We got there just before tea time, six o'clock. Mrs. Hemson, acting for my trustees had made the negotiations with Miss Fenton; of course she took me to school, stayed a few minutes with Miss Fenton, and then left me. When my things were off, and I was back in the drawing-room, Miss Fenton rang the bell. "You shall join the young ladies at once," she said to me; "they are about to take tea. You have never been to school before, I think." "No, ma'am. Mamma instructed me." "Have the young ladies gone into the refectory?" Miss Fenton inquired, when a maid-servant appeared. "I suppose so, ma'am," was the answer. "The bell has been rung for them." "Desire Miss Linthorn to step hither." Miss Linthorn appeared, a scholar of fifteen or sixteen, very upright. She made a deep curtsey as she entered. "Take this young lady and introduce her," said Miss Fenton. "Her name is Hereford." We went through some spacious, well-carpeted passages; their corners displaying a chaste statue, or a large plant in beautiful bloom; and thence into some shabby passages, uncarpeted. Nothing could be more magnificent (in a moderate, middle-class point of view) than the show part, the _company_ part of Miss Fenton's house; nothing much more meagre than the rest. A long, bare deal table, with the tea-tray at the top; two plates of thick bread-and-butter, _very_ thick, and one plate of thinner; the English teacher pouring out the tea, the French one seated by her side, and eight girls lower down, that was what I saw on entering a room that looked cold and comfortless. Miss Linthorn, leaving me just inside the door, walked up to the teachers and spoke. "Miss Hereford." "I heard there was a new girl coming in to-day," interrupted a young lady, lifting her head, and speaking in a rude, free tone. "What's the name, Linthorn?" "Will you have the goodness to behave as a lady—if you can, Miss Glynn?" interrupted the English teacher, whose name was Dale. "That will be your place, Miss Hereford," she added, to me, indicating the end of the form on the left side, below the rest. "Have you taken tea?" "No, ma'am." "Qu'elles sont impolies, ces filles Anglaises!" said Mademoiselle Leduc, the French teacher, with a frowning glance at Miss Glynn for her especial benefit. "It is the nature of school girls to be so, Mademoiselle," pertly responded Miss Glynn. "And I beg to remind you that we are not under your charge when we are out of school in the evening; therefore, whether we are 'impolies' or 'polies,' it is no affair of yours." Mademoiselle Leduc only half comprehended the words; it was as well she did not. Miss Dale administered a sharp reprimand, and passed me my tea. I stirred it, tasted it, and stirred it again. "Don't you like it?" asked a laughing girl next to me; Clara Webb, they called her.