ng
up and pushing down sash-hung shutters, the boys and girls' schools
could be thrown into one, as was always the case on Sundays.

Just as Hazel Thorne left her gate to walk thirty yards to that leading
to the girls' entrance, Mr Samuel Chute, master of the boys' school,
left his door to walk thirty yards to the gate leading to the boys'
entrance, but did not stop there, for he came right on, raising his hat,
and displaying a broad white lumpy forehead, backed by fair hair that
seemed to have been sown upon his head and come up in a sturdy crop,
some portions being more vigorous than others, and standing up in tufts
behind the lumps about his forehead; doubtless these latter being kindly
arrangements made by nature to allow room for brain projections,
consequent upon over-study.

Mr Samuel Chute smiled, and said that it was a very fine morning, a
fact that Hazel Thorne acknowledged, as the schoolmaster replaced his
hat.

"The handle of the door goes very stiffly," he said, still smiling
rather feebly, for he was annoyed with himself for not having offered to
shake hands, and it was too late now. "I thought I'd come and open it
for you."

Hazel thanked him. The heavy latch was twisted up by an awkward ring
like a young door-knocker, and went _click_! and was let down again, and
went _clack_! Then the new schoolmistress bowed and entered, and Mr
Samuel Chute went back to his own entrance, looking puzzled, his
forehead full of wrinkles, and so preoccupied that he nearly ran up
against Mr William Forth Burge, whom he might have smelt if he had not
seen, as he came to the school as usual on Sunday mornings to take his
class, and impart useful and religious instruction to the twelve biggest
boys.

There was a mist before Hazel Thorne's eyes as she entered the large
schoolroom, with its so-called gallery and rows of desks down the side,
all supported upon iron pedestals like iron bars with cricks in their
backs. All about the floor were semicircles marked out by shiny
brass-headed nails, as if the boards had been decorated by a mad
undertaker after the fashion of a coffin-lid, while between the windows,
and in every other vacant place, were hung large drawing copies of a
zoological character, embracing the affectionate boa-constrictor, the
crafty crocodile, and the playful squirrel, all of which woodcuts had
issued from the Sanctuary at Westminster, probably with the idea that
some child in Plumton schools might d