"Well, I won't be it, anyhow," she said, with a shrug of her shoulders. "I don't want to take part in the tableaux, at all." "Then you will disappoint Mrs Hazlitt very cruelly," said Cara, her voice changing. "Ah, and here comes Deborah. Dear old Deb! Now, Deborah, I am going to leave this naughty girl in your hands. She is the most obstreperous person in the entire school, and the most beloved, for that matter. Just say a few words of wisdom to her and bring her down within five minutes to join the rest of us in the garden. I will manage to make an excuse for her non-appearance until then." As Cara spoke, she waved her hand lightly towards Nora, who was still standing by the open window, and then vanished from the room as quickly as she had entered it. After she had gone, there was a moment's silence. Nora Beverley was close on seventeen years of age. She was practically the head girl of the school of Hazlitt Chase--so-called after its mistress, who was adored by her pupils and was one of the best headmistresses in England. Mrs Hazlitt possessed all the qualifications of a first-rate high-school mistress, with those gentle home attributes and that real understanding of the young, which is given to but few. She had married, and had lost her only child; husband and child had both been taken from her. But she did not mourn as one without hope. Her endeavour was to help girls to be good, and true, and noble in the best sense. Her education was, therefore, threefold, embracing body, mind, and soul. Her school was not an especially large one, never consisting of more than thirty girls, but the time spent at Hazlitt Chase was one unlikely to be forgotten by any of them in after life, so noble was the teaching, so systematic the complete training. Mrs Hazlitt knew quite well that, to make a school really valuable to her young scholars, she must be exceedingly careful with regard to the girls who came there. She admitted no girl within the school under the age of fourteen, and allowed no girl to stay after she had reached eighteen years of age. The girl who came need not necessarily belong to the aristocracy, but she must be a lady by birth, and must have brought from her former schools or teachers the very highest recommendations for honour, probity, and good living. She must, besides, be intellectual above the average. With those recommendations, Mrs Hazlitt--who happened to be exceedingly well off--made the money part a secondary consideration, taking many a girl for almost nominal fees, although, on the other hand, those who could pay were expected to do so generously. So great, did the reputation of this school become that girls' names were on the books often for years before they were old enough to be admitted, and, in after years, to have belonged to that select academic group who walked the old cloisters at Hazlitt Chase and played happily in the ancient grounds was in itself a distinction.