pression that she had dropped into a sort of
medley, that she had found herself in a vast new world where certain
personages exercised undoubtedly a strong moral influence, but where on
the whole a number of other people did pretty much what they pleased--she
awoke in the morning to find her preconceived ideas scattered to the four
winds.

There was nothing of apparent liberty about the Lavender House
arrangements in the early morning hours. In the first place, it seemed
quite the middle of the night when Hester was awakened by a loud gong,
which clanged through the house and caused her to sit up in bed in a
considerable state of fright and perplexity. A moment or two later a
neatly-dressed maid-servant came into the room with a can of hot water;
she lit a pair of candles on the mantel-piece, and, with the remark that
the second gong would sound in half an hour, and that all the young
ladies would be expected to assemble in the chapel at seven o'clock
precisely, she left the room.

Hester pulled her pretty little gold watch from under her pillow, and saw
with a sigh that it was now half-past six.

"What odious hours they keep in this horrid place!" she said to herself.
"Well, well, I always did know that school would be unendurable."

She waited for five minutes before she got up, and then she dressed
herself languidly, and, if the truth must be told, in a very untidy
fashion. She managed to be dressed by the time the second gong sounded,
but she had only one moment to give to her private prayers. She
reflected, however, that this did not greatly matter as she was going
down to prayers immediately in the chapel.

The service in the chapel the night before had impressed her more deeply
than she cared to own, and she followed her companions down stairs with a
certain feeling of pleasure at the thought of again seeing Mr. Everard
and Mrs. Willis. She wondered if they would take much notice of her this
morning, and she thought it just possible that Mr. Everard, who had
looked at her so compassionately the night before, might be induced, for
the sake of his old friendship with her mother, to take her home with him
to spend the day. She thought she would rather like to spend a day with
Mr. Everard, and she fancied he was the sort of person who would
influence her and help her to be good. Hester fancied that if some very
interesting and quite out of the common person took her in hand, she
might be formed into something ex