"Sufficient to indicate this fulfilment of duty is the fact that she was happy and that she made happy others----" Fräulein's voice dropped to its lowest note and grew fuller in tone. "Would that I could here complete what I have to say of the sojourn of little Aline Ducorroy under this roof.... But that I cannot do. "That I cannot do. "It has been the experience of this pure and gentle soul to come, under this roof, in contact with things not pure." Fräulein's voice had become breathless and shaking. Both her hands sought the support of the table. "This poor child has had unwillingly to suffer the fact of associating with those not pure." "Ach, Fräulein! What you say!" ejaculated Clara. In the silence the leaves of the chestnut tree tapped one against the other. Miriam listened to them ... there must be a little breeze blowing across the garden. Why had she not noticed it before? Were they all hearing it? "With--those--not pure." "Here, in this my school." Miriam's heart began to beat angrily. "She has been forced, here, in this school, to hear talking"--Fräulein's voice thickened--"of men...." "_Männer--geschichten ... here!_" "_Männer--geschichten._" Fräulein's voice rang out down the table. She bent forward so that the light from both the windows behind her fell sharply across her grey-clad shoulders and along the top of her head. There was no condemnation Miriam felt in those broad grey shoulders--they were innocent. But the head shining and flat, the wide parting, the sleekness of the hair falling thinly and flatly away from it--angry, dreadful skull. She writhed away from it. She would not look any more. She felt her neck was swelling inside her collar-band. Fräulein whispered low. "Here in my school, here standing round this table are those who talk of--men. "Young girls ... who talk ... of men." While Fräulein waited, trembling, several of the girls began to snuffle and sob. "Is there, can there be in the world anything that is more base, more vile, more impure? Is there? Is there?" Miriam wished she knew who was crying. She tried to fix her thoughts on a hole in the table-cover. "It could be darned.... It could be darned." "You are brought here together, each and all of you here together in the time of your youth. It is, it should be for you the most beautiful occasion. Can you find anything more terrible than that such occasion where all may work and influence each other--for all life--in purity and goodness--that such occasion should be used--impurely? Like a dawn, like a dawn for purity should be the life of a maiden. Calm, and pure and with holy prayer."