I did not like it at all, and would rather have had milk and water. So far as flavour went, it might have been hot water coloured, was sweetened with brown sugar, and contained about a teaspoonful of milk. I never had any better tea, night or morning, so long as I remained: but school girls get used to these things. The teachers had a little black teapot to themselves, and their tea looked good. The plate of thin bread-and-butter was for them. A very handsome girl of seventeen, with haughty eyes and still more haughty tones, craned her neck forward and stared at me. Some of the rest followed her example. "That child has nothing to eat," she observed. "Why don't you hand the bread-and-butter to her, Webb?" Clara Webb presented the plate to me. It was so thick, the bread, that I hesitated to take it, and the butter was scraped upon it in a niggardly fashion; but for my experience at Miss Fenton's I should never have thought it possible for butter to have been spread so thin. The others were eating it with all the appetite of hunger. The slice was too thick to bite conveniently, so I had to manage as well as I could, listening—how could I avoid it?—to a conversation the girls began among themselves in an undertone. To hear them call each other by the surname alone had a strange sound. It was the custom of the school. The teachers were talking together, taking no notice of the girls. "Hereford? Hereford?" debated the handsome girl, and I found her name was Tayler. "I wonder where she comes from?" "I know who I saw her with last Sunday, when I was spending the day at home. The Hemsons." "What Hemsons? Who are they?" "Hemsons the linendrapers." "Hemsons the linendrapers!" echoed an indignant voice, whilst I felt my own face turn to a glowing crimson. "What absurd nonsense you are talking, Glynn!" "I tell you I did. I knew her face again the moment Linthorn brought her in. She came to church with them, and sat in their pew." "I don't believe it," coldly exclaimed an exceedingly ugly girl, with a prominent mouth. "As if Miss Fenton would admit that class of people! Glynn is playing upon our credulity; just as she did, do you remember, about that affair of the prizes. We want some more bread-and-butter, Miss Dale—may we ring?" "Yes, if you do want it," replied Miss Dale, turning her face from Mademoiselle to speak. "Betsey, stop a moment, I have something to ask you!" suddenly called out one dressed in mourning, leaping over the form and darting after the maid, who had come in and was departing with the plate in her hand. A whispered colloquy ensued at the door, half in, half out of it; close to me, who was seated near it. "I say, Betsey! Do you know who the new pupil is?" "Not exactly, Miss. Mrs. Hemson brought her!" "Mrs. Hemson! There! Glynn said so! Are you sure?"