"You naughty, vile girl," she stammered out. "I will send you right away from home to a school on the Continent, and you shall not come back any more until you are quite grown up." "All right, mamma; I'll go," said the undaunted girl; "but I'll write to everybody by post and tell them about the wig and the teeth;" and, as Lady Dudgeon knew, her daughter was just the girl to carry out the threat. Her ladyship was puzzled. "Look here, mamma," said Sophy: "between you and me, Ribaud's nothing but an old stupid, and no more fit to be a governess than I am. You take my advice, and send her about her business. I'm going to get my rope and have a jolly skip round the laurels." And almost before her ladyship knew what had happened, she had been well hugged, and found herself alone, staring blankly into the closet under the stairs. A few days later Madame Ribaud received a month's notice, and Lady Dudgeon never attempted extreme measures with Sophia after that time. It is not improbable that she had this very incident in her mind during her first interview with Miss Deane after the latter's arrival at Stammars. "I place them entirely in your hands," said her ladyship, in reference to her two girls. "Exercise whatever discipline over them you may think best, only don't box their ears, and don't trouble me. If you find that they are becoming your master instead of you being theirs, don't come and complain in the expectation that I shall assist you to maintain an authority that you are not strong enough to keep in your own hands. Should such a contingency arise, it would be better for you to resign your situation at once."