“No,” said Agatha sweetly, “but I want to go, if I may.”

Miss Wilson looked round.  The sixth form consisted of four studious young ladies, whose goal in life for the present was an examination by one of the Universities, or, as the college phrase was, “the Cambridge Local.”  None of them responded.

“Fifth form, then,” said Miss Wilson.

Jane, Gertrude, and four others rose and stood with Agatha.

“Very well,” said Miss Wilson.  “Do not be long dressing.”

They left the room quietly, and dashed at the staircase the moment they were out of sight.  Agatha, though void of emulation for the Cambridge Local, always competed with ardor for the honor of being first up or down stairs.

They soon returned, clad for walking, and left the college in procession, two by two, Jane and Agatha leading, Gertrude and Miss Wilson coming last.  The road to Lyvern lay through acres of pasture land, formerly arable, now abandoned to cattle, which made more money for the landlord than the men whom they had displaced.  Miss Wilson’s young ladies, being instructed in economics, knew that this proved that the land was being used to produce what was most wanted from it; and if all the advantage went to the landlord, that was but natural, as he was the chief gentleman in the neighborhood.  Still the arrangement had its disagreeable side; for it involved a great many cows, which made them afraid to cross the fields; a great many tramps, who made them afraid to walk the roads; and a scarcity of gentlemen subjects for the maiden art of fascination.

The sky was cloudy.  Agatha, reckless of dusty stockings, waded through the heaps of fallen leaves with the delight of a child paddling in the sea; Gertrude picked her steps carefully, and the rest tramped along, chatting subduedly, occasionally making some scientific or philosophical remark in a louder tone, in order that Miss Wilson might overhear and give them due credit.  Save a herdsman, who seemed to have caught something of the nature and expression of the beasts he tended, they met no one until they approached the village, where, on the brow of an acclivity, masculine humanity appeared in the shape of two curates:  one tall, thin, close-shaven, with a book under his arm, and his neck craned forward; the other middle-sized, robust, upright, and aggressive, with short black whiskers, and an air of protest against such notions as that a clergyman may not marry, hunt, play cricket, or share the sports of honest laymen.  The shaven one was Mr. Josephs, his companion Mr. Fairholme.  Obvious scriptural perversions of this brace of names had been introduced by Agatha.

“Here come Pharaoh and Joseph,” she said to Jane.  “Joseph will blush when you look at him.  Pharaoh won’t blush until he passes Gertrude, so we shall lose that.”

“Josephs, indeed!” said Jane scornfully.

“He loves you, Jane.  Thin persons like a fine armful of a woman.  Pharaoh, who is a cad, likes blue blood on the same principle of the attraction of opposites.  That is why he is captivated by Gertrude’s aristocratic air.”