The Story of our Lives from Year to Year."-SHAKESPEARE.

PUBLISHED AT No. 26, WELLINGTON STREET; AND BY MESSRS. CHAPMAN & HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.

1876.

ALL T

YEAR

YEAR ROUN

A Weekly Journal

CONDUCTED BY

CHARLES DICKENS

WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED

HOUSEHOLD WORDS"

No. 381. NEW SERIES.

SATURDAY, MARCH 18, 1876.

PRICE TWOPENCE.

PHEBE: GIRL AND WIFE. keep up your painting," was often the

CHAPTER IX. BREAKING-UP DAY AT HAND.

MEANWHILE, the school was approaching that wished-for period when "finishing was suspended for the vacation; and the young ladies-save, of course, a few casuals with officious guardians, or whose parents lived about the Equator or the Antipodes -were to go home. Now began those processes, which were to convince the parents that their money and affectionate interest had been well invested. The drawing-master had gathered up all those laboured pencil-scratchings-the crooked trees, whose boughs and foliage were as solid and heavy as the houses beside them; the houses which were as crooked and crazy as the trees; the smirched watercolour drawings, awful medley of tones and spots-and had taken them home with him. On the great day, all would lie on the table, fair, clean, and beautiful; the crooked portions made straight, the trees blooming with airy foliage, the houses relieved with bold bits of colour dashed in with a free touch; and all charmingly trimmed and mounted on the snowiest Bristol board. A miracle! At first the pupil might rub her eyes, and scarcely recognise her production; but time and praise would accustom her to accept it; the thing being richly framed and hung up, Mademoiselle, having given up the "accomplishment" altogether, gradually begins to confound her own touches with those of the master, and complacently accept praises for those early works.

"What a pity, Georgina, you did not

speech of an affectionate mamma, as her eye settled on the red cloak of the peasant in the foreground, which was entirely Mr. Stippler's work, splashed in desperately to save the whole.

So, too, with the music. Mr. Canova had a number of easy pieces in what might be called the "Ba-ba black-sheep" style, The Maiden's Prayer, Trickling Drops, &c., which he hammered painfully into the fingers of his pupils. Through these they contrived to pick their steps. But he devised more ambitious displays for the day of Exhibition, when the strangers were present, by, as it were, touching up the pieces with his own hands, just as the drawing-master did for his department. These were the compound performances of two pianofortes, or duets on a single one, in all of which Canova officiated, and took the burden on himself.

So with the elocution teachers, Mr. and Mrs. Siddons-Jones, and the French and other masters, and the Oxford B.A., who looked after the Latin and Greek, or the little scraps of those languages. All was with a view to "finishing." If a handsome display were but secured on that day, when so many distinguished people were assembled, the parents, as Miss Cooke knew, would be content.

Now, too, the examinations were on; and the few "hot-house" girls, who were to support the reputation of the establishment, were already marked out for prizes. Thus, the daughter of Mr. and Lady Juliana Mann-he was "in the diplomacy"-was of rather a pedantic turn; and it was surely natural that she should bear off the history premium. Mr. Mann had promised to attend, and it would really be interesting

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