The servant giggled. Mrs. Harland rose. "Come to school! There must be some mistake. Where are they?" "They're in the hall. And if you please, ma'am, there are three flies full of luggage." Mrs. Harland went downstairs. A crowd of small girls were grouped together in the hall, varying in ages perhaps from six to fourteen. The lady addressed herself to the largest. "What is it you want?" "We've come to school." Mrs. Harland smiled. "But this is a school for young gentlemen. No doubt you are looking for Miss Simpson's, Burlington House Academy. The flyman ought to have known." "He said Mulberry House. He wrote it down." The young lady held a piece of paper. She handed it to Mrs. Harland. On it were some words, inscribed in a handwriting which was becoming almost too familiar. At sight of it the lady felt an inward qualm. "What is your name?" "Clara Mary Dixon." Unconsciously the lady gave a sigh of relief. It was not the name which she had dreaded. "I'm sure there's some mistake." "There's no mistake." Suddenly the young lady put her handkerchief up to her eyes. Immediately all the other young ladies followed suit. "You're trying to play it off on us. He wrote it down himself, he did. We never thought he was going to ship us off to Europe just 'cause he'd married ma." The young ladies' voices' were raised in lamentation. The servants stood giggling by. The flymen grinned upon the doorstep. Mrs. Harland deemed it inadvisable to continue the interview in public. "Come this way." She led the way into the drawing-room. The weeping maidens followed. "Pray don't cry. The mistake, however it may have arisen, will soon be cleared up. Now tell me, where do you come from?" "New--York--City!" Mrs. Harland, when she received that answer, was conscious of another inward qualm. "Who sent you to England?" "Mr.--Bindon." The lady sat down on a chair. She stared in speechless silence at the new arrivals. Then, rising, she rang the bell. The servant appeared. "Tell your master I wish to speak to him in the drawing-room." Scarcely had the housemaid turned her back than there came a loud ringing at the front-door bell. Another servant entered--the cook--in her hand a cablegram. Mrs. Harland was conscious that the envelope was addressed to Mr. Harland. As a rule enclosures addressed to him she held inviolate, but on this occasion she broke the rule. She tore the envelope open with a hand which slightly trembled. With her eyes she devoured the words which were written on the sheet of paper it had contained: "Girls shipped by mistake. Boys following.--Bindon."