y, you _are_ horrid. What happened to her? Where is she now?"

"Dead!" croaked Nancy, and drew the screen around her bed. After that
Dreda might question as much as she liked, but she knew well that never
a reply would Nancy vouchsafe. It was really most tiresome!

She lay awake for a good ten minutes pondering over what _could_ have
happened to Netta Bryce, and if she had died soon, and under what
conditions. Nancy was really the most aggravating of creatures!

Besides Miss Drake, commonly called "The Duck," there were two other
resident teachers at West Hill. Mademoiselle--a tiny, pathetic-looking
little creature, warranted to fly into a temper in a shorter time, and
upon less provocation, than any other woman in the United Kingdom; and
Fraulein, a lumpish but amiable creature who gave lessons in German and
music. Miss Bretherton herself took the whole school for the morning
Bible lesson, and had a disagreeable habit of descending upon the
different forms at unexpected moments, and taking the place of the
regular teacher. Of course, the surprise visit invariably happened just
at the moment when the girls had "slacked," whereupon fright being added
to ignorance, they would make such a poor display that they themselves
were covered with confusion and their instructor with mortification.
Almost every day at dinner time two or three girls could be observed
with crimson cheeks and watery eyes gazing miserably at their plates,
when the beholders would nudge each other significantly, and exchange
glances of commiserating understanding. "Our turn next!"

Two masters also visited the school. Mr Broun, the professor of music,
was a small, shaggy-looking personage, with a bumpy brow and eyes set
extraordinarily far apart. He was a born musician, and, as a
consequence, found it infinitely irritating to the nerves to be obliged
to teach young ladies who had not one note of music in their
composition, but whose parents considered an acquaintance with the
pianoforte to be a necessity of education. When one of these
unfortunates went up for her lesson, shouts and groans of despair could
be heard outside the door of the music-room, accompanied by the sound of
heavy footsteps pacing helplessly to and fro, and at the end of the
half-hour the victim would emerge, red and tearful, or red and defiant,
as her nature was, to recount gruesome stories of brutality to her
companions. "He rapped my ringers with his pencil. I won'