It was the end of May. The weather was warm and sunny, the windows of the West End were gay with flowers; in the Park the great beds of rhododendrons blazed forth in a glow of beauty. It was the season, and a particularly gay and festive season at that. "Everybody" was in town, including a few million "nobodies." There were clerks toiling by their thousands in the City, chained all day long to their desks; there were clerks' wives at home in the suburbs, toiling all day too, and sometimes far into the night; there were typists, and shop assistants, and prosperous heads of households, who worked steadily for five and a half days a week, in order that their families might enjoy comfort and ease, condensing their own relaxation into short Saturday afternoons. And there were school-mistresses, too, who saw the sun through form-room windows, but felt its call all the same--the call of the whole glad spring--and grew restless, and nervous, and short in temper. It was not the leaders of society whom they envied; they read of Court balls, and garden parties, of preparations for Ascot and Henley with a serene detachment, just as they read with indifference in the fashion page of a daily newspaper that "Square watches are the vogue this season, and our _elegantes_ are ordering several specimens of this dainty bauble to match the prevailing colours of their costumes," the while they suffered real pangs at the sight of an "alarming sacrifice" at twenty-nine and six. The one was almost within their grasp; the other floated in the nebulous atmosphere of a different sphere. In the staff-room at lunch-time the staff grew restless and critical. The hot joints no longer appealed to their appetites, the watery vegetables and heavy puddings became things abhorred. They thought of cool salads and _compotes_ on ice, and hated the sight of the greasy brown gravy. They blamed the cook, they blamed the Committee, they said repeatedly, "Nobody thinks of _us_!" and exchanged anecdotes illustrative of the dulness, the stupidity of their pupils. As for the Matric. candidates, they would _all_ fail! There wasn't a chance for a single one. The stupidest set of girls the school had ever possessed! Oh, certainly they would all fail! "And then," said Mary Rhodes bitterly, "_we_ shall be blamed." The Arts mistress said with a sigh-- "Oh, wouldn't it be heavenly to run away from it all, and have a week- end in the country! The gorse will be out, and the hawthorn still in blossom. What's the very cheapest one could do it on for two days?" Mademoiselle said-- "Absolutely, _ma chere_, there is no help for it. It is necessary that I have a distraction. I must buy a new hat." Sophie Blake said defiantly to herself-- "Crippled? Ridiculous! I _refuse_ to be crippled. I want to run, and run, and run, and run, and dance, and sing, and jump about! I feel pent! I feel caged! And all that precious money squandered on injections..."