Spring Fashions


Winter had come and gone, and spring found Miss Quincey back again at St.
Sidwell's, the place of illumination; a place that knew rather less of
her than it had known before. After five-and-twenty years of constant
attendance she had only to be away three months to be forgotten. The new
staff was not greatly concerned with Miss Quincey; it was always busy. As
for the girls, they were wholly given over to the new worship of Rhoda
Vivian; impossible to rouse them to the faintest interest in Miss
Quincey.

Her place had been kept for her by Rhoda. Rhoda had put out the strong
young arm that she was so proud of, and held back for a little while Miss
Quincey's fate; and now at all costs she was determined to stand between
her and the truth. So Miss Quincey never knew that it was Rhoda who was
responsible for the delicate attentions she had received during her
illness; Rhoda who had bought and sent off the presents from St.
Sidwell's; Rhoda who had conceived that pretty little idea of flowers
"with love"; and Rhoda who had inspired the affectionate messages of the
staff. (The Classical Mistress had to draw most extravagantly on her
popularity in order to work that fraud.) Rhoda had taken her place, and
it was not in Rhoda's power to give it back to her. But Miss Quincey
never saw it; for a subtler web than that of Rhoda's spinning was woven
about her eyes.

Possibly in some impressive and inapparent way her unhappy little
favourite Laura Lazarus may have been glad to see her back again, though
the two queer creatures exchanged no greeting more intimate than an
embarrassed smile. In this rapidly-advancing world the Mad Hatter alone