It was perhaps fortunate for Miss Hilhouse that she did not hazard any remarks on that second escapade in the Square. Whether this amendment in her manners was due to Miss Sibson’s apothegms, or to the general desire of the school to see the new teacher’s new pelisse—which could only be gratified by favour—or to a threatening rigidity in Mary Smith’s bearing must remain a question. But children are keen observers. Their senses are as sharp as their tongues are cruel. And it is certain that Miss Smith had not read four lines of the fifth chapter of The Fairchild Family before a certain sternness in her tone was noted by those who had not already marked the danger signal in her eyes. For the gentlest eyes can dart lightnings on occasion. The sheep will turn in defence of its lamb. Nor ever walked woman who could not fight for her secret and her pride.

So Miss Hilhouse bit her tongue and kept silence, the girls behaved beautifully, and Mary read The Fairchild Family to them in a tone of monotony that perfectly reflected the future as she saw it. She had been very foolish, and very weak, but she was not without excuse. He had saved her life, she could plead that. True, brought up as she had been at Clapham, shielded from all dealings with the other sex, taught to regard them as wolves, or at best as a race with which she could have no safe parley, she should have known better. She should have known that handsome, courteous, masterful-eyed, as they were—and with a way with them that made poor girls’ hearts throb at one moment and stand still at another—she should have known that they meant nothing. That they were still men, and that she must not trust them, must not think of them, must not expect to find them more steadfast to a point than the weather-cock on St. Mary’s at Redcliffe.

The weather-cock? Ah!

She had no sooner framed the thought in the middle of the reading than she was aware of a sensation; and a child, one of the youngest, raised her hand. “Please—”

Mary paused.

“Yes?” she asked. “What is it?”

“Please, Miss Smith, did the weather-cock speak?”

Mary reddened violently.

“Speak? The weather-cock? What do you mean, child?”

“Please, Miss Smith, you said that the weather-cock told Lucy the truth, the truth, and all the truth.”

“Impossible!” Mary stammered. “I—I should have said, the coachman.” And Mary resumed the story, but with a hot face; a face that blushed more painfully and more intolerably because she was conscious that every eye was upon it, and that a score of small minds were groping for the cause of her confusion.

She remembered, oh, how well she remembered, that the schoolmistress at Clapham had told her that she had every good quality except strength of will. And how thoroughly, how rapidly had she proved the truth of the exception! Freed from control for only twenty-four hours, left for that time to her own devices, she had listened to the first voice that addressed her, believed the first flattering look that fell on her, taken the most ordinary attentions—attentions at which any girl with knowledge of the world or strength of will would have smiled—for gold, real red gold! So that a light look without a spoken word had drawn her heart from her. How it behoved her to despise herself, loathe herself, discipline herself! How she ought to guard herself in the future! Above all, how thankful should she be for the dull but safe routine that fenced, and henceforth would fence, her life from such dangers!

True. Yet how dreary to her young eyes seemed that routine stretched before her! How her courage fainted at the prospect of morning added to morning, formal walk to formal walk, lesson to lesson, one generation of pupils to another! For generation would follow generation, one chubby face would give place to another, and still she would be there, plodding through the stale task, listening with an aching head to the strumming on the harpsichord, saying the same things, finding the same faults, growing slowly into a correcting, scolding, punishing machine. By and by she would know The Fairchild Family by heart, and she would sicken at the “Letters on the Improvement of the Mind.” The children would still be young, but grey hairs would come to her, she would grow stout and dull; and those slender hands, those dainty fingers still white and fine, still meet for love, would be seared by a million needle-pricks and roughened by the wear and tear of ten thousand hours of plain sewing.

She was ungrateful, oh, she was ungrateful to think such thoughts! For in what was her lot worse than the lot of others? Or worse than it had been a week before when, who more humble-minded or contented, more cheerful or helpful than Mary Smith? When her only fault had been a weakness of character which her old schoolmistress hoped would be cured by time? When, though the shadow of an unknown Miss Sibson loomed formidable before her, she had faced her fate bravely and hopefully, supported not a little by the love and good wishes—won by a thousand kind offices—which went with her into the unknown world.

What had happened in the meantime? A little thing, oh, a very little thing. But to think of it under the childrens’ eyes made her face burn again. She had lost her heart—to a man. To a man! The very word seemed improper in that company. How much more improper when the man cared nothing for her, but tossing her a smile for guerdon, had taken her peace of mind and gone his way, with a laugh. At the best, if he had ever dreamt seriously of her, ever done more than deem her an innocent, easily flattered and as lightly to be won, he had changed his mind as quickly as a weather-cock shifts in April. And he had talked—that hurt her, that hurt her most! He had talked of her freely, boasted of her silliness, told his companions what he would do, or what he would not do; made her common to them!

She got away for a few minutes at tea-time. But twenty pairs of eyes followed her from the room and seized on her as she returned. And “Miss Smith, ain’t you well?” piped a tiny treble.

She was controlling her voice to answer—that she was quite well, when Miss Sibson intervened. “Miss Fripp,” she said sombrely, “write ‘Are you not,’ twenty times on your slate after tea! Miss Hilhouse, if you stare in that fashion you will be goggle-eyed. Young ladies, elbows, elbows! Have I not told you a score of times that the art of deportment consists in the right use of the elbow? Now, Miss Claxton, in what does the art of deportment consist?”

“In the right use of the elbow, Ma’am.”

“And what is the right use of the elbow?”

“To efface it, Ma’am.”

“That is better,” Miss Sibson replied, somewhat mollified. “Understood is half done. Miss Smith,” looking about her with benevolence, “had you occasion to commend any young lady’s needle this afternoon?”

Miss Smith looked unhappy: conscious that she had not been as attentive to her duties as became her. “I had no occasion to find fault, Ma’am,” she said timidly.

“Very good. Then every fourth young lady beginning at my right hand may take a piece of currant cake. I see that Miss Burges is wearing the silver medal for good conduct. She may take a piece, and give a piece to a friend. When you have eaten your cake you may go to the schoolroom and play for half an hour at Blind Man’s Buff. But—elbows! Elbows, young ladies,” gazing austerely at them over her glasses. “In all your frolics let deportment be your first consideration.”

The girls trooped out and Mary Smith rose to go with them. But Miss Sibson bade her remain. “I wish to speak to you,” she said.

Poor Mary trembled. For Miss Sibson was still in some measure an unknown quantity, a perplexing mixture of severity and benevolence, sound sense and Mrs. Chapone.

“I wish to speak to you,” Miss Sibson continued when they were alone. And then after a pause during which she poured herself out a third cup of tea, “My dear,” she said soberly, “the sooner a false step is retraced the better. I took a false step yesterday—I blame myself for it—when I allowed you—in spite of my rule to the contrary—to see a gentleman. I made that exception partly out of respect to the note which the parcel contained; the affair was strange and out of the ordinary. And partly because I liked the gentleman’s face. I thought him a gentleman; he told me that he had an independence: I had no reason to think him more than that. But I have heard to-day, my dear—I thought it right to make some enquiry in view of the possibility of a second visit—that he is a gentleman of large expectations, who will one day be very rich and a man of standing in the country. That alters the position,” Miss Sibson continued gravely. “Had I known it”—she rubbed her nose thoughtfully with the handle of her teaspoon—“I should not have permitted the interview.” And then after a few seconds of silence, “You understand me, I think, my dear?” she asked.

“Yes,” Mary said in a low voice. She spoke with perfect composure.

“Just so, just so,” Miss Sibson answered, pleased to see that the girl was too proud to give way before her—though she was sure that she would cry by and by. “I am glad to think that there is no harm done. As I have said, the sooner a false step is retraced, the better; and therefore if he calls again I shall not permit him to see you.”

“I do not wish to see him,” Mary said with dignity.

“Very good. Then that is understood.”

But strangely enough, the words had barely fallen from Miss Sibson’s lips when there came a knock at the house door, and the same thought leapt to the mind of each; and to Mary’s cheek a sudden vivid blush that, fading as quickly as it came, left her paler than before. Miss Sibson saw the girl’s distress, and she was about to suggest, in words equivalent to a command, that she should retire, when the door opened and the neat maidservant announced—with poorly masked excitement—that a gentleman wished to see Miss Smith.

Miss Sibson frowned.

“Where is he?” she asked, with majesty; as if she already scented the fray.

“In the parlour, Ma’am.”

“Very good. Very good. I will see him.” But not until the maid had retired did the schoolmistress rise to her feet. “You had better stay here,” she said, looking at her companion, “until my return. It is of course your wish that I should dismiss him?”

Mary shivered. Those dreams of something brighter, something higher, something fuller than the daily round; of a life in the sunshine, of eyes that looked into hers—this was their end! But she said “Yes,” bravely.

“Good girl,” said Miss Sibson, feeling, good, honest creature, more than she showed. “I will do so.” And she swam forth.

Poor Mary! The door was barely shut before her heart whispered that she had only to cross the hall and she would see him; that, on the other hand, if she did not cross the hall, she would never, never, never see him again! She would stay here for all time, bound hand and foot to the unchanging round of petty duties, a blind slave in the mill, no longer a woman—though her woman’s heart hungered for love—but a dull, formal, old maid, growing more stiff and angular with every year! No farther away than the other side of the hall were love and freedom. And she dared not, she dared not open the door!

And then she bethought her, that he was no weathercock, for he had come again! He had come! And it must be for something. For what?

She heard the door open on the parlour side of the hall, and she knew that he was going. And she stood listening, waiting with blanched cheeks.

The door opened and Miss Sibson came in, met her look—and started.

“Oh!” the schoolmistress exclaimed; and for a moment she stood, looking strangely at the girl, as if she did not know what to say to her. Then, “We were mistaken,” she said, with a serious face. “It is not the gentleman you were expecting, my dear. On the contrary, it’s a stranger who wishes to see you on business.”

Mary tried to gain command of herself. “I had rather not,” she said faintly. “I don’t think I can.”

“I fear—you must,” Miss Sibson rejoined, with unusual gravity. “Still, there is no hurry. He can wait a few minutes. He can await your leisure. Do you sit down and compose yourself. You have no reason to be disturbed. The gentleman”—she continued, with an odd inflection in her voice—“is old enough to be your father.”