To counter-balance the possession, perhaps, of so many virtues, gifts, testimonials, and certificates she had no chin, no eyebrows, and no eyelashes. Her eyes were weak and watery; her spectacles strong and thick; her nose indeterminate, wavering, erratic; her ears large, her teeth irregular and protrusive, her mouth unfortunate and not guaranteed to close. An ugly female face is said to be the index and expression of an ugly mind. It certainly was so in the case of Miss Smellie. Not that she had an evil or vicious mind in any way—far from it, for she was a narrowly pious and dully conscientious woman. Her mind was ugly as a useful building may be very ugly—or as a room devoid of beautiful furniture or over-crowded with cheap furniture may be ugly. And her mind was devoid of beautiful thought-furniture, and over-crowded with cheap and ugly furniture of text-book facts. She was an utterly loveless woman, living unloving, and unloved—a terrible condition. One _could not_ like her. Deadly dull, narrow, pedantic, petty, uninspiring, Miss Smellie’s ideals, standards, and aims were incredibly low. She lived, and taught others to live, for appearances. The children were so to behave that they might appear “genteel”. If they were to do this or that, no one would think they were young ladies or young gentlemen. “If we were out at tea and you did that, I _should_ be ashamed,” she would cry when some healthy little human licked its jarnmy fingers, and “_Do_ you wish to be considered vulgar or a little gentleman, Damocles?” Damocles was profoundly indifferent on the point and said so plainly. They were not to be clean of hand for hygienic reasons—but for fear of what people might “think”; they were not to be honourable, gentle, brave and truthful because these things are fine—but because of what the World might dole out in reward; they were not to eat slowly and masticate well for their health’s sake—but by reason of “good manners”; they were not to study that they might develop their powers of reasoning, store their minds, and enlarge their horizons—but that they might pass some infernal examination or other, _ad majorem Smelliae gloriam_; they were not to practise the musical art that they might have a soul-developing aesthetic training, a means of solace, delight, and self-expression—but that they might “play their piece” to the casual visitor to the school-room with priggish pride, expectant of praise; they were not to be Christian for any other reason than that it was the recommended way to Eternal Bliss and a Good Time Hereafter—the whole duty of canny and respectable man being to “save his soul” therefore. Her charges were skilfully, if unintentionally, trained in hypocrisy and mean motive, to look for low reward and strive for paltry ends—to do what looked well, say what sounded well, to be false, veneered, ungenuine. And Miss Smellie was giving them the commonly accepted “education” of their class and kind.