'Neither,' answered Miss Pillby, with an awful shake of her sandy locks; 'I don't believe there is a servant in this house who would so far forget herself. And as to the pupils--' 'We know what they are,' snapped Miss Pew; 'I never heard of anything bad enough to be beyond their reach. Who is it?' 'Your clever pupil teacher, Ida Palliser.' 'Ah,' grunted Miss Pew, setting down her cup; 'I can believe anything of her. That girl was born to be troublesome. What has she done now?' Miss Pillby related the circumstances of Miss Palliser's crime setting forth her own cleverness in the course of her narrative--how her misgivings had been excited by the unwonted familiarity between Ida and the Fräulein--a young person always open to suspicion as a stranger in the land--how her fears had been confirmed by the conduct of an unknown man in the church; and how, urged by her keen sense of duty, she had employed Mrs. Jones's boy to watch the delinquents. 'I'll make an example of her,' said Miss Pew, flinging back the bed-clothes with a tragic air as she rose from her couch. 'That will do, Pillby. I want no further details. I'll wring the rest out of that bold-faced minx in the face of all the school. You can go.' And without any word of praise or thanks from her principal, Miss Pillby retired: yet she knew in her heart that for this piece of ill news Miss Pew was not ungrateful. Never had Sarah Pew looked more awful than she appeared that morning at the breakfast table, clad in sombre robes of olive green merino, and a cap bristling with olive-green berries and brambly twigs--a cap which to the more advanced of the pupils suggested the head-gear of Medusa. Miss Dulcibella, gentle, limp, sea-greeny, looked at her stronger-minded sister, and was so disturbed by the gloom upon that imperial brow as to be unable to eat her customary rasher. Not a word did Miss Pew speak to sister or mistresses during that brief but awful meal; but when the delft breakfast cups were empty, and the stacks of thick bread and butter had diminished to nothingness, and the girls were about to rise and disperse for their morning studies, Miss Pew's voice arose suddenly amidst them like the sound of thunder. 'Keep your seats, if you please, young ladies. I am about to make an example; and I hope what I have to say and do may be for the general good. Miss Palliser, stand up.' Ida rose in her place, at that end of the table where she was supposed to exercise a corrective influence upon the younger pupils. She stood up where all the rest were seated, a tall and perfect figure, a beautiful statuesque head, supported by a neck like a marble column. She stood up among all those other girls the handsomest of them all, pale, with flashing eyes, feeling very sure that she was going to be ill-treated. 'Pray, Miss Palliser, who is the person whom it is your daily habit to meet and converse with in my grounds? Who is the man who has dared to trespass on my meadow at your invitation?'