nk noiselessly away
as soon as breakfast was over; for, unless one was very firm indeed in
the conviction of one's own innocence, to be beneath this eye was apt
to induce a disagreeable sense of guilt. In the case of Mrs. Gurley,
familiarity had never been known to breed contempt. She was possessed
of what was little short of genius, for ruling through fear; and no
more fitting overseer could have been set at the head of these
half-hundred girls, of all ages and degrees: gentle and common; ruly
and unruly, children hardly out of the nursery, and girls well over the
brink of womanhood, whose ripe, bursting forms told their own tale; the
daughters of poor ministers at reduced fees; and the spoilt heiresses
of wealthy wool-brokers and squatters, whose dowries would mount to
many thousands of pounds.--Mrs. Gurley was equal to them all.

In a very short time, there was no more persistent shrinker from the
ice of this gaze than little Laura. In the presence of Mrs. Gurley the
child had a difficulty in getting her breath. Her first week of school
life had been one unbroken succession of snubs and reprimands. For
this, the undue familiarity of her manner was to blame: she was all too
slow to grasp--being of an impulsive disposition and not naturally
shy--that it was indecorous to accost Mrs. Gurley off-hand, to treat
her, indeed, in any way as if she were an ordinary mortal. The climax
had come one morning--it still made Laura's cheeks burn to remember it.
She had not been able to master her French lesson for that day, and
seeing Mrs. Gurley chatting to a governess had gone thoughtlessly up to
her and tapped her on the arm.

"Mrs. Gurley, please, do you think it would matter very much if I only
took half this verb today? It's COUDRE, and means to sew, you know, and
it's SO hard. I don't seem to be able to get it into my head."

Before the words were out of her mouth, she saw that she had made a
terrible mistake. Mrs. Gurley's face, which had been smiling, froze to
stone. She looked at her arm as though the hand had bitten her, and
Laura's sudden shrinking did not move her, to whom seldom anyone
addressed a word unbidden.

"How DARE you interrupt me--when I am speaking!"--she hissed,
punctuating her words with the ominous head-shakes and pauses. "The
first thing, miss, for you to do, will be, to take a course of lessons,
in manners. Your present ones, may have done well enough, in the
outhouse, to which you have evidently be