CHAPTER III.
One of the professors at Alton College was a Mrs.Miller, an old-fashioned schoolmistress who did not believe in Miss Wilson's system of government by moral force, and carried it out under protest.

Though not ill-natured, she was narrow-minded enough to be in some degree contemptible, and was consequently prone to suspect others of despising her.

She suspected Agatha in particular, and treated her with disdainful curtness in such intercourse as they had--it was fortunately little.
Agatha was not hurt by this, for Mrs.Miller was an unsympathetic woman, who made no friends among the girls, and satisfied her affectionate impulses by petting a large cat named Gracchus, but generally called Bacchus by an endearing modification of the harsh initial consonant.
One evening Mrs.Miller, seated with Miss Wilson in the study, correcting examination papers, heard in the distance a cry like that of a cat in distress.

She ran to the door and listened.

Presently there arose a prolonged wail, slurring up through two octaves, and subsiding again.