Bilson in the schoolroom--and go up by the back staircase,
ma'am, if you don't object so as to avoid passing Miss Damaris' bedroom
door. I should not presume to suggest it, ma'am, but that our orders as
to quiet are very strict."

In this somewhat ignominious method of reaching her objective Miss
Verity, although more and more mystified, amiably acquiesced--to be
greeted, when Hordle throwing open the schoolroom door formally announced
her, by a sound closely resembling a shriek.

Entrenched behind a couple of yawning trunks, a litter of feminine
apparel and of personal effects--the accumulation of a long term of
years, for she was an inveterate hoarder--encumbering every available
surface, the carpet included, Theresa Bilson stood as at bay.

"My dear friend," Miss Verity exclaimed advancing with kindly
outstretched hands--"what is the meaning of this?"--She looked at the
miscellaneous turn-out of cupboards and chests of drawers, at the display
of garments not usually submitted to the public gaze. "Are you preparing
a rummage sale or are you--but no, surely not!--are you packing? I cannot
describe how anxious I am to hear what has occurred. My sister, Mrs.
Cowden, was extremely adverse to my facing the bad weather; but, I felt
your note could only be answered in person. Let me hear everything."

She drew Theresa from behind the luggage entrenchments, and, putting
aside an assortment of derelict hats and artificial flowers strewn in
most admired confusion on the sofa, made her sit down upon the said piece
of furniture beside her.

Whereupon, in the pensive, rain-washed, mid-day light, which served to
heighten rather than mitigate the prevailing, very unattractive and
rather stuffy disorder obtaining in the room, Theresa Bilson, not without
chokings and lamentations, gave forth the story of her--to herself quite
spectacular--deposition from the command of The Hard and its household.
She had sufficiently recovered her normal attitude, by this time, to pose
to herself, now as a heroine of one of Charlotte Bronte's novels, now as
a milder and more refined sample of injured innocence culled from the
pages of Charlotte Yonge. A narrow, purely personal view inevitably
embodies an order of logic calculated to carry conviction; and Theresa,
even in defeat, retained a degree of self-opinionated astuteness. She
presented her case effectively. To be discharged, and that in disgrace,
to be rendered homeless, cast upon the world