y had succeeded in expelling obnoxious teachers
before now; they knew that Madame would at any time throw overboard a
professeur or maitresse who became unpopular with the school--that she
never assisted a weak official to retain his place--that if he had not
strength to fight, or tact to win his way, down he went: looking at
"Miss Snowe," they promised themselves an easy victory.

Mesdemoiselles Blanche, Virginie, and Angelique opened the campaign by
a series of titterings and whisperings; these soon swelled into murmurs
and short laughs, which the remoter benches caught up and echoed more
loudly. This growing revolt of sixty against one, soon became
oppressive enough; my command of French being so limited, and exercised
under such cruel constraint.

Could I but have spoken in my own tongue, I felt as if I might have
gained a hearing; for, in the first place, though I knew I looked a
poor creature, and in many respects actually was so, yet nature had
given me a voice that could make itself heard, if lifted in excitement
or deepened by emotion. In the second place, while I had no flow, only
a hesitating trickle of language, in ordinary circumstances, yet--under
stimulus such as was now rife through the mutinous mass--I could, in
English, have rolled out readily phrases stigmatizing their proceedings
as such proceedings deserved to be stigmatized; and then with some
sarcasm, flavoured with contemptuous bitterness for the ringleaders,
and relieved with easy banter for the weaker but less knavish
followers, it seemed to me that one might possibly get command over
this wild herd, and bring them into training, at least. All I could now
do was to walk up to Blanche--Mademoiselle de Melcy, a young
baronne--the eldest, tallest, handsomest, and most vicious--stand
before her desk, take from under her hand her exercise-book, remount
the estrade, deliberately read the composition, which I found very
stupid, and, as deliberately, and in the face of the whole school, tear
the blotted page in two.

This action availed to draw attention and check noise. One girl alone,
quite in the background, persevered in the riot with undiminished
energy. I looked at her attentively. She had a pale face, hair like
night, broad strong eyebrows, decided features, and a dark, mutinous,
sinister eye: I noted that she sat close by a little door, which door,
I was well aware, opened into a small closet where books were kept. She
was standing up for th