ks were half
obliterated. For a moment the schoolmistress's amazement held her
motionless, but fresh and louder moans recalled her to the immediate
necessities of the case. She pushed Ida Starr aside, and, with the help
of a servant-girl who had by this time appeared in the room, raised the
sufferer into a chair, and began to apply what remedies suggested
themselves. The surgeon, whom several of the children had hastened to
seek, only lived a few yards away, and his assistant was speedily
present. Harriet Smales had quite recovered consciousness, and was very
soon able to give her own account of the incident. After listening to
her, Miss Rutherford turned to the schoolchildren, who were now seated
in the usual order on benches, and spoke to them with some degree of
calm.

"I am going to take Harriet home. Lucy Wood, you will please to see
that order is preserved in my absence; I shall only be away twenty
minutes, at the most. Ida Starr, you will go up into my sitting-room,
and remain there till I come to you. All take out your copy-books; I
shall examine the lines written whilst I am away."

The servant, who had been despatched for a cab, appeared at the door.
Harriet Smales was led out. Before leaving the house, Miss Rutherford
whispered to the servant an order to occupy herself in the
sitting-room, so as to keep Ida Starr in sight.

Miss Rutherford, strict disciplinarian when her nerves were not
unstrung, was as good as her promise with regard to the copy-books. She
had returned within the twenty minutes, and the first thing she did was
to walk along all the benches, making a comment here, a correction
there, in another place giving a word of praise. Then she took her
place at the raised desk whence she was wont to survey the little room.

There were present thirteen pupils, the oldest of them turned fifteen,
the youngest scarcely six. They appeared to be the daughters of
respectable people, probably of tradesmen in the neighbourhood. This
school was in Lisson Grove, in the north-west of London; a spot not to
be pictured from its name by those ignorant of the locality; in point
of fact a dingy street, with a mixture of shops and private houses. On
the front door was a plate displaying Miss Rutherford's name,--nothing
more. That lady herself was middle-aged, grave at all times, kindly,
and, be it added, fairly competent as things go in the world of school.
The room was rather bare, but the good fire necessitated by