“And there are some things that cannot be listened to,” said Clare, waving her hand as she entered the porch. She escaped from him without another word, plunging into the midst of the children and the monotonous hum of their lessons with a sense that everything about it was simply intolerable, that she could bear no more, and must fall down at his feet or their feet, it did not much matter which. She could not see the trim little schoolmistress, her own special _protegée_ and pupil, who came forward curtesying and smiling. A haze of agitation and bewilderment was about her. The rows of pinafored children rising and bobbing their little curtseys to the young lady of the manor were visible to her as through a mist. “My head aches so,” she said faintly. “Let me sit down for a little in the quiet; and oh, couldn’t you keep them quite still for two minutes? The sun is so hot outside.” “Won’t you go and sit down in my room, Miss Clare?” said the schoolmistress. “The children will be moving and whispering. It is so cool in my room. You have never been there since you had it built for me; and the jasmine has grown so, you would not know it. Please come into my room.” Clare followed mechanically into the little sitting-room, a tiny cottage parlour, with jasmine clustering about the window, and some monthly roses in a little vase on the table. “It is so sweet and so quiet here. I am so happy in my little room,” said the schoolmistress; “and it is all your doing, Miss Clare: everything is so convenient. And then the garden. I am so happy here.” “Are you, indeed?” said Clare, sitting down in the little wickerwork chair, covered with chintz, which creaked under her, but which was at once soft and splendid in the eyes of her companion. “Never mind me, please; go on with your work, and as soon as I am rested I will follow you to the school. Please leave me by myself, I want nothing now.”