ded the apartment, had long since been removed from their
hinges; they were now rotting in the strip of garden behind the house.

The appearance of Brandenburg College belied its pretentious name. Once
upon a time, its name-plate had decorated the gates of a stately old
mansion in the Fulham of many years ago; here it was that Mrs Devitt,
then Miss Hilda Spraggs, had been educated. Since those fat days, the
name-plate of Brandenburg College had suffered many migrations, always
in a materially downward direction, till now it was screwed on the
railings of a stuffy little road in Shepherd's Bush, which, as Mavis
was in the habit of declaring, was called West Kensington Park for
"short."

The brass plate, much the worse for wear, told the neighbourhood that
Brandenburg College educated the daughters of gentlemen; perhaps it was
as well that this definition, like the plate, was fallen on hard times,
inasmuch as it was capable of such an elastic interpretation that it
enabled the Misses Mee to accept pupils whom, in their prosperous days,
they would have refused. Mavis looked round the familiar, shabby
schoolroom, with its atmosphere of ink and slate pencil, to which she
was so soon to say "good-bye."

It looked desolate this morning, perhaps because there leapt to her
fancy the animated picture it had presented the day before, when it had
been filled by a crowd of pupils (dressed in their best), their
admiring parents and friends.

Yesterday's programme had followed that of all other girls' school
breaking-up celebrations, with the difference that the passages
selected for recital had been wholly culled from the writings of Mr
Ruskin. Reference to the same personage had occurred in the speech to
the prize-winners (every girl in the school had won a prize of sorts)
made by Mr Smiley, the curate, who performed this office; also, the
Misses Mee, when opportunity served, had not been backward in making
copious references to the occasion on which they had drunk tea with the
deceased author. Indeed, the parents and friends had breathed such an
atmosphere of Ruskin that there were eight requests for his works at
the local free library during the following week.

"Good old Ruskin!" laughed Mavis, as she ran downstairs to the
breakfast room, which was situated in the basement. Here, the only
preparation made for the meal was a not too clean table-cloth spread
upon the table. Mavis went into the kitchen, where she found Amelia,