For five minutes there was no sound save the scratching of pens, and the placid voice of the Fräulein demonstrating to Miss Mullins that in an exercise of twenty lines, ten words out of every twenty were wrong, and then the door was opened suddenly--not at all in the manner so carefully instilled by the teacher of deportment. It was flung back, rather, as if with an angry hand, and a young woman, taller than the generality of her sex, walked quickly up the room to Miss Pew's desk, and stood before that bar of justice, with head erect, and dark flashing eyes, the incarnation of defiance. _'Was für ein Mädchen.'_ muttered the Fräulein, blinking at that distant figure, with her pale gray-green eyes. Miss Pew pretended not to see the challenge in the girl's angry eyes. She turned to her subordinate, Miss Pillby, the useful drudge who did a little indifferent teaching in English grammar and geography, looked after the younger girls' wardrobes, and toadied the mistress of the house. 'Miss Pillby, will you be kind enough to show Ida Palliser the state of her desk?' asked Miss Pew, with awe-inspiring politeness. 'She needn't do anything of the kind,' said Ida coolly. 'I know the state of my desk quite as well as she does. I daresay it's untidy. I haven't had time to put things straight.' 'Untidy!' exclaimed Miss Pew, in her appalling baritone; 'untidy is not the word. It's degrading. Miss Pillby, be good enough to call over the various articles which you have found in Ida Palliser's desk.' Miss Pillby rose to do her employer's bidding. She was a dull piece of human machinery to which the idea of resistance to authority was impossible. There was no dirty work she would not have done meekly, willingly even, at Miss Pew's bidding. The girls were never tired of expatiating upon Miss Pillby's meanness; but the lady herself did not even know that she was mean. She had been born so. She went to the locker, lifted the wooden lid, and proceeded in a flat, drawling voice to call over the items which she found in that receptacle. 'A novel, "The Children of the Abbey," without a cover.' 'Ah!' sighed Miss Pew. 'One stocking with a rusty darning-needle sticking in it. Five apples, two mouldy. A square of hardbake. An old neck-ribbon. An odd cuff. Seven letters. A knife, with the blade broken. A bundle of pen-and-ink--well, I suppose they are meant for sketches.' 'Hand them over to me,' commanded Miss Pew. She had seen some of Ida Palliser's pen-and-ink sketches before to-day--had seen herself represented in every ridiculous guise and attitude by that young person's facile pen. Her large cheeks reddened in anticipation of her pupil's insolence. She took the sheaf of crumpled paper and thrust it hastily into her pocket. A ripple of laughter swept over Miss Palliser's resolute face; but she said not a word.