"We can very well emulate our great grandmothers in this respect," she would say, "and thus make a happy combination of ancient and modern. Because you are studying French and algebra is no reason at all why you should not also know how to fry an omelette or boil a potato. A cultivated brain ought surely to be able to grasp domestic economy better than an untrained one, and an educated woman who is really helpful is worth more than an ignorant one. Even if you are never called upon to do things yourselves at home, you ought at least to know how they should be done, so that you need not set your maids unreasonable tasks, and expect impossibilities in the way of service. I think, also, that a great future for many of our English girls lies in the Colonies, where domestic help is often at a premium, and the most delicately nurtured lady must sometimes set to work, and be her own cook and laundress. If you profit by the classes you attend at the cottage, you will have an invaluable accomplishment, and one which may in some emergency prove more useful than anything else you have learnt." Miss Drummond believed in putting all knowledge to the test of practice, so she instituted the plan of sending the girls in relays of three to the cottage every Saturday, and letting them undertake the entire work of the little establishment. Everything must be done by their own hands: the stove lighted--after the flues had first been intelligently cleaned--the rooms swept, dusted, and tidied; the midday dinner prepared, dished up, and cleared away; the crockery washed, and the kitchen left in apple-pie order. Miss Drummond herself and one of the other teachers were permanent guests at dinner; and the three housekeepers were each allowed to ask one friend to afternoon tea, so that there should be visitors to appreciate the various viands prepared. The girls welcomed the experiment with the utmost enthusiasm. The cottage was to them a veritable doll's house, and they were supremely delighted at the prospect of directing the internal arrangements. As three were told off weekly for "domestic duty" there was just time during the term for each of the thirty-nine to have one trial, and "Cottage Saturday" became an event to which they looked forward with the greatest eagerness. Instead of giving the upper forms the entire precedence, Miss Drummond sandwiched elder and younger girls in alternate weeks, so that several members of the Fourth Form secured an early chance. Aldred's turn happened to come the first week in October. To her great satisfaction, Mabel was bracketed with her for the same day, and Dora Maxwell completed the trio. "It will be such fun!" declared Mabel. "We shall have to get our own breakfast. I hope we shan't make any idiotic mistakes." "Grind the bacon, and fry the coffee?" laughed Aldred. "Well, hardly so bad as that. But we shan't have anybody to ask. Miss Drummond says we're to be absolutely and entirely by ourselves."