ervation
on the part of Dot.

Half-way down the corridor, Mrs. Eland chanced to come out of one of the
offices to meet the school teacher, face to face. "Oh! I beg your
pardon," said the little, gray lady--for she dressed in that hue in the
house as well as on the street. "Did you wish to see me?"

The matron was small and plump; the teacher was tall and lean. The rosy,
pleasant face of Mrs. Eland could not have been put to a greater
contrast than with the angular and grim countenance of the bespectacled
Miss Pepperill.

The latter seemed, for the moment, confused. She was not a person easily
disturbed in any situation, it would seem; but she was almost bashful as
the little matron confronted her.

"I--I---- Really, are you Mrs. Eland?" stammered the school teacher.

"Yes," said the quietly smiling gray lady.

"I--I have heard Theresa, here, speak so much of you----" She actually
fell back upon Tess for support! "Theresa! introduce me to Mrs. Eland,"
she commanded.

"Oh, yes, Mrs. Eland," said the cordial Tess. "I wanted you to meet Miss
Pepperill. You know--she's my teacher."

"Oh! who wanted you to learn the succession of the rulers of England?"
said Mrs. Eland, laughing, with a sweet, mellow tone.

"Yes, ma'am. The sovereigns of England," Tess said.

"Of course!" Mrs. Eland added:

"'First William, the Norman,
Then William, his son.'"

"That old rhyme!" Miss Pepperill said, hastily, recovering herself
somewhat. "You taught it to Theresa?"

"I wrote it out for her," confessed Mrs. Eland. "I could never forget
it. I learned it when I was a very little girl."

"Indeed?" said Miss Pepperill, almost gasping the ejaculation. "So did
I."

"That was some time ago," Mrs. Eland said, in her gentle way. "My mother
taught me."

"Oh! did she?" exclaimed the other lady.

"Yes. She was an English woman. She had been a governess herself in
England."

"Indeed!" Again the red-haired teacher almost barked the expression.
She seemed to labor under some strong emotion. Tess noted the strange
change in Miss Pepperill's usual manner as she spoke to the matron.

"I think it must have been my mother who taught me," the teacher said,
in the same jerky way. "I'm not sure. Or--perhaps--I picked it up from
hearing it taught to somebody else.

"'First William, the Norman,
Then William, his son,----'

Not easily forgotten when once learned."

"Very true," Mrs. Eland said quietly. "I believe my lit