it--angry, dreadful skull. She writhed away from it. She would not look
any more. She felt her neck was swelling her collar-band.

Fraulein whispered low.

"Here in my school, here standing round this table are those who talk
of--men.

"Young girls... who talk... of men."

While Fraulein waited, trembling, several of the girls began to snuffle
and sob.

"Is there, can there be in the world anything that is more base, more
vile, more impure? Is there? Is there?"

Miriam wished she knew who was crying. She tried to fix her thoughts on
a hole in the table-cover. "It could be darned.... It could he darned."

"You are brought here together, each and all of you here together in
the time of your youth. It is, it should be for you the most beautiful
occasion. Can you find anything more terrible than that such occasion
where all may work and influence each other--for all life--in purity and
goodness--that such occasion should be used--impurely? Like a dawn, like
a dawn for purity should be the life of a maiden. Calm, and pure and
with holy prayer."

Miriam repeated these words in her mind trying to dwell on the beauty of
Fraulein's middle tones. "And the day shall come, I shall wish, for all
of you, that the sanctity of a home shall be within your hands. What
then shall be the shame, what the regret of those who before the coming
of that sacred time did think thoughts of men, did speak of them?
_Shame, shame,"_ whispered Fraulein amidst the sobbing girls.

"With the thoughts of those who have this impure nature I can do
nothing. For them it is freely to acknowledge this evil in the heart and
to pray that the heart may be changed and made clean.

"But a thing I can do and I do.... I will have no more of this talking.
In my school I will have no more.... Do you hear, all? Do you hear?"

She struck the table with both fists and brandished them in mid-air.

"Eh-h," she sneered. "I know, _I_ know who are the culprits. I have
always known." She gasped. "It shall cease--these talks--this vile talk
of men. Do you understand? It shall cease. I--will--not--have it.... The
school shall be clean... from pupil to pupil... from room to room....
Every day... every hour.... Shameless!" she screamed. "Shameless. Ah!
I know. I know you." She stood with her arms folded, swaying, and gave a
little laugh. "You think to deceive me. You do not deceive me. I know. I
have known and I shall know. This school is mine. Mine! My place! I will