red her with great confidence that it was only the clever men who
were made rectors. Ellen Marriott was going to be confirmed. She was a
short, fair, plump girl, with blue eyes and sandy hair, which was this
morning arranged in taller cannon curls than usual, for the reception of
the Episcopal benediction, and some of the young ladies thought her the
prettiest girl in the school; but others gave the preference to her
rival, Maria Gardner, who was much taller, and had a lovely 'crop' of
dark-brown ringlets, and who, being also about to take upon herself the
vows made in her name at her baptism, had oiled and twisted her ringlets
with especial care. As she seated herself at the breakfast-table before
Miss Townley's entrance to dispense the weak coffee, her crop excited so
strong a sensation that Ellen Marriott was at length impelled to look at
it, and to say with suppressed but bitter sarcasm, 'Is that Miss
Gardner's head?' 'Yes,' said Maria, amiable and stuttering, and no match
for Ellen in retort; 'th--th--this is my head.' 'Then I don't admire it
at all!' was the crushing rejoinder of Ellen, followed by a murmur of
approval among her friends. Young ladies, I suppose, exhaust their sac of
venom in this way at school. That is the reason why they have such a
harmless tooth for each other in after life.

The only other candidate for confirmation at Miss Townley's was Mary
Dunn, a draper's daughter in Milby and a distant relation of the Miss
Linnets. Her pale lanky hair could never be coaxed into permanent curl,
and this morning the heat had brought it down to its natural condition of
lankiness earlier than usual. But that was not what made her sit
melancholy and apart at the lower end of the form. Her parents were
admirers of Mr. Tryan, and had been persuaded, by the Miss Linnets'
influence, to insist that their daughter should be prepared for
confirmation by him, over and above the preparation given to Miss
Townley's pupils by Mr. Crewe. Poor Mary Dunn! I am afraid she thought it
too heavy a price to pay for these spiritual advantages, to be excluded
from every game at ball to be obliged to walk with none but little
girls--in fact, to be the object of an aversion that nothing short of an
incessant supply of plumcakes would have neutralized. And Mrs. Dunn was
of opinion that plumcake was unwholesome. The anti-Tryanite spirit, you
perceive, was very strong at Miss Townley's, imported probably by day
scholars, as well as enco