Miss Phipps had drawn out a programme of games for the evening's amusement, and later on the older pupils took it in turns to play waltzes and polkas, while the others danced. The teachers joined in with the rest, and it was a proud girl who had Miss Phipps for a partner, while Mademoiselle was so light and agile that it was like dancing with a feather, and Fraulein felt like a heavy log lying against one's arm. Then everyone sat down and puffed and panted, while Jeanie, the Scotch girl, danced a Highland Fling, and when Pixie called out an appropriate "Hoch! Hoch!" the teachers laughed as heartily as the girls; for be it well understood there are things which are allowed on term-holiday which the rashest spirit dare not attempt on working days! Then two pretty sisters went through the stately figures of a minuet, and Margaret sang a song in her sweet voice, pronouncing the words so distinctly that you really knew what she was singing about, which nowadays is a very rare and wonderful accomplishment. Altogether it was a most festive evening, and Flora was in the act of remarking complacently, "We really are a most accomplished school!" when suddenly the scene changed, and an expression of horrified anxiety appeared on every face, for Mademoiselle came rushing into the room, which she had left but a few minutes before, and the tears stood in her eyes, and her face was scarlet with mingled grief and anger. She held in one hand the gold stopper of her precious scent-bottle, and in the other a number of pieces of broken glass, at sight of which a groan of dismay sounded on every hand. "_Voila! Regardez_ See what I 'ave found! I go to my room, and the air is full of scent, and I turn up the gas, and there it is--on the dressing-table before my eyes--in pieces! My bottle--that I have kept all these years--that was given to me by my friend--my dear, good friend!" Her voice broke off in a sob, and Miss Phipps came forward to examine the pieces with an expression of real distress. "But, Mademoiselle, how has it happened? You found it on the table, you say,--not on the floor. If it had been on the floor, you might perhaps have swept it off in leaving the room, and not heard the sound against the mat. But on the table! How could it be broken on the table?" "Someone has been touching it and let it drop." "I be so careless as to break my bottle? It is impossible to think of! I never come away without a look to see that it is safe. I dust my dressing-table myself every morning, so that no one shall interfere with my things. The servants know that it is so. When I came downstairs this evening it was all right. I have not been upstairs since." "I think very few of us have. We have been too busy. Ellen would go in, of course, to prepare the bed. Did she--"