For all that, the discipline and the life were in many ways excellent, and the governesses worked so hard that they had a knack of making lazy students ashamed of themselves. There were never any slovenly-prepared lessons, and everything was done with clock-like precision. The great fault was that the hours of drudgery were too long, and the occasional sound of chimes would greatly have improved the everlasting tic-tic. The most comical part of the whole thing, perhaps, was the French lesson. Deborah used to sit and shake with laughing the whole time it was in progress, it was so very funny. But she had one thing to be thankful for whilst there. Her eyes were very troublesome for the first three months, and at last the attention of the college doctor was called to them. He just simply said, “Buy an ounce of boracic acid and put it on them.” So it was bought, and, wonder of wonders! it acted almost like a miracle. “I can’t bear this doctor,” many of the girls used to say. “Well, I shall always feel grateful to him,” she would rejoin. “He cured my eyes when I was beginning to think they were incurable.” That was probably the greatest benefit she derived from being there. When the holidays came round she stayed a week in the town where she had been brought up, and then went into the country for Christmas. Whilst waiting in the station for the train she came across that same young man who had caused her so many heartaches and burnings. Absence had not in any way altered Deborah’s affection for him, so when she saw him there in the station she could just have danced for joy. He had with him the other man to whom she had given such an affectionate farewell four months since. He was very nice and quiet, and kind-hearted in an unobtrusive way, and it isn’t often one meets that kind of a man. It happened by chance that they were standing on the same platform from which her train was going, and Deborah was not feeling the least bit shy that day, so she went to speak to them. However, the young gentleman kept distinctly aloof; he even made as if he were going to walk away, but he didn’t. “I think you knew Mr —— a little,” said the other. “Oh, yes, I knew him very well,” she answered. But when she went to him and held out her hand he didn’t make the slightest effort to take it, except in a very cold and uncertain way. “I don’t seem to remember you in the very least,” he said, and looked at her just as if she had been a perfect stranger to whom he had never before spoken. “But I remember you perfectly,” said Deborah, and laughed, for she was much too happy to think of anything but speaking the truth. They went together to the railway carriage, where Maggie was already settled, and he stood there till the train went out.