I was truly thankful to reach Greenwich, and trusted that the girls might be fully occupied in getting tea, and that the heavy cake might calm down their excitement a little. So we all set to with a great deal of unnecessary bustle, and were flattering our elderly hearts that everything was going off splendidly, when, on the bell being rung--we had brought one on purpose--for the girls to be seated, the Superintendent looked round for the head girl to lead the singing grace. Instead of pious music of any sort, our ears were greeted with a shout of discordant laughter, which was found to proceed from some broken ground in the distance, where the _whole_ of our first class were engaged in playing _Kiss in the Ring_ with a party of soldiers from the neighbouring barracks. My dear, if you could have seen the picture, you would never have forgotten it. I thought I should have died of laughing on the spot. The hot, dishevelled, romping girls, and the smart soldiers, quite unconscious of the awful face of the Superintendent, as she advanced towards them, and the way the damsels scuttered off as she let fall a few words of rebuke--it was the funniest thing I ever saw. She succeeded in driving her flock, sheepish but giggling, before her; all but one, who stoutly declined to leave her soldier, declaring she didn't want no tea, but would 'ave a spree in the merry-go-round with 'im. A separation was ultimately effected, but the gloom that hung over that meal I never shall forget. It was a mercy everyone else took it so seriously, or I couldn't have held out; as it was, when I got home, I laughed myself nearly into a fit. The combination of duty, detachment and a sense of humour is not commonly credited to Victorian girls. But the problems that had to be tackled were very much the same, and so was human nature. EDUCATION