rush on to the shore, crowd round and address a perfect stranger, passes my comprehension, and this under the eyes of two other schools who were walking along the promenade, and who must have been justly amazed and shocked. The girls who this afternoon were on exeat parade will kindly stand up." Sixteen conscience-stricken miserable sinners rose to their feet, and, feeling themselves the centre for more than two hundred pairs of eyes, yearned for the earth to yawn and swallow them up. Mrs. Morrison regarded them for a moment or two in silence. "Each of you will now go to her own house and fetch the autograph she secured," continued the mistress grimly. "I give you three minutes." There was a hurried exit, and the school sat and waited until the luckless sixteen returned. "Bring them to me!" commanded Mrs. Morrison, and in turn each girl handed over her slip of paper with the magic signature "Henri Raoul Devereux". The Principal placed them together, then, her eyes flashing, tore them into shreds. "Girls who have deliberately broken rules, defied the authority of my colleague, which is equivalent to defying me, and have lowered the prestige of the school in the eyes of the world, deserve the contempt of their comrades, who, I hope, will show their opinion of such conduct. I feel that any imposition I can give them is inadequate, and that their own sense of shame should be sufficient punishment; yet, in order to enforce the lesson, I shall expect each to recite ten lines of poetry to her House Mistress every morning before breakfast until the end of the term; and Marjorie Anderson, who, I understand, was the instigator of the whole affair, will spend Saturday afternoon indoors until she has copied out the whole of Bacon's essay on 'Empire'. You may go now." Marjorie slunk off to St. Elgiva's in an utterly wretched frame of mind. It was bad enough to be reproved in company with fifteen others, but to be singled out for special condemnation and held up to obloquy before all the school was terrible. In spite of herself hot tears were in her eyes. She tried to blink them back, for crying was scouted at Brackenfield, but just at that moment she came across Rose, Phyllis, Laura, and Gertrude weeping openly in a corner. "I'll never hold up my head again!" gulped Phyllis. "Oh, the Empress was cross! And I'm sure it was all because those wretched girls from 'Hope Hall' and 'The Birches' were walking along the promenade and saw us. If they'd had any sense they'd have rushed down and asked for autographs for themselves." "It was mean of the Empress to tear ours up!" moaned Gertrude. "I call that a piece of temper on her part!" "And after all, I don't see that we did anything so very dreadful!" choked Rose. "Mrs. Morrison was awfully down on us!" "I hate learning poetry before breakfast!" wailed Laura.