I had decided to send her to school. Were my own pleasure the only consideration I should have kept her at home, but a girl ought to be among others, to learn give-and-take, adjustment, and so forth. Thirteen was late, of course, but she was not quite like other girls—an only child is always a little different—and the lateness did not matter. In practical matters she already knew more than any of her teachers could tell her. She knew a good deal about medicine and the care of invalids, derived principally from Hannah, but a little from me; she had presided at the tea-table for years and prepared the infusion like a Chinese philosopher; she could make an omelette. She had a considerable store of Norman patois. She had countless books, many of them far beyond her years. It would probably have been better if she continued to remain at home; but she was too normal to be denied ordinary procedure, or I was too normal to have the courage to deny it her. After many fruitless inquiries and inconvenient visits, I had allowed Mrs. Stratton to find Rose a school. It was at Brighton, where more young people seem to be taught than, judging by the passivity of the fishermen on the railings, fish are drawn from the sea; and I was assured that there was no more admirable establishment, and that Miss Saltoun was the last word in sympathetic and cultured head-mistress-ship. I went to see her and was more or less satisfied. Not wholly; but having had no experience as a selector of educationalists, I let it go, especially as I was more than pleased with the material conditions of the building—light, air, and so forth. Rose and I had a silent breakfast on the fatal day. She had been looking forward to it with mixed feelings, sometimes glad to be joining such a company of girls after so much isolation, sometimes forlorn indeed at the thought of leaving her home. On the last evening she had broken down completely; but in the morning she wore an expression of grim resolution, which I admired too much to run the risk of dissolving it by talking about any unsafe subject; and no subject seeming to be safe, I said nothing. Her farewell to the household was tearful; but she pulled herself together to part bravely from me, and then she and Hannah drove off. It was a double breaking up of tradition; for Hannah, after taking her to Paddington and putting her into the hands of Mrs. Stratton, who would convoy her to Victoria, where there were reserved compartments for the school, was to go on to her home at Lowestoft, alas! for ever. She had been growing more infirm and could no longer manage the stairs, and when Rose came back for the holidays there was to be a new maid for her, instead of our old friend. It was part of the new programme that Rose was to be generally more self-reliant. More self-reliant!