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The Golden Calf by M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon
page 9 of 594 (01%)
your locker, Miss Palliser,' said the schoolmistress.

'Burn everything except my brother's portrait. I might never get another.
Papa is so thoughtless. Oh, please, Miss Pillby, give me back the photo.'

'Give her the photograph,' said Miss Pew, who was not all inhuman,
although she kept a school, a hardening process which is supposed to
deaden the instincts of womanhood. 'And now, pray, Miss Palliser, what
excuse have you to offer for your untidiness?'

'None,' said Ida, 'except that I have no time to be tidy. You can't
expect tidiness from a drudge like me.'

And with this cool retort Miss Palliser turned her back upon her mistress
and left the room.

'Did you ever see such cheek?' murmured the irrepressible Miss Cobb to
her neighbour.

'She can afford to be cheeky,' retorted the neighbour. 'She has nothing
to lose. Old Pew couldn't possibly treat her any worse than she does. If
she did, it would be a police case.'

When Ida Palliser was in the little lobby outside the class room, she
took the little boy's photograph from her pocket, and kissed it
passionately. Then she ran upstairs to a small room on the landing, where
there was nothing but emptiness and a worn-out old square piano, and sat
down for her hour's practice. She was always told off to the worst pianos
in the house. She took out a book of five-finger exercises, by a Leipsic
professor, placed it on the desk, and then, just as she was beginning to
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