Mr. Jasper goes to his gatehouse, brooding. And thus, as
everything comes to an end, the unaccountable expedition comes to
an end--for the time.
CHAPTER XIII--BOTH AT THEIR BEST
Miss Twinkleton's establishment was about to undergo a serene hush.
The Christmas recess was at hand. What had once, and at no remote
period, been called, even by the erudite Miss Twinkleton herself,
'the half;' but what was now called, as being more elegant, and
more strictly collegiate, 'the term,' would expire to-morrow. A
noticeable relaxation of discipline had for some few days pervaded
the Nuns' House. Club suppers had occurred in the bedrooms, and a
dressed tongue had been carved with a pair of scissors, and handed
round with the curling tongs. Portions of marmalade had likewise
been distributed on a service of plates constructed of curlpaper;
and cowslip wine had been quaffed from the small squat measuring
glass in which little Rickitts (a junior of weakly constitution)
took her steel drops daily. The housemaids had been bribed with
various fragments of riband, and sundry pairs of shoes more or less
down at heel, to make no mention of crumbs in the beds; the airiest
costumes had been worn on these festive occasions; and the daring
Miss Ferdinand had even surprised the company with a sprightly solo
on the comb-and-curlpaper, until suffocated in her own pillow by
two flowing-haired executioners.
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