imbered Elizabethan work, a Queen
Anne wing, and some early Victorian alterations made a strange
conglomeration of styles of architecture; but the roses and ivy had
climbed up and clothed ancient and modern alike, and Time had softened
the jarring nineteenth-century additions, so that the whole now blended
into a mellow, brownish mass, with large, bright windows enclosed in a
frame of well-clipped greenery.

There was accommodation in the roomy old house for twenty boarders, and
though no day pupils were supposed to be received a special exception
had been made in the case of Meg and Elsie Fleming, the Vicar's
daughters, who arrived every morning by nine o'clock, and Nell Gledhill,
whose governess brought her each Friday afternoon for dancing-lessons.
So far the school had jogged along very happily under Mrs. Gifford's
mild regime. Fathers and mothers had sometimes shrugged their shoulders
and hinted that her methods were old-fashioned, but they always added
that the tone of the place was so excellent, and the health of the
pupils so well looked after, that there was really no just cause for
complaint. Miss Todd, sitting in her study, and writing twenty neat,
well-thought-out letters to explain the sudden transfer of the school,
assured parents that, while preserving all the traditions of her
predecessor, she hoped to introduce a modern element of progress in
keeping with the needs of the day. "I realize that we must march with
the times," she wrote; and she meant it. She began her innovations on
that very first day. Several disconsolate seniors congregated on the
upper landing viewed change number one with dismay.

"But Mrs. Gifford promised that Geraldine and Ida and I might have the
East room," urged Nesta Erskine. "It was all arranged last term, and we
clubbed together to buy a bookcase. What are we to do with it if we're
separated? It belongs to us all three."

"I can't help it; those are Miss Todd's orders," answered Miss Beverley
briskly. "Your names are on cards pinned on to the doors of your new
rooms. Pass along at once, and find your quarters and begin to unpack.
Don't stand here blocking up the passage! Yes, Betty? Miss Hampson wants
to speak to me? Tell her I'm coming now."

As Miss Beverley bustled away the seniors moved slowly and forlornly
along the landing in quest of billets. It reminded them of finding their
places in an examination-room. Their names were unquestionably on the
doors in black-and-w