with the
letters.

As this moment Miss Marlett finished the fraternal epistle of Lieutenant
Wyville, which she folded up with a frown and returned to the envelope.

"Jeanne je veux vous parler a part, apres, dans mon boudoir," remarked
Miss Marlett severely; and Miss Herman, becoming a little blanched,
displayed no further appetite for tartines, nor for French conversation.

Indeed, to see another, and a much older lady, read letters written to
one by a lieutenant at Aldershot, whom one has known for years, and who
is just like one's brother, is a trial to any girl.

Then Miss Marlett betook herself to her own correspondence, which,
as Janey had noticed, included _two_ telegraphic despatches in
orange-colored envelopes.

That she had not rushed at these, and opened them first, proves the
admirable rigidity of her discipline. Any other woman would have
done so, but it was Miss Marietta rule to dispose of the pupils'
correspondence before attending to her own. "Business first, pleasure
afterward," was the motto of this admirable woman.

Breakfast ended, as the girls were leaving the room for the tasks of the
day, Miss Marlett beckoned Margaret aside.

"Come to me, dear, in the boudoir, after Janey Harman," said the
schoolmistress in English, and in a tone to which Margaret was so
unaccustomed that she felt painfully uneasy and anxious--unwonted moods
for this careless maiden.

"Janey, something must have happened," she whispered to her friend, who
was hardening her own heart for the dreadful interview.

"Something's _going_ to happen, I'm sure," said poor Janey,
apprehensively, and then she entered the august presence, alone.

Margaret remained at the further end of the passage, leading to what
Miss Marlett, when she spoke French, called her "boudoir." The girl felt
colder than even the weather warranted. She looked alternately at Miss
Marietta door and out of the window, across the dead blank flats to the
low white hills far away. Just under the window one of the little girls
was standing, throwing crumbs, remains of the tartines, to robins
and sparrows, which chattered and fought over the spoil. One or two
blackbirds, with their yellow bills, fluttered shyly on the outside of
the ring of more familiar birds. Up from the south a miserable blue-gray
haze was drifting and shuddering, ominous of a thaw. From the eaves and
the branches of the trees heavy drops kept falling, making round black
holes in the snow, a