The third and fourth class girls had an enmity against those of the first for no other reason than that they were under Miss Burge, who heard them say their catechism, and read, and asked questions afterwards out of a little book which she kept half hidden beneath her silk _visite_; for pleasant, little, homely, round-faced Miss Burge could hardly have invented a question of an original character to save her life. One thing, however, was patent, and that was that the first class was so far a model of good behaviour that the girls did not titter very much, nor yet pinch one another, or dig elbows into each other's ribs more than might be expected from young ladies of their station; while they never by any chance made faces at "teacher" when her back was turned, a practice that seemed to afford great pleasure to the young ladies who were submitted to a sort of cold shower-bath, iced with awkward texts by the Misses Lambent, in classes third and fourth. The second class was taken by another maiden lady--Miss Penstemon, sister of Doctor Penstemon, M.D., F.R.C.S., of the High Street. She was thinner and more graceful than the Misses Lambent, and possibly much older; but that was her secret and one which she never divulged. The Misses Lambent, as before mentioned, bowed with dignity and grave condescension to the new mistress; and, taking her cue from the vicar's sisters. Miss Penstemon bowed also, plunging her hand afterwards into her black bag for her smelling-bottle, for she thought the room was rather close. The bottle she brought out, however, she thrust back hastily, and gave a quick glance round to see if she had been observed; for, instead of its containing a piece of sponge saturated with the colourless fluid labelled in her brother's surgery, "Liq. Amm.," and afterwards scented with a few drops of an essential oil, the little stoppered bottle bore a label with the enigmatical word "Puls." thereon, and its contents were apparently a number of little sugar pills. For be it known that Maria Penstemon had a will of her own, and a strong tendency to foster crotchets. The present crotchet was homoeopathy, which, without expressing any belief for or against, the doctor had forbidden her to practise. "No, 'Ria," he said, "if you want to go doctoring, doctor the people with your moral medicines. It won't do for you to be physicking one way and me another, so let it alone." But Miss Penstemon refused to submit to coercion, and insisted in secret upon following her path while the doctor went his, Maria's being the homoeopath, while the doctor's was, of course, the allopath; and he was a long time finding out that his sister surreptitiously "exhibited" pilules, for she never did any harm. Hazel Thorne met with a different reception, however, from downright Miss Burge, who rose from her seat, looked red and "flustered," as she called it, smiled, and shook hands.