lady decidedly looked as though she
meant what she said.

It was a strange dilemma: an uprooting of
all the conventionalities, an unheard-of revolution
in the ordinarily placid world of Rhododendron
House. A servant was rung for, and the Miss
Bunnycastles summoned. Then, a special
embassy was despatched to Mrs. Bunnycastle
up-stairs; but the old lady, who was now growing
very feeble, and was not quite valid, mentally,
could suggest nothing, and confined herself to
a general remark that " she never heard of such
goings on." As a last resource, Mr. Drax was
sent for. That discreet practitioner happened
fortunately to be at home, and on his arrival at
the school did his best to throw oil on the
troubled waters. He advised concession. M.
J. B. Constant's handwriting was undeniably
genuine. M. J. B. Constant's wishes must
be attended to. Moreover, there was nothing
owing. Lily's bill was always paid in advance,
and there were at least six months to run, to
the next term of payment. The lady was
evidently a lady. (To be sure, Mr. Drax had not
seen her in a rage.) Clearly, the only course
to adopt was to accede to her very rational
demand.

It happened, at this conjuncture, that the
strange lady's bearing underwent a remarkable
change for the better. She condescended to smile
on Mr. Drax. She told him that he had acted
with great discretion: which expression tallied
so exactly with the quality on which he so much
prided himself, that Mr. Drax was in ecstasies,
and even Celia and Adelaide thought that their
sister had been a little too hasty. To be sure,
they, too, had not seen the handsome lady in a
rage. She, on her part, volunteered the
information that she was Lily's aunt, that her
only object in temporarily removing her was to
take her out for a holiday and purchase her
some new clothes; and she faithfully promised
to return with the child, on that self-same
evening. Finally, a treaty of peace was arranged.
As a matter of form, a fresh embassy was
despatched to Mrs. Bunnycastle, to obtain her
consent, as chief of the establishment, to Miss
Floris's temporary departure; but that good
lady merely told her daughters that they might
do as they liked, and expressed a desire not to
be "worrited." Poor, placid Mrs. Bunnycastle:
we shall see thee no more.

Lily, who had stood and wondered throughout
the whole of this strange argument, was at
length conducted to a bedroom and arrayed in
her walking clothes. Miss Barbara it was who
buttoned on her pelisse, and tied her hat
beneath her dimpled chin; but Miss Barbara,
although she had been forced to yield to
superior numbers was by no means satisfied in
mind, at the upshot of the dispute.

"You'll be sure to come back early this
evening," she said, as kneeling on the floor to
adjust a bow, she gazed earnestly in the child's
face.

"Yes, Miss Babby " (this was the petit nom
which, of all the five-and-thirty boarders, Lily,
the chartered pet of the establishment, was
privileged to address Miss Barbara by).

"Yes, Miss Babby," Lily whimpered, "and
I'm sure I don't want to go away at all."

"There, you mustn't cry," Miss Barbara, who
was on the point of shedding tears herself, hastily
interposed; "it's naughty, and not like a great girl,
you know. Mind you're back by evening prayers.
If you don't, you'll be punished." This was
said with a touch of Miss Barbara Bunnycastle's
ordinary and scholastic sententiousness, but her
heart was not in her words, and, casting her
arms around the little girl's neck, and without
any valid reason in the world that I know of,
she wept over her as though her heart would
break.

The same quite irrational impulse led Miss
Barbara, after Lily had been carried off in a
kind of sweeping and defiant triumph by the
strange lady who had so remarkable a temper,
to shed many more tears. It was foolish, she
admitted, but she couldn't help if. The child
would be back soon. There was no harm
in her going out. Her sisters were quite
satisfied. Mr. Drax had pledged his discretion
to the authenticity of J. B. Constant's
autograph. But Miss Barbara mistrusted, and
Miss Barbara wept, she knew not why. Somehow,
this little brown-haired blue-eyed maiden
had twisted herself round her heart, and she
felt as though the charming little parasite had
been rudely torn away. She dried her eyes,
and put on, as well as she could manage it, the
scholastic countenance, and then she went down
into the schoolroom and took a geography class.
Her temper was tried in the usual manner.
There was the usual average of stupid young
ladies, careless young ladies, young ladies who
were pert, and young ladies who were aggravating.
She ground, for the five thousandth time,
the dreary old barrel-organ to its accustomed
round of tunes, but her spirit was far away.
Her heart yearned for Lily. She distributed
good marks and bad marks unconsciously, and
she was inexpressibly grateful for tea-time: not
alone because her wearisome task was over, but
because the time had grown nearer when she
thought the child would return.

That a schoolmistress is a "cross old thing,"
and nothing more, whole generations of young
ladies have unanimously agreed. In regions far
remote from the schoolroom and its petty
verdicts, polite society finds little difficulty in
setting down the governess as a prim, precise,
fastidious personage, full of angular ways and
ludicrous rigidity. She is somebody to be
caricatured, or snubbed, or superciliously patronised.
Ah! if we only thought a little more of what
she had to go through. Ah! if we only reflected