said one of the mothers, as she strolled about the velvet lawn with her
daughters, 'instead of being mewed up in a dingy London square.'

'You wouldn't say that if you saw the bread and scrape and the sloppy tea
we have for breakfast,' answered one of the girls,

'It's all very well for you, who see this wretched hole in the sunshine,
and old Pew in her best gown and her company manners. The place is a
whited sepulchre. I should like you to have a glimpse behind the scenes,
ma.'

'Ma' smiled placidly, and turned a deaf ear to these aspersions of the
schoolmistress. Her girls looked well fed and healthy. Bread and scrape
evidently agreed with them much better than that reckless consumption of
butter and marmalade which swelled the housekeeping bills during the
holidays.

It was a great day. Miss Pew the elder was splendid in apple-green moire
antique; Miss Pew the younger was elegant in pale and flabby raiment of
cashmere and crewel-work. The girls were in that simple white muslin of
the _jeune Meess Anglaise_, to which they were languishing to bid an
eternal adieu. There were a great many pretty girls at Mauleverer Manor,
and on this day, when the white-robed girlish forms were flitting to and
fro upon the green lawns, in the sweet summer air and sunshine, it seemed
as if the old manorial mansion were a bower of beauty. Among the parents
of existing pupils who had accepted the Misses Pew's invitation was Dr.
Rylance, the fashionable physician, whose presence there conferred
distinction upon the school. It was Miss Rylance's last term, and the
doctor wished to assist at those honours which she would doubtless reap
as the reward of meritorious studies. He was not blindly devoted to his