r partner, but to souse her with the
contents of the only soda-water syphon in the house on a Sunday
afternoon, when one couldn't get another, argues an indifference to the
comfort of others which I cannot altogether overlook. You may think me
hasty in my judgments, but it was practically on account of the syphon
incident that I left."

"We will talk of this some other time," said Mrs. Quabarl hastily.

"I shall never allude to it again," said the governess with decision.

Mr. Quabarl made a welcome diversion by asking what studies the new
instructress proposed to inaugurate on the morrow.

"History to begin with," she informed him.

"Ah, history," he observed sagely; "now in teaching them history you must
take care to interest them in what they learn. You must make them feel
that they are being introduced to the life-stories of men and women who
really lived--"

"I've told her all that," interposed Mrs. Quabarl.

"I teach history on the Schartz-Metterklume method," said the governess
loftily.

"Ah, yes," said her listeners, thinking it expedient to assume an
acquaintance at least with the name.

* * * * *

"What are you children doing out here?" demanded Mrs. Quabarl the next
morning, on finding Irene sitting rather glumly at the head of the
stairs, while her sister was perched in an attitude of depressed
discomfort on the window-seat behind her, with a wolf-skin rug almost
covering her.

"We are having a history lesson," came the unexpected reply. "I am
supposed to be Rome, and Viola up there is the she-wolf; not a real wolf,
but the figure of one that the Romans used to set store by--I forget why.
Claude and Wilfrid have gone to fetch the shabby women."

"The shabby women?"

"Yes, they've got to carry them off. They didn't want to, but Miss Hope
got one of father's fives-bats and said she'd give them a number nine
spanking if they didn't, so they've gone to do it."

A loud, angry screaming from the direction of the lawn drew Mrs. Quabarl
thither in hot haste, fearful lest the threatened castigation might even
now be in process of infliction. The outcry, however, came principally
from the two small daughters of the lodge-keeper, who were being hauled
and pushed towards the house by the panting and dishevelled Claude and
Wilfrid, whose task was rendered even more arduous by the incessant, if
not very effectual, attacks of the captured maidens' small brother. The
governess, fives-bat in hand, sat