to do it.
Oh, never speak to me of others after that. Perhaps he saw I wanted it
and did it to please me. But I meant--indeed I did--that I gave it to
him with all my love. Sister, I could bear all the rest; but I have
been unladylike.

(_The curtain falls, and we do not see the sisters again for ten
years._)

_End of Act I._

ACT II

THE SCHOOL

_Ten years later. It is the blue and white room still, but many of
Miss Susan's beautiful things have gone, some of them never to return;
others are stored upstairs. Their place is taken by grim scholastic
furniture: forms, a desk, a globe, a blackboard, heartless maps. It is
here that Miss Phoebe keeps school. Miss Susan teaches in the room
opening off it, once the spare bedroom, where there is a smaller
blackboard (for easier sums) but no globe, as Miss Susan is easily
alarmed. Here are the younger pupils unless they have grown defiant,
when they are promoted to the blue and white room to be under Miss
Phoebe's braver rule. They really frighten Miss Phoebe also, but she
does not let her sister know this._

_It is noon on a day in August, and through the window we can see that
Quality Street is decorated with flags. We also hear at times martial
music from another street. Miss Phoebe is giving a dancing lesson to
half a dozen pupils, and is doing her very best; now she is at the
spinet while they dance, and again she is showing them the new step.
We know it is Miss Phoebe because some of her pretty airs and graces
still cling to her in a forlorn way, but she is much changed. Her
curls are out of sight under a cap, her manner is prim, the light has
gone from her eyes and buoyancy from her figure; she looks not ten
years older but twenty, and not an easy twenty. When the children are
not looking at her we know that she has the headache._

PHOEBE (_who is sometimes at the spinet and sometimes dancing_). Toes
out. So. Chest out. Georgy. Point your toes, Miss Beveridge--so.
So--keep in line; and young ladies, remember your toes. (GEORGY _in
his desire to please has protruded the wrong part of his person. She
writes a C on his chest with chalk._) C stands for chest, Georgy.
This is S.

(MISS SUSAN _darts out of the other room. She is less worn than_ MISS
PHOEBE.)

MISS SUSAN (_whispering so that the pupils may not hear_). Phoebe, how
many are fourteen and seventeen?

PHOEBE (_almost instantly_). Thirty-one.

MISS SUSAN. I thank y