The different mistresses seemed to be on friendly terms, but there was an absence of the camaraderie which comes from living under the same roof. School was a common possession, but home hours were spent apart, except when, as in Claire's own case, two mistresses shared the same rooms, and it followed as a matter of course that personal interests were divided. To-day the conversation was less scholastic than usual, the intervening holidays forming a topic of interest. The Art mistress had been on a bicycle sketching tour with a friend; the German mistress had taken a cheap trip home; Miss Blake announced that all her money had gone on "hateful massage," and the faces of her listeners sobered as they listened, for Sophy Blake, who led the exercises with such verve and go, had of late complained of rheumatic pains, and her companions heard of her symptoms with dread. What would become of Sophy if those pains increased? One after another the mistresses drifted over to where Claire sat turning the pages of her magazine, and exchanged a few fragments of conversation, and then the great bell clanged again, and afternoon school began. The first half-hour of afternoon school proved the most trying of the day. Claire was tired after the exertions of the morning, and a very passion for sleep consumed her being. She fought against it with all her might, but the yawns would come; she fought against the yawns, and the tears flowed. To her horror the infection spread, and the girls began to yawn in their turn, with long, uncontrolled gapes. It was a junior class, and the new mistress shrewdly suspected that the infection was welcomed as an agreeable interlude. It was obvious that she could not afford to reject that cup of coffee. Good or bad it must be drunk! Rich or poor that penny must be dedicated to the task of vitalising that first hour of sleepiness. At the end of six weeks Claire felt as though she had been a High School-mistress all her life. The regular methodical days, in which every hour was mapped out, had a deadening effect on one who had been used to constant variety, and except for a difference in the arrangement of classes there seemed no distinction between one and the other. She was a machine wound up to work steadily from Monday morning until Friday night, and absurdly ready to run down when the time was over. Every morning after breakfast she started forth with Miss Rhodes, by foot if the weather were fine, by Tube if wet; every mid-day she dined in the Staff-Room with the fifteen other mistresses, and gulped down a cup of chicory coffee. At four o'clock the mistresses met once more for tea, a free meal this time, supplemented by an occasional cake which one of the fifteen provided for the general good. At five she and her table companion returned to their rooms, and rested an hour before taking the evening meal.