Completely perplexed by this enigmatical tirade, White quietly took his hat and walked off to the young ladies’ seminary, which was only a few streets away. Arrived there, he found everything in commotion and the lady superintendent highly indignant. It appeared, on explanation, that Madeline, for some reason unexplained, had, during the midday play hour, made a savage attack upon a young lady of sixteen, a parlour boarder excellently connected; had sprung upon her with fury, scratched her face, and had clung to her until torn away by force. The superintendent’s mind was made up: Madeline must not return to the school. ‘She is a very violent child. I have again and again had to rebuke her for fits of passion. I have now discovered, moreover, that her connections are not what I should wish in members of my seminary. Miss de Castro, whom she assaulted, is a sweet girl, incapable of provocation. Her papa is in the India Office. She is niece of Sir Michael de Castro, late Governor of Chickerabad, and I cannot have her assaulted by a common child.’ White stared silently at the lady, and without a word strode back to the studio. There, with a severity unusual to him, he demanded a full explanation. He thus learned that the _fons et origo_ of all the mischief was Uncle Luke’s letter. By some accident it had fallen from Madeline’s bosom and been picked up by Miss de Castro. That ‘sweet girl’ had read it through to a group of the elder pupils, doing full justice to the orthography, and mimicking, as far as she could imagine them, the living manners of the writer. In the midst of her amusement, Madeline had appeared and demanded her property, which Miss de Castro immediately thrust behind her back, while she indulged in a series of witticisms at the expense of Madeline and all her relations, especially the country correspondent. This was enough. Almost before she herself knew it Madeline was at her throat, and in a white heat of passion. The sweet girl screamed. Madeline was torn away and thrust violently out of the school-yard gate, but not before she had recovered her uncle’s letter and thrust it into her bosom. Then she had flown home. White was greatly perplexed how to act. In his secret heart he sided with the child, and cursed the cruelty of ignorance and caste; but he nevertheless perceived that fits of passion and violence were not to be encouraged. So he frowned terribly, and read Madeline a long and stern lecture on the wickedness of giving up to wrath. She heard him out with great attention, and with her great eyes fixed pathetically on his. At the conclusion of the harangue, she took out Uncle Luke’s letter and quietly kissed it--then smiled faintly through her tears at the thought of her wrongs. It was clear that she was quite impenitent. Madeline did not go back to school. For some months she remained at home with the De Bernys; White, in his indolent way, postponing the question of where she was to go next.