Katy came back.  Mrs. Florence’s cheeks were flushed.  She looked very handsome.  Katy almost thought there were tears in her eyes.

“Tell the girls that I thank them very much.  Their present is beautiful.  I shall always value it.”  She blushed as she spoke, and Katy blushed too.  It made her shy to see the usually composed Mrs. Florence so confused.

“What did she say?  What did she say?” demanded the others, who were collected in groups round the school-room door to hear a report of the interview.

Katy repeated her message.  Some of the girls were disappointed.

“Is that all?” they said.  “We thought she would stand up and make a speech.”

“Or a short poem,” put in Rose Red,—­“a few stanzas thrown off on the spur of the moment; like this, for instance:—­

                   “Thank you, kindly, for your basket,
                    Which I didn’t mean to ask it;
                    But I’ll very gladly take it,
                    And when ’tis full of cake, it
                    Will frequently remind me
                    Of the girls I left behind me!

There was a universal giggle, which brought Miss Jane out of the school-room.

“Order!” she said, ringing the bell.  “Young ladies, what are you about?  Study hour has begun.”

“We’re so sorry Mrs. Florence is going away,” said some of the girls.

“How did you know that she is going?” demanded Miss Jane, sharply.  Nobody answered.

Next day Mrs. Florence left.  Katy saw her go with a secret regret.

“If only she would have said that she didn’t believe I wrote that note!” she told Clover.

“I don’t care what she believes!  She’s a stupid, unjust woman!” replied independent little Clover.

Mrs. Nipson was now in sole charge of the establishment.  She had never tried school-keeping before, and had various pet plans and theories of her own, which she had only been waiting for Mrs. Florence’s departure to put into practice.

One of these was that the school was to dine three times a week on pudding and bread and butter.  Mrs. Nipson had a theory,—­very convenient and economical for herself, but highly distasteful to her scholars,—­that it was injurious for young people to eat meat every day in hot weather.

The puddings were made of batter, with a sprinkling of blackberries or raisins.  Now, rising at six, and studying four hours and a half on a light breakfast, has wonderful effect on the appetite, as all who have tried it will testify.  The poor girls would go down to dinner as hungry as wolves, and eye the large, pale slices on their plates with a wrath and dismay which I cannot describe.  Very thick the slices were, and there was plenty of thin, sugared sauce to eat with them, and plenty of bread and butter; but, somehow, the whole was unsatisfying, and the hungry girls would go upstairs almost as ravenous as when they came down.  The second-table-ites were always hanging over the balusters to receive them, and when to the demand, “What did you have for dinner?” “Pudding!” was answered, a low groan would run from one to another, and a general gloom seemed to drop down and envelop the party.