Our dismal exercise was a promenade in double file under the eye and ear of Madame herself.
True, we were allowed fifteen minutes' "recreation" together, and by ourselves, in the school-room, just after dinner; but this inestimable privilege was always marred by the fact that Madame invariably came for us before the quarter of an hour had expired.

No other part of school discipline annoyed us as this did.

It had that element of injustice against which children always rebel.

Why she did so remains to this day a puzzle to me.

She worked very hard for her living--a fact which did not occur to us in those days to modify our view of her as our natural tormentor.