ittle figure in a black dress had peeped through the door,
and then glided into the room. It was a girl of about ten, who, in all
candor, could scarcely be called pretty, although the awkward change of
adolescence had not destroyed the delicate proportions of her hands and
feet nor the beauty of her brown eyes. These were, just then, round and
wondering, and fixed alternately on the colonel and the two women. But
like many other round and wondering eyes, they had taken in the full
meaning of the situation, with a quickness the adult mind is not apt to
give them credit for. They saw the complete and utter subjugation of
the two supreme autocrats of the school, and, I grieve to say, they were
filled with a secret and "fearful joy." But the casual spectator saw
none of this; the round and wondering eyes, still rimmed with recent and
recalcitrant tears, only looked big and innocently shining.

The relief of the two women was sudden and unaffected.

"Oh, here you are, dearest, at last!" said Miss Tish eagerly. "This is
your guardian, Colonel Starbottle. Come to him, dear!"

She took the hand of the child, who hung back with an odd mingling of
shamefacedness and resentment of the interference, when the voice of
Colonel Starbottle, in the same deadly calm deliberation, said,--

"I--er--will speak with her--alone."

The round eyes again saw the complete collapse of authority, as the two
women shrank back from the voice, and said hurriedly,--

"Certainly, Colonel Starbottle; perhaps it would be better," and
ingloriously quitted the room.

But the colonel's triumph left him helpless. He was alone with a
simple child, an unprecedented, unheard-of situation, which left him
embarrassed and--speechless. Even his vanity was conscious that his
oratorical periods, his methods, his very attitude, were powerless here.
The perspiration stood out on his forehead; he looked at her vaguely,
and essayed a feeble smile. The child saw his embarrassment, even as
she had seen and understood his triumph, and the small woman within her
exulted. She put her little hands on her waist, and with the fingers
turned downwards and outwards pressed them down her hips to her bended
knees until they had forced her skirts into an egregious fullness before
and behind, as if she were making a curtsy, and then jumped up and
laughed.

"You did it! Hooray!"

"Did what?" said the colonel, pleased yet mystified.

"Frightened 'em!--the two old cats! Frighte