Miss Mulberry was stout, and I think by nature disposed to indolence, especially in warm weather. It was all the more creditable to her that she had worked hard for many years to support a paralytic mother and a delicate sister. The mother was dead now. Miss Ellen Mulberry, though an invalid, gave some help in teaching the younger ones; and Bush House had for so long been a highly-reputed establishment that Miss Mulberry was more or less prosperous, and could afford to keep a French governess to do the hard work. Miss Mulberry was very conscientious, very kind-hearted, and the pink of propriety. Her appearance, at once bland and solid, produced a favourable impression upon parents and guardians. Being stout, and between fifty and sixty years old, she was often described as "motherly," though in the timidity, fidgetiness, and primness of her dealing with girls she was essentially a spinster. Her good conscience and her timidity both helped to make her feel school-keeping a heavy responsibility, which should perhaps excuse the fact that we suffered at Bush House from an excess of the meddlesome discipline which seems to be _de rigueur_ in girls' schools. I think Miss Mulberry would have felt that she had neglected her duty if we had ever been left to our own devices for an hour. To growing girls, not too robust, leading sedentary lives, working very hard with our heads, and having (wholesome and sufficient meals, but) not as much animal food as most of us were accustomed to at home, the _nag_ of never being free from supervision was both irritating and depressing. Much worse off were we than boys at school. No playing-fields had we; no leave could be obtained for country rambles by ourselves. Our dismal exercise was a promenade in double file under the eye and ear of Madame herself. True, we were allowed fifteen minutes' "recreation" together, and by ourselves, in the school-room, just after dinner; but this inestimable privilege was always marred by the fact that Madame invariably came for us before the quarter of an hour had expired. No other part of school discipline annoyed us as this did. It had that element of injustice against which children always rebel. Why she did so remains to this day a puzzle to me. She worked very hard for her living--a fact which did not occur to us in those days to modify our view of her as our natural tormentor. In breaking faith with us daily by curtailing our allotted fifteen minutes of recreation, she deprived herself of rest to the exact amount by which she defrauded us. She cannot have pined to begin to teach as soon as she had swallowed her food! I may do her an injustice, but the only reason I can think of as a likely one is that, by taking us unawares, she (I won't say hoped, but) expected to find us "in mischief."