t dinner, but even then he had talked to her rather less than to
Mrs. Shaw. Afterwards--well, perhaps it was only what she deserved for
not making it plain to poor Mr. Toovey that she could never return his
feelings. And now the First, which she had looked to as a thing that
would set her nearer the level of her idol, was dropping below the
horizon of the possible. Aunt Beatrice always said--and she was
right--that tears were not, as people pretended, a help and solace in
trouble. They merely took the starch out of you and left you a poor
soaked, limp creature, unfit to face the hard facts of life. But
sometimes tears will lie heavy and scalding as molten lead in the brain,
until at length they force their way through to the light. And Milly
after blowing her nose a good deal, as she mechanically turned the pages
of Mommsen, at length laid her arms on the book and transferred her
handkerchief to her eyes. But she tried to look as though she were
reading when Flora Timson came in.

"At it again, M.! You know you're simply working yourself stupid."

Thus speaking, Miss Timson, known to her intimates at Ascham as "Tims,"
wagged sagely her very peculiar head. A crimson silk handkerchief was
tied around it, turban-wise, and no vestige of hair escaped from
beneath. There was in fact none to escape. Tims's sallow, comic little
face had neither eyebrows nor eyelashes on it, and her small figure was
not of a quality to triumph over the obvious disadvantages of a tight
black cloth dress with bright buttons, reminiscent of a page's suit.

Milly pushed the candles farther away and looked up.

"I was wanting to see you, Tims. Do tell me whether you managed to get
out of Miss Walker what Mr. Stewart said about my chances of a First."

Tims pushed her silk turban still higher up on her forehead.

"I can always humbug Miss Walker and make her say lots of indiscreet
things," Tims returned, with labored diplomacy. "But I don't repeat
them--at least, not invariably."

There was a further argument on the point, which ended by Milly shedding
tears and imploring to be told the worst.

Tims yielded.

"Stewart said your scholarship was A 1, but he was afraid you wouldn't
get your First in Greats. He said you had a lot of difficulty in
expressing yourself and didn't seem to get the lead of their philosophy
and stuff--and--and generally wanted cleverness."

"He said that?" asked Milly, in a low, sombre voice, speaking as though
to her