The Horticultural College at Rainham Parva, now defunct, was hardly a college in the modern sense at all. Its technical books were antiquated; it had only one or two old microscopes; and it totally lacked the newer trimmings of specialisation. Its founder, a Bristol seedsman called Chesson, had bought the place cheaply, house and all, a dozen years before, and having five hardy daughters eating their heads off at home, had, as the saying is, economically emancipated them. That meant then (whatever it may mean now) that, realising that the wages of two men and a boy might be saved, he had had them down to Rainham Parva and had set them to work. The second Miss Chesson, Miss Harriet, had shown a real aptitude for the work. She had won, after three years, a Diploma, and this Diploma, together with the presence in the house as paying boarder of a niece of Chesson's, had put an idea into the seedsman's head--the premium idea. With the Diploma properly advertised, its grantee made Principal, a premium or so forgone (called a Scholarship) and the proper person installed over all as Lady-in-Charge, Chesson had foreseen a good deal of his work being done by young women who would pay for the privilege of being allowed to do it. There is no need to describe the development of the idea. The enterprise had prospered, and when Louie Causton had put her name down on the books and paid her fees the complement of thirty girls was full. She did not, after all, travel down alone. Her stepfather, hinting that it was not necessary to say anything about this to her mother, made the journey with her. The pair of them shortened the hours by guessing which of the young women in the same train were to be Louie's fellow-students; and when they alighted at Rainham Magna station the Captain put Louie and her traps into one of the nondescript vehicles that only saw the light when the Rainham girls arrived or departed, and drove off with her to the college. There he shook hands with the Lady-in-Charge, Mrs. Lovenant-Smith, and asked her whether she was related to Lovenant-Smith of the 24th. Mrs. Lovenant-Smith's reply did not actually affirm her regret that she was so related, but the Captain's affability dried up suddenly. He was returning to town by the four-o'clock train; before doing so he took a turn round the place with Louie. "Well," he said, as Louie took her leave of him at the gates, "it's a good growing country, I should say; rum idea of yours though.... You've heard me speak of Lovenant-Smith, haven't you? Adjutant eight or nine years ago; not a bad chap at all, _I_ should have said. She'll be one of the Shropshire lot, I expect. I knew he had people down there.... Well, mind you don't run away with a gardener. 'Bye, Mops----" And he was off, tugging at his moustache and inwardly commenting that the whole escapade was "just like Louie."