A shudder ran through the room. Though I did not know it at the time, Mrs. Marshall had been born in Australia, and I could not have uttered a more deliberate insult. She flushed a little, and glanced at me keenly. I think she either realized my complete ignorance, or thought it wiser to ignore the allusion. "Not quite to the point, my dear," she replied with dignity. "It is well to keep strictly to our subject. I had thought you would have been ready with some remark upon the orchids of your South American forests, or the orange plantations which I have heard you mention. But here comes the coffee. Doris, it is your turn to pour out to-night!" To hand and receive the cups prettily, and to sit drinking them in graceful attitudes, was part of our evening discipline; and to us a very severe one, for Mrs. Marshall was hard to satisfy, and to clink your tea-spoon or to flop into a chair was a desperate offence. She herself was a tall, elegant woman, erect and stately, with a habit of swimming into the room, and a measured way of speaking, as if each word had been prepared beforehand. The abrupt school-girl type of conversation she would not tolerate, and our sentences must be as carefully chosen as her own. A girl who had spoken slang in her presence would, I believe, almost have been threatened with expulsion. I sometimes think her training made our manners too studied and artificial, but her system was a reaction against the free-and-easy and often ungracious style which was current in many other large schools of the day. After coffee, Mrs. Marshall would ask for a little music, and we were obliged to take it in turns to play, the lot falling to each girl about once a month. How I hated the pieces which I solemnly practised for these weekly evenings, and in what an agony of nervousness my trembling fingers stumbled through the performance! If I could have bidden the company leave the room, I think I might have acquitted myself better, but to discourse sweet strains with Mrs. Marshall's eye upon me, my music-mistress sitting close by, and an audience of critical school-mates listening, was an ordeal from which many a girl might shrink. The programme was varied by a few songs and recitations, and at half past-eight we all filed out, each in her turn saying good-bye, and thanking Mrs. Marshall for a pleasant evening, a courtesy which I always felt to be most insincere, since I was sure that neither she nor ourselves had enjoyed it in the least. At the end of the term a large conversazione was held, to which many friends interested in the school were invited, and when we were expected to put into practice those lessons in manners and deportment which were drilled into us during the Saturday evening "At Homes". We tried our honest best to be pleasant little hostesses, and the visitors were indulgent, but I often think we must have afforded them much amusement by our "improving conversation".