yself I was lying on the sofa in the library. Mrs.
Marshall was bending over me, bathing my head with eau de Cologne, and
Miss Buller was fanning me with a palm-leaf screen.

"Are you better, my dear?" asked Mrs. Marshall anxiously. "Don't try to
get up. Drink this glass of water and lie down again."

"What happened?" I asked. "How did I come here?"

"You fainted in the class-room, but you must not talk about it now. I
wish you to rest for a while, and then Miss Buller shall bring you some
beef-tea."

"I don't want any, thank you!" I said, trying to raise myself a little,
but my head swam so strangely and I felt so giddy and queer that I was
glad to sink back again upon the sofa cushions.

"I think we had better put you to bed," said Mrs. Marshall, adding in an
undertone to Miss Buller: "If she is not better by this evening, I shall
certainly send for the doctor."

I was not better by the evening; my hands were burning hot, and my head
felt so unusually light that I could scarcely recognize the many people
who seemed to come in and out of my room. I knew that when I asked for
water Miss Buller was always ready with the glass in her hand, I thought
once that Cathy was sobbing quietly behind the curtain of my bed, and I
am certain that Mrs. Marshall never left me all night.

"It is a decided case of nervous breakdown, due to overwork," I heard
the doctor saying. "You must keep her very quiet, and I will see her
again in the morning."

There were no more lessons for me that term. As soon as I was well
enough to travel Aunt Agatha took me herself for a fortnight to
Brighton, where the restful uneventful days and the invigorating
sea-breezes soon brought back the roses to my cheeks, and gave me
untroubled sleep and peaceful dreams at night. I think this episode, and
something which the doctor had said, must have caused Mrs. Marshall
seriously to reconsider the rules of the school and the hours of our
work. She was a sensible woman, most conscientious over our well-being,
and ever ready to adopt new ideas if she believed them to be better than
the old ones. When I returned to school at the beginning of the next
term, I found that our time-table was completely changed. The hours of
work were considerably relaxed, and instead of the stupid walks up and
down the high-road, we were taken almost daily rambles over the hills or
in the beautiful woods by the river. Miss Percy had mysteriously
disappeared, and her place was