One night, the last of the term, the Classical Mistress was closeted with the Head. Rhoda, elbow-deep in examination papers, had been critically considering seventy variously ingenious renderings of a certain chorus, when the sudden rapping of a pen on the table roused her from her labours.
"You must see for yourself, Rhoda, how we are placed. We must keep up to a certain standard of efficiency in the staff. Miss Quincey is getting past her work."
(Rhoda became instantly absorbed in sharpening a pencil.)
"For the last two terms she has been constantly breaking down; and now
I'm very much afraid she is breaking-up."
The Head remained solemnly unconscious of her own epigram.
"No wonder," said Rhoda to herself, "first love at fifty is new wine in old bottles; everybody knows what happens to the bottles."
The flush and the frown on the Classical Mistress's face might have been accounted for by the sudden snapping of the pencil.
"You see," continued Miss Cursiter, as if defending herself from some accusation conveyed by the frown, "as it is we have kept her on a long while for her sister's sake."
(A murmur from the Classical Mistress.)
"Of course we must put it to her prettily, wrap it up—in tissue paper."