The headmistress was too calm ever to allow her real feelings to be seen, but the girls who knew her well, and who clustered round her now in pretty groups, watched her face with anxiety. Jephtha's daughter did not wish to be deprived of her part, nor did Cleopatra, nor did Fair Rosamond, nor did Iphigenia. How dreadful of Helen of Troy if she upset all the arrangements and made the pretty tableaux impossible! "Oh, of course she will yield," said Mary L'Estrange. But Cara Burt shook her head. "Nobody knows Honora well, do they?" she said, in a semi-whisper to her companion. "Perhaps not," replied Mary; "and yet, she has been in the school for years." "I consider her exceedingly conceited," remarked Cara again, dropping her voice. "But, oh! here comes Deborah--dear old Deborah--and no Honora, as I am alive! Now I wonder what is going to happen." Deborah Duke was the English teacher and general factotum in the school. All the girls adored her. It was not necessary to worship her. She was the sort of person round whose neck you could hang, whose waist you could clasp, whose cheeks you could kiss, whom you could shake, if you liked, if she were in a bad humour--but, then, Deborah was never in a bad humour--whom you could go to in all sorts of troubles and get to intercede for you. She was plain, and dumpy, and freckled. Nevertheless, she was Deborah, the darling of the school. As to her knowledge of English, it is very much to be doubted whether it was specially extensive; but, at any rate, she knew how to coddle a girl who was not quite well and how to put a bad-tempered girl into a good humour, and how, on all and every occasion, to come between Mrs Hazlitt and the children whom she taught. The girls all owned that they could be afraid of Mrs Hazlitt, but of Deborah--never. "Here you are, Deborah!" called out Cara. "Take this seat, won't you? There is plenty of room between Mary and me. Sit down, and tell us when Helen of Troy intends to put in her appearance." "Why does not Honora Beverley come when I request her presence?" said Mrs Hazlitt, speaking in that tone of majesty which always impressed the girls. "Honora is coming in one minute, Mrs Hazlitt, and she will explain matters to you herself. I am very sorry," continued poor little Deborah, whispering her latter remark to Mary and Cara. "She must have a bee in her bonnet; no one else could object to represent Tennyson's beautiful lines." Just at that moment there came a slow step down the centre walk of the Elizabethan garden. Its edges of box, which were clipped very close and thick, slightly rustled as a white dress trailed against them, and then a very slim girl, with the fairest of fair faces and a head of thick and very pale golden hair stood in their midst. She was taller than all the other girls, and slimmer, and there was a wonderful darkness in her eyes. She was out of the common, for the soft brown of her eyes was rare to find in so fair a face.