The window was shut. But the room was mysteriously fresh, far away from the school. A fly was hovering about the muslin window blind with little reedy loops of song. The oboe ... in the quintet, thought Miriam suddenly. “I don’t know,” she said, listening. The flies sang like this at home. She had heard them without knowing it. She moved in her place by the window. The fly swept up to the ceiling, wavering on a deep note like a tiny gong.... Hot sunny refined lawns, roses in bowls on summerhouse tea-tables, refined voices far away from the Caledonian Road. “Flies don’t _buzz_,” she said passionately. “They don’t _buzz_. Why do people say they buzz?” The pain pressing behind her temples slackened. In a moment it would be only a glow. Miss Haddie stood with bent head, her face turning from side to side, with its sour hesitating smile, her large eyes darting their strange glances about the room. “Won’t you sit down a minute? They haven’t sounded the first bell yet.” Miriam sat down on the one little white-painted, cane-seated chair near the dressing-table. “Eh--eh,” said Miss Haddie, beginning to unfasten her veil. “She doesn’t approve of general conversation,” thought Miriam. “She’s a female. Oh well, she’ll have to see I’m not.” “What gave you yer headache?” “Oh well, I don’t know. I suppose I was wondering what it was all about.” “I don’t think I quite understand ye.” “Well, I mean--what that old gentleman was in such a state of mind about.” “D’ye mean Mr. La Trobe!” “Yes. Why do you laugh?” “I don’t understand what ye mean.” Miriam watched Miss Haddie’s thin fingers feeling for the pins in her black toque. “Of course not,” she thought, looking at the unveiled shrivelled cheek.... “thirty-five years of being a lady.” “Oh well,” she sighed fiercely. “What is it ye mean, my dear?” --‘couldn’t make head or tail of a thing the old dodderer said’--no ‘old boy,’ no--these phrases would not do for Miss Haddie. “I couldn’t agree with _anything_ he said.” Miss Haddie sat down on the edge of the little white bed burying her face in her hands and smoothing them up and down with a wiping movement. “One can always criticise a sermon,” she said reproachfully. “Well, why not?” “I mean to say ye _can_,” said Miss Haddie from behind her fingers, “but, but ye shouldn’t.” “You can’t help it.” “Oh yes, ye can. If ye listen in the right spirit,” gargled Miss Haddie hurriedly. “Oh, it isn’t only the sermon, it’s the whole thing,” said Miriam crimsoning. “Ye mustn’t think about the speaker,” went on Miss Haddie in faint hurried rebuke. “That’s wrong. That sets people running from church to church. You must attend your own parish church in the right spirit, let the preacher be who--who--what he may.” “Oh, but I think that’s positively _dangerous_,” said Miriam gravely. “It simply means leaving your mind open for whatever they choose to say. Like Rome.” “Eh, no--o--o,” flared Miss Haddie dropping her hands, “nonsense. Not like Rome at all.”