Entirely unfamiliar surroundings will exercise a subduing effect on the most daring nature; and Florence Whittaker for the first few days of her stay at Ashcroft felt quite meek and bewildered. She really had nothing to say. She was quite unused to so small and quiet a family. The eldest son, Ned Warren, had recently married, and did not live at home, Bessie was away at her school until the harvest holidays, and Wyn was busy all day and had lessons to do in the evening. She had never seen so civil and well-mannered a little boy; while Mr Warren was a great big man over six feet high, with an immense red beard, very silent and grave, and good manners gained from the gentlemen with whom he associated. Her Aunt Charlotte, as she was directed to call Mrs Warren, was very kind to her, and never aggravated her, a fact which upset Florence's previous ideas of aunts. There really was no opportunity of distinguishing herself by "answering back," for Mrs Warren never said anything that gave her a chance. As she was neither idle nor unhandy, she acquitted herself well in all the little tasks her aunt set her; but she was dull enough to look favourably on the idea of the Sunday school. "Miss Geraldine's been inquiring about you, Florence," said Wyn when he came in to dinner. "She says she wishes you to come down to Sunday school with Gracie Elton." "I don't mind if I do," said Florence, "but I attend a Bible class at home." "The girls in the first class here are quite as old as you," said Mrs Warren, "but I dare say you are accustomed to a much larger number." "Oh, I don't mind," said Florence, with cheerful condescension. "Our teacher says we ought not to be stuck up, so, though we're nearly all business young ladies, we ain't exclusive. There's two _generals_ attend the class, and I think it's a shame to make them sit by themselves, don't you?" "I think it would be very ill-mannered," said Mrs Warren quietly, "if you did. I dare say you are very fond of the lady who teaches you?" "Oh, she's as good as another--better than some. She knows us, you see, and don't expect too much of us. But there, last spring, when she went away and Miss Bates took us, we weren't going to go to _her_. Why, she gave us bad marks for talking, when she'd only just come. She hadn't any call to find fault with us; she were just there to keep us together till teacher came back." "Well, I suppose, as she was kind enough to teach you, you were careful not to give any trouble to a stranger," said Mrs Warren, "because that would have been rude." "We ain't so rude as the Saint Jude's girls," said Florence virtuously. "_They_ locked the door and kept their teacher waiting, and pretended they'd lost the key. That's going _too_ far, _I_ say. If ever I'm a teacher I'll not put up with such as that." "Could you be a teacher?" said Wyn, who had listened open-mouthed.