The plan was certainly an excellent one.... Miss Marsham could not follow the details very well ... but that, of course, would be dear Clare's affair.... A great saving ... an immense improvement.... There would be changes, of course.... This idea of separate houses, for instance.... It would mean taking extra premises--but Clare was quite right, they were overcrowded--had had to turn away girls.... She quite agreed with Clare ... she had always preferred boarders herself; one had a freer hand.... With a mistress responsible for each house, though, what would there be left for Miss Vigers to do?... Yes--she might take over a house, of course.... But Miss Marsham paused uneasily. She anticipated trouble with Henrietta. She was justified. Henrietta refused utterly to discuss the suggested alterations. Miss Marsham must excuse her; she had her position.... One house? after controlling the entire school's economy? She did not suggest that Miss Marsham could be serious--that was impossible.... Miss Marsham was serious? Then there was no more to be said.... She said a good deal, however, and at considerable length; ended, breathless, waspish, leaving her resignation in her principal's hands. Neither she nor Miss Marsham dreamed that it would be accepted. But Clare Hartill, consulted by Miss Marsham, was puzzlingly relieved. Very delicately she congratulated her chief on being extricated from a difficult position; praised Miss Vigers's tact--or her sense of fitness. Unusual good sense.... People so seldom realised their limitations, unprompted ... poor Miss Vigers was certainly no longer young ... hardly the woman for a modern house-mistress-ship.... Old fashioned ... in these days of degrees and college-training so much more was expected ... and after that affair in the summer no doubt she had lost confidence in herself.... Clare was sure that Miss Vigers had appreciated Miss Marsham's forbearance, but of course, she must know, in her own heart, that if she had taken proper precautions--it was her business to arrange for a mistress to be on duty, wasn't it?--the accident could not have happened. Poor little Louise! Oh, and of course, poor Miss Vigers too!... Well, it was for the best, she supposed ... and Miss Vigers seemed to feel that it was time for her to go.... Perhaps it was.... But they would all be sorry to lose her.... Clare really thought that she would like to get up a presentation from the school.... Now what did Miss Marsham consider appropriate? So Henrietta found herself taken at her word. She left, passionately resentful, at the half-term; hoping, at least, to embarrass her employer thereby. (But Clare Hartill knew of such a nice suitable woman--Newnham.)