he has in
his eyes. I'm a believer in first impressions, and I knew in a second
I wasn't going to like him."

Aveline sighed dramatically.

"It's rough on a poor young girl in her early teens to be put through
an ordeal by a stern and elderly individual who'll have absolutely no
consideration for her feelings."

"Feelings! You'll have your head snapped off!" prophesied Raymonde.

"Why couldn't the Bumble have examined us herself, or at any rate let
the Professor do it?"

"Ask me a harder, child!"

"Well, I think it's very unnecessary to have this Mr. Beasley. Bumble
Bee, indeed! He's a regular hornet!"

Whatever the private opinion of the Fifth might be on the subject of
their examiner, they were obliged to hide their injured feelings under
a cloak of absolute propriety. The reverend visitor was a solid fact,
and all the grumbling in the world could not remove the incubus of his
presence. At nine o'clock on Tuesday morning he would begin his
inquisition, and the girls judged that there would be scant mercy for
any sinner who failed to reach the required standard. A terrible
atmosphere of gloomy convention pervaded the school. Miss Beasley was
anxious for her pupils to appear at their very best before her
scholarly brother, whose ideal of maidenly propriety was almost
mediaeval, and she kept a keen eye on their behaviour. Nobody dared to
speak at meal-times, except a whispered request for such necessary
articles as salt and butter; laughter was out of the question, and
even a smile was felt to be inappropriate. The girls sat subdued and
demure, outwardly the pink of propriety, but inwardly smouldering, and
listened obediently while the visitor, mindful of his educational
position in the establishment, held forth upon subjects calculated to
improve their minds.

"I don't believe Gibbie likes him either!" opined Katherine, after
Monday night's supper.

"Of course not! He beats her on her own ground. As for the Bumble,
she's quite distraught. She keeps glancing at us as if she expected
somebody all the time to spill her tea, or break a plate, or pull a
face, or do something dreadful. We're not usually an ill-behaved
set!"

"He's getting on my nerves!" complained Aveline.

"The place is more like a reformatory than a school!" growled
Morvyth.

When the post-bag arrived on Tuesday morning, it contained, among
other letters and parcels, a small narrow packet directed to Miss R.
Armitage. Miss Gibbs, whose bu