The hands of the ugly old clock in the school-room were approaching the time when the studies of the morning would come to an end.  Wearily waiting for their release, the scholars saw an event happen which was a novelty in their domestic experience.  The maid-of-all-work audaciously put her head in at the door, and interrupted Miss Wigger conducting the education of the first-class.

“If you please, miss, there’s a gentleman—­”

Having uttered these introductory words, she was reduced to silence by the tremendous voice of her mistress.

“Haven’t I forbidden you to come here in school hours?  Go away directly!”

Hardened by a life of drudgery, under conditions of perpetual scolding, the servant stood her ground, and recovered the use of her tongue.

“There’s a gentleman in the drawing-room,” she persisted.  Miss Wigger tried to interrupt her again.  “And here’s his card!” she shouted, in a voice that was the louder of the two.

Being a mortal creature, the schoolmistress was accessible to the promptings of curiosity.  She snatched the card out of the girl’s hand.

Mr. Herbert Linley, Mount Morven, Perthshire. “I don’t know this person,” Miss Wigger declared.  “You wretch, have you let a thief into the house?”

“A gentleman, if ever I see one yet,” the servant asserted.

“Hold your tongue!  Did he ask for me?  Do you hear?”

“You told me to hold my tongue.  No; he didn’t ask for you.”

“Then who did he want to see?”

“It’s on his card.”

Miss Wigger referred to the card again, and discovered (faintly traced in pencil) these words:  “To see Miss S.W.”

The schoolmistress instantly looked at Miss Westerfield.  Miss
Westerfield rose from her place at the head of her class.

The pupils, astonished at this daring act, all looked at the teacher—­their natural enemy, appointed to supply them with undesired information derived from hated books.  They saw one of Mother Nature’s favorite daughters; designed to be the darling of her family, and the conqueror of hearts among men of all tastes and ages.  But Sydney Westerfield had lived for six weary years in the place of earthly torment, kept by Miss Wigger under the name of a school.  Every budding beauty, except the unassailable beauty of her eyes and her hair, had been nipped under the frosty superintendence of her maternal aunt.  Her cheeks were hollow, her delicate lips were pale; her shabby dress lay flat over her bosom.  Observant people, meeting her when she was out walking with the girls, were struck by her darkly gentle eyes, and by the patient sadness of her expression.  “What a pity!” they said to each other.  “She would be a pretty girl, if she didn’t look so wretched and so thin.”

At a loss to understand the audacity of her teacher in rising before the class was dismissed, Miss Wigger began by asserting her authority.  She did in two words:  “Sit down!”