This Freedom

nts; but what only one person c

and experience of its mighty truth, used to cause, during the three holiday periods o

Professions has UNEXPECTED VACANCY for ONE ONLY pupil at reduced

l! That was t

re from a short, sharp-featured girl of her own age, which then was twelve, who s

alie, not understanding but mos

'm with you. Did your mother see the advertisement in

shown it to her and to them all. "One of the very best schools," Aunt

did," sa

he advertisement then you are a One Only at reduced terms, and I knew you were directly I saw you. Now, tell me. Don

sin Laetitia's

for her. Poopers! Do you know what a pooper is? A pooper is half a poop and half a pauper. Every One O

said she

a Red I

prised, for the girl did not loo

e sharp girl. "Do

shook

said the s

n't," sai

ll the nice girls are Sultans and the s

alie, though she

Sultans. The One Onlys and the Red Indians are interlopers, especial

iggled her

in,

epeated t

forward, looking very like Gagool, the witch, in King Solomon's Mines; and was seen by Rosalie to pounce upon

This Oakwood House School in which Rosalie now found herself was one of those very big old houses with a spacious, walled-in garden that probably was occupied in the Fifties somewhere, when St. John's Wood was out in the country, by a wealthy old City merchant who rode in to business two or three times a week, never dreaming

used to come flashing back in emotional little screams from the head of the crocodile, gazing with goggling eyes, to the tail of the crocodile pressing deliriously up behind. "The Maybrick Case"; "Jack the Ripper Again"; "Death of the Duke of Clarence"; "Loss of H.M.S. Victoria"; Rosalie never afterwards could hear those terrific things referred to without recalling instantly the con

he direction of the discipline and education of the pupils was in the hands of the chief of the Sultana's staff of badly paid and much intimidated mistresses. This chief of staff, by name Miss Ough, but called the Vizier, appeared from and disappeared into the quarters occupied by the Sultana, and was popularly supposed to be kept there in a dungeon. If you were near the door through which the Vizier pass

d lived in two rooms over the stable. From the front classroom windows he was to be seen every morning disappearing through the front gates at about eleven o'clock; very shiny top hat; very tight tail coat; very tight grey trousers; very tight yellow gloves; very tight grey-yellow moustache; very tight pa

uld imagine these governesses, judged by their nicknames, a deplorable collection of oddities. Actually they must have been a presentable enough and a capable enough set of spinsters, though sicklied o'er by the pale cast

d an entertaining creature; partly because of her curiously supine periods in which she would be utterly listless, allow her class to do anything they liked provided they kept perfectly quiet, and would make no attempt whatsoever to correct idleness or to impart the lesson of the hour. Miss Keggs had been

e the One Onlys were in a very weak and humble minority in Rosalie's first term and were rather hunted by the Sultans who were then particularly strong in numbers and rich in apparel, in pocket money

iss Keggs like Anna, and Rosalie lingered and was invited to linger; after that Rosalie sought and invented reasons for go

l stove there was nearly always a very strong smell in Miss Keggs's room. Miss Keggs used eau de Cologne for bathing her forehead and temples on account of the very bad headaches from which she said she suffered and the smell was like eau de Cologne but with an unpleasantly harsh strong tang in it, like bad eau de Cologne, Rosalie used to think. However, you almost at once got accustomed to that also. These headaches of Miss Keggs were a sympt

e, in one part genuinely sympathetic and in the other eager to d

. Ponders very kindly gives me some medicine that relieves my bad attacks. I wonder, Rosalie, if you could find your way down

," cried Rosalie, delighted at th

erish animation of one who, having made up her mind aft

called her back. "And, Rosalie! If you should meet any one-if you should meet any one, on no account say where you are going or where you have been. On no account. If it should be known how ill I continue to be, I might be sent away. They might think I am not strong enough

nd thrillingly whisper. This always meant that for some fortunate girl a parent or an aunt had arrived and that the presence of the fortunate girl was desired by the Sultana. He was a shortish, dingy man with a considerable moustache. As he walked between the desks to deliver his message, his eyes

d went in. The walls of Mr. Ponders' room were completely surrounded by narrow shelves. Beneath the shelves were the closed doors of low cupboards and on the shelves were ranged many glasses, china and si

want?" inquir

s is not feeling at all well and would you be so ver

ared in the schoolrooms for there was an unpleasing familiarity in his air, but still decidedly mysterious, for though he smiled and looked snakily at Rosalie, he still glanced from side to side as though furti

in his pockets and stretching out his stomach like one much at his

man, Mr.

uld catch sight of it, and continued thus to slide with the same suggestion while he playfully put Rosalie through a further examination relative to her "Auntie," her "Ma" and her brothers and sisters. He a

ment, then with a decisive action opened the cupboard and from a tall black bottle very carefully and steadily filled the medicine bottle. The medicine was dark red. It f

oved to say, "How well y

paused in his mysteriously deliberative way, and then suddenly handed it to her. "And a tidy fair drop for Miss Keggs at that," he added. He

must have heard her coming. The door was pulled sharply from Rosalie's hand and there was Miss Keggs and the bottle almost snatched away from Rosalie. "How long you've been! But you've got it! And no one saw you?" Miss Keggs went very swiftly to the washstand and took up a small tumbler. Clear that she wanted her

only filled her mouth to its capacity. She then swallowed very slowly and with movements of her cheeks as though she was sucking down the

cend to the den of Mr. Ponders for the dark-red medicine which did Miss Keggs so much good and which she always took in that peculiar sucking way from a full mouth, one would be so long sometimes in swallowing a mouthful, beginning a sentence and then drinking and then all

iness," was Ros

business," Mis

y it is, Miss Keggs, that Mr.

nly very lucky,"

cine was always to mak