room. Millais raged about like a wild animal, but his wife was quite firm and determined, and wouldn't tell him where it was for several days. He was obliged to go out and interest himself in other ways, and when he was quite well again she had the picture brought up, and he simply looked at it and laughed. He knew at once what was wrong, and how to put it right." "I say," cried Flora eagerly, "do tell that story to Miss Phipps! She might give us a week's holiday and send us to see the sights of London! Do, Kate! Get it up in French and tell it to-night at tea. You don't know how much good it might do!" "It's a very good story, but I fail to see where the moral comes in. It hardly applies to us, I think," said Clara, in her superior manner, and Kate breathlessly vindicated her position. "Yes, it does--of course it does. It shows that this anxious stage is a natural thing which all workers have to live through, and even if we can't leave off lessons altogether, we can help ourselves by not giving way to nerves, but going steadily on, knowing that we shall feel all right again in a few days. Besides, there's the Exeat coming,--that will make a nice break." "I never worry about lessons, do I?" cried Pixie, pluming herself complacently. The part of Kate's lecture which had dealt with over- anxiety about work had appealed with special force to one listener at least, and Pixie was delighted to find that she was free from failing in one direction at least. "I never did. Miss Minnitt--that's the one who used to teach us--she said I never paid any attention at all. There was one day she was questioning me about grammar. `Pixie O'Shaughnessy,' she says, `you've been over this one page until it's worn transparent. For pity's sake,' she says, `be done with it, and get on to something fresh. Let me see if you can remember to-day what I taught you yesterday afternoon. How many kinds of verbs are there?' `There are two,' I said, and with that she was all smiles and noddings. `So there are, now. You're quite right. And what will be their names?' `Verb and adverb,' says I, quite haughty; and the howl that went out of her you might have heard from Cork to Galway! That was all the grammar she'd managed to teach _me_!" "You don't know very much more now, do you, chicken?" said Margaret, bending her head so that her cheek rested upon the rough, dark head. "Just bring your books to me any time you get puzzled, and I'll try to make it clear. Talking of the term-holiday, girls, it is time we began to make our plans. How many of you are going out? Lottie, are you? Clara? Kate? Pixie? We had better find out first how many will be here."