rning me
out with her abominable weak coffee. She a mother indeed! A sour-milk
generation she would have nursed. She is always croaking, scolding,
bullying--yowling at the housemaids, snarling at Miss Raby, bowwowing
after the little boys, barking after the big ones. She knows how much
every boy eats to an ounce; and her delight is to ply with fat the
little ones who can't bear it, and with raw meat those who hate
underdone. It was she who caused the Doctor to be eaten out three times;
and nearly created a rebellion in the school because she insisted on his
flogging Goliath Longman.

The only time that woman is happy is when she comes in of a morning to
the little boys' dormitories with a cup of hot Epsom salts, and a sippet
of bread. Boo!--the very notion makes me quiver. She stands over them.
I saw her do it to young Byles only a few days since; and her presence
makes the abomination doubly abominable.

As for attending them in real illness, do you suppose that she would
watch a single night for any one of them? Not she. When poor little
Charley Davison (that child a lock of whose soft hair I have said how
Miss Raby still keeps) lay ill of scarlet fever in the holidays--for the
Colonel, the father of these boys, was in India--it was Anne Raby who
tended the child, who watched him all through the fever, who never left
him while it lasted, or until she had closed the little eyes that were
never to brighten or moisten more. Anny watched and deplored him; but it
was Miss Birch who wrote the letter announcing his demise, and got the
gold chain and locket which the Colonel ordered as a memento of his
gratitude. It was through a row with Miss Birch that Frank Davison ran
away. I promise you that after he joined his regiment in India, the
Ahmednuggur Irregulars, which his gallant father commands, there came
over no more annual shawls and presents to Dr. and Miss Birch; and that
if she fancied the Colonel was coming home to marry her (on account of
her tenderness to his motherless children, which he was always writing
about), THAT notion was very soon given up. But these affairs are
of early date, seven years back, and I only heard of them in a very
confused manner from Miss Raby, who was a girl, and had just come to
Rodwell Regis. She is always very much moved when she speaks about those
boys; which is but seldom. I take it the death of the little one still
grieves her tender heart.

Yes, it is Miss Birch, who has turned a