He meant the story which never was accepted, but whose fitness for the flames he had yet to realise. The letter, however, did not refer to either of his prose attempts. It was from the Editor of _Tommy Tiddler_, enclosing both sets of verses which Harry had sent him that week, and very civilly stating that they were not quite up to his contributor's "usual mark." Harry went straight out of the flat and was gone some minutes. "I've sent that telegram," said he when he came back. "I should have told you that the term begins this next Saturday, and I've got to be there on Friday evening." CHAPTER XVI. A DAME'S SCHOOL. The Hollies, Teddington, was situated in a quiet road off the main street. A wooden gate, varnished and grained, displayed a brass plate with Mrs. Bickersteth's name engraved upon it, while that of the house was lettered in black on one of the stucco gate-posts, and perhaps justified by the few evergreens which grew within. A low wall was topped by a sort of balustrade, likewise stuccoed, and behind this wall stood half-a-dozen cropped and yellowing limes. The house itself was hardly what Harry had expected so far from town. He seemed to have passed it daily for the last four months, for it was the plain, tall, semi-detached, "desirable" and even "commodious residence," which abounds both in Kensington and Camden Town, in the groves of St. John's Wood and on the heights of Notting Hill. A flight of exceedingly clean steps led up to a ponderous front door with a mighty knocker; on the right were two long windows which evidently stretched to the floor, for a wire screen protected the lower part of each; and above these screens, late on the Friday afternoon, some eight or nine rather dismal little faces were pressed to watch the arrival of the new master. The cabman carried the luggage up the steps and was duly overpaid. The servant shut the great door with a bang--it was a door that would not shut without one--and Harry Ringrose had gone to school again at one-and-twenty. He was shown into a very nice drawing-room--the kind of drawing-room to reassure an anxious parent--and here for a minute he was alone. Through a thin wall came a youthful buzz, and Harry distinctly heard, "I wonder if he's strict?" He also heard an irritable, weak, feminine voice exclaiming: "Be silent--be silent--or you shall all have fifty lines!" Then the door opened, and he was shaking hands with Mrs. Bickersteth. The lady was short, stout, and rather more than elderly, yet with a fresh-coloured face as free from wrinkles as it was full of character, and yellow hair which age seemed powerless to bleach. Her manner was not without kindness or distinction, but neither quality was quite so noticeable as when Harry had seen her at the agents' in her mantle and bonnet. Indeed the fresh cheeks had a heightened tinge, and the light eyes a brightness, which Harry Ringrose was destined to know better as the visible signs of Mrs. Bickersteth's displeasure.