Miss Fairbairn was a tall woman, but not imposing either in manner or looks. Her face was sensible, with a mixture of the sweet and the practical which was at least peculiar; and the same mixture was in her manner. This was calm and gentle in the utmost degree; also cool and self-possessed equally; and it gave Esther the impression of one who always knew her own mind and was accustomed to make it the rule for all around her. A long talk with this lady was the introduction to Esther's school experience. It was a very varied talk; it roved over a great many fields and took looks into others; it was not inquisitive or prying, and yet Esther felt as if her interlocutor were probing her through and through, and finding out all she knew and all she did not know. In the latter category, it seemed to Esther, lay almost everything she ought to have known. Perhaps Miss Fairbairn did not think so; at any rate her face expressed no disappointment and no disapproval. 'In what way have you carried on your study of history, my dear?' she finally asked. 'I hardly can tell; in a box of coins, I believe,' Esther answered. 'Ah? I think I will get me a box of coins.' Which meant, Esther could not tell what. She found herself at last, to her surprise, put with the highest classes in the English branches and in Latin. Her work was immediately delightful. Esther was so buried in it that she gave little thought or care to anything else, and did not know or ask what place she took in the esteem of her companions or of her teachers. As the reader may be more curious, one little occurrence that happened that week shall serve to illustrate her position; did illustrate it, in the consciousness of all the school family, only not of Esther herself. It was at dinner one day. There was a long table set, which reached nearly from the front of the house to the back, through two rooms, leaving just comfortable space for the servants to move about around it. Dinner was half through. Miss Fairbairn was speaking of something in the newspaper of that morning which had interested her, and she thought would interest the girls. 'I will read it to you,' she said. 'Miss Gainsborough, may I ask you to do me a favour? Go and fetch me the paper, my dear; it lies on my table in the schoolroom; the paper, and the book that is with it.' There went a covert smile round the room, which Esther did not see; indeed, it was too covert to be plain even to the keen eyes of Miss Fairbairn, and glances were exchanged; and perhaps it was as well for Esther that she did not know how everybody's attention for the moment was concentrated on her movements. She went and came in happy ignorance.