lasses third and fourth.

The second class was taken by another maiden lady--Miss Penstemon,
sister of Doctor Penstemon, M.D., F.R.C.S., of the High Street. She was
thinner and more graceful than the Misses Lambent, and possibly much
older; but that was her secret and one which she never divulged.

The Misses Lambent, as before mentioned, bowed with dignity and grave
condescension to the new mistress; and, taking her cue from the vicar's
sisters. Miss Penstemon bowed also, plunging her hand afterwards into
her black bag for her smelling-bottle, for she thought the room was
rather close.

The bottle she brought out, however, she thrust back hastily, and gave a
quick glance round to see if she had been observed; for, instead of its
containing a piece of sponge saturated with the colourless fluid
labelled in her brother's surgery, "Liq. Amm.," and afterwards scented
with a few drops of an essential oil, the little stoppered bottle bore a
label with the enigmatical word "Puls." thereon, and its contents were
apparently a number of little sugar pills.

For be it known that Maria Penstemon had a will of her own, and a strong
tendency to foster crotchets. The present crotchet was homoeopathy,
which, without expressing any belief for or against, the doctor had
forbidden her to practise.

"No, 'Ria," he said, "if you want to go doctoring, doctor the people
with your moral medicines. It won't do for you to be physicking one way
and me another, so let it alone."

But Miss Penstemon refused to submit to coercion, and insisted in secret
upon following her path while the doctor went his, Maria's being the
homoeopath, while the doctor's was, of course, the allopath; and he was
a long time finding out that his sister surreptitiously "exhibited"
pilules, for she never did any harm.

Hazel Thorne met with a different reception, however, from downright
Miss Burge, who rose from her seat, looked red and "flustered," as she
called it, smiled, and shook hands.

"I'm very, very glad to know you, my dear," she said warmly, "and I hope
you'll come and see me often as soon as you get shaken down."

Shaken down! The words jarred upon the young mistress, who felt that
she could never become intimate with Miss Burge, whom she left to her
class, and then busied herself with the attendance register and various
other little matters connected with her duties. Once she stole a glance
across at the boys' school, to become aware of the fac