things as they were and going to change them.... Miriam stirred uneasily as she felt the beating of her heart.... If only she were at home how she could rush up and down the house and shout about it and shake Mary by the shoulders. She shrank into herself and sat stiffly up, suddenly discovering she was lounging over the table. As she moved she reflected that probably Gladstone’s being so very dark made him determined that things should not go on as they were. In that case Gladstonians would be dark--perhaps not musical. Someone had said musical people were a queer soft lot. _Laissez faire_. Lazy fair. But perhaps it was possible to be fair and musical and to be a Gladstonian too. You can’t have your cake and eat it. No. It was a good thing, one’s best self knew it was a good thing that someone had found out why people were so awful; like a dentist finding out a bad tooth however much it hurt. Only if education was going to be the principal thing and all teachers were to be ‘qualified’ it was no use going on. Miss Jenny had said private schools were doomed. 8 For a long time she sat blankly contemplating the new world that was coming. Everyone would be trained and efficient but herself. She was not strong enough to earn a living and qualify as a teacher at the same time. The day’s work tired her to death. She must hide somewhere.... She would not be wanted.... If you were not wanted.... If you knew you were not wanted--you ought to get out of the way. Chloroform. Someone had drunk a bottle of carbolic acid. The clock struck ten. Gathering up the newspaper she folded it neatly, put it on the hall table and went slowly upstairs, watching the faint reflection of the half-lowered hall gas upon the polished balustrade. The staircase was cold and airy. Cold rooms and landings stretched up away above her into the darkness. She became aware of a curious buoyancy rising within her. It was so strange that she stood still for a moment on the stair. For a second, life seemed to cease in her and the staircase to be swept from under her feet.... “I’m alive.” ... It was as if something had struck her, struck right through her impalpable body, sweeping it away, leaving her there shouting silently without it. I’m alive.... I’m alive. Then with a thump her heart went on again and her feet carried her body warm and happy and elastic easily on up the solid stairs. She tried once or twice deliberately to bring back the breathless moment standing still on a stair. Each time something of it returned. “It’s me, _me;_ this is _me_ being alive,” she murmured with a feeling under her like the sudden drop of a lift. But her thoughts distracted her. They were eagerly talking to her declaring that she had had this feeling before. She opened her bedroom door very quietly. The air of the room told her that Nancie and Beadie were asleep. Going lightly across to the chest of drawers