Poor old “Grumper”; advertising, he got her, paid her highly, and gave her almost absolute control of the minds, souls, and bodies of his young wards and “grandchildren”.

“The best of everything” for them—­and they, at the average age of eight, a band of depressed, resentful babes, had “hanged, drawed, and quartered” her in effigy, within a month of coming beneath her stony ministrations.

In appearance Miss Smellie was tall, thin, and flat.  Most exceedingly and incredibly flat.  Impossibly flat.  Her figure, teeth, voice, hair, manner, hats, clothes, and whole life and conduct were flat as Euclid’s plane-surface or yesterday’s champagne.

To counter-balance the possession, perhaps, of so many virtues, gifts, testimonials, and certificates she had no chin, no eyebrows, and no eyelashes.  Her eyes were weak and watery; her spectacles strong and thick; her nose indeterminate, wavering, erratic; her ears large, her teeth irregular and protrusive, her mouth unfortunate and not guaranteed to close.

An ugly female face is said to be the index and expression of an ugly mind.  It certainly was so in the case of Miss Smellie.  Not that she had an evil or vicious mind in any way—­far from it, for she was a narrowly pious and dully conscientious woman.  Her mind was ugly as a useful building may be very ugly—­or as a room devoid of beautiful furniture or over-crowded with cheap furniture may be ugly.

And her mind was devoid of beautiful thought-furniture, and over-crowded with cheap and ugly furniture of text-book facts.  She was an utterly loveless woman, living unloving, and unloved—­a terrible condition.

One could not like her.

Deadly dull, narrow, pedantic, petty, uninspiring, Miss Smellie’s ideals, standards, and aims were incredibly low.

She lived, and taught others to live, for appearances.

The children were so to behave that they might appear “genteel”.  If they were to do this or that, no one would think they were young ladies or young gentlemen.

“If we were out at tea and you did that, I should be ashamed,” she would cry when some healthy little human licked its jarnmy fingers, and “Do you wish to be considered vulgar or a little gentleman, Damocles?”

Damocles was profoundly indifferent on the point and said so plainly.

They were not to be clean of hand for hygienic reasons—­but for fear of what people might “think”; they were not to be honourable, gentle, brave and truthful because these things are fine—­but because of what the World might dole out in reward; they were not to eat slowly and masticate well for their health’s sake—­but by reason of “good manners”; they were not to study that they might develop their powers of reasoning, store their minds, and enlarge their horizons—­but that they might pass some infernal examination or other, ad majorem Smelliae gloriam; they were