"I think, perhaps, something quite different would be best," said Katharine, detaining her with difficulty. "Would you like it to be on Gothic architecture?"
Mrs. Downing did not know the difference between a pinnacle and a buttress, but she hastened to say she would like Gothic architecture better than anything else in the world, and had, in fact, been on the point of suggesting it herself; after which, she went to interrupt the first class also, and Katharine devoted her energies to collecting the wandering attention of her own pupils.
At the end of her lecture the lady principal hastened up to her.
"How extremely interesting, to be sure! I had no idea those vaults, and pillars, and things, were so beautiful before. Where did you find out all that? I should like to learn it up myself in the holidays, and give a course of lessons on it to the first class next term."
Katharine tried not to smile.
"I have been learning it all my life, from my father. I don't think I know any textbooks; it would be difficult to read it up in a hurry, I should think." But the lady principal never allowed herself to be thwarted, when she had a fresh idea. Besides, Gothic architecture was quite new, and would be sure to take in the neighbourhood.
"Then you must give a course yourself to the whole school, my dear Miss Austen," she exclaimed. "I insist upon it; and we will begin the first Wednesday of next term."
Anything that promised an addition to her salary was sure to be agreeable to Katharine, and she was only too pleased to agree. But, meanwhile, her finances were in a deplorable condition. She found herself with nothing but the change out of half a sovereign, about ten days before the end of the term; and although she could easily have asked Miss Jennings to give her credit until she received her salary, she had all a woman's hyper-sensitiveness of conscience, and all her disregard of the importance of food as well; and she resolutely set to work to starve herself during those ten days. Fortunately, she was constitutionally strong, and she never reached the stage of privation when food becomes distasteful; but there was little consolation for her in the fact that she remained healthily hungry all the time, and had to run past the pastry-cooks' shops to escape their seductive display. Long walks at supper time did not compensate for a meal that was satisfying, if it was not very tempting; and the irony of it all was forced upon her with a somewhat grim significance by something that occurred, when she came up to bed one evening, tired out and dispirited. She noticed that the girls stopped talking directly she entered the room; but this would not have aroused her suspicions, if Phyllis Hyam had not made a point of conversing vigorously with her through the curtains, and being more brusque than usual when the others tried to interrupt her.
"Good old Phyllis," reflected Katharine. "They have evidently been abusing me. I wonder what I have done!"
Phyllis enlightened her somewhat unwillingly, the next morning, when the others had gone down to breakfast.