am sure, be beautiful. One dear
little girl is simply reading "Paul and Virginia" underneath the window,
and is so concealed that I hardly think she can be seen from the outside
at all, though from inside she is delightful; it was with great regret
that I could not get her into any photograph. One most amiable young
woman has got a child's head on her lap, the child having played itself
to sleep. All are industriously and agreeably employed in some way or
other; all are plump; all are nice looking; there is not one Becky Sharp
in the whole school; on the contrary, as in "Pious Orgies," all is
pious--or sub-pious--and all, if not great, is at least eminently
respectable. One feels that St. Joachim and St. Anne could not have
chosen a school more judiciously, and that if one had daughter oneself
this is exactly where one would wish to place her. If there is a fault
of any kind in the arrangements, it is that they do not keep cats enough.
The place is overrun with mice, though what these can find to eat I know
not. It occurs to me also that the young ladies might be kept a little
more free of spiders' webs; but in all these chapels, bats, mice and
spiders are troublesome.

Off the main drawing-room on the side facing the window there is a dais,
which is approached by a large raised semicircular step, higher than the
rest of the floor, but lower than the dais itself. The dais is, of
course, reserved for the venerable Lady Principal and the
under-mistresses, one of whom, by the way, is a little more _mondaine_
than might have been expected, and is admiring herself in a
looking-glass--unless, indeed, she is only looking to see if there is a
spot of ink on her face. The Lady Principal is seated near a table, on
which lie some books in expensive bindings, which I imagine to have been
presented to her by the parents of pupils who were leaving school. One
has given her a photographic album; another a large scrap-book, for
illustrations of all kinds; a third volume has red edges, and is
presumably of a devotional character. If I dared venture another
criticism, I should say it would be better not to keep the ink-pot on the
top of these books. The Lady Principal is being read to by the monitress
for the week, whose duty it was to recite selected passages from the most
approved Hebrew writers; she appears to be a good deal outraged, possibly
at the faulty intonation of the reader, which she has long tried vainly
to corre