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18 in mind the question of which should control the educational system. The eventual denunciation of the concordat is one of the certainties of French politics. There are reasons, however, why the movement may now pause. There are other pressing questions, and the forces back of them are in a measure interlocked with those which have dominated the anti-clerical struggle—especially is that true of the demand of the Socialists. The consideration of that subject must be left to a second article, as must also the aspect of the Socialist movement in other countries beside France.

DON’T suppose we should ever have had such a thrilling time as we did about Mr. Angell and Miss Peck, if Ben hadn’t succeeded so well with Norah and her lover. I mean, we should never have dared to, probably. But when Ben (who is really the cleverest girl I ever knew in my life) got Norah and Charles off our hands and married, she felt equal to anything. I might tell about that, just to give you an idea of what Ben can do when she puts her mind to it.

You see, Norah is one of the upstairs girls at the School and gets around to our hall about eleven o’clock. And Ben’s practice hour is from ten to eleven, and she always comes up to wash her hands, because she comes after Louise Wallin and the keys are always sticky from jujube paste. She hates practicing, Louise does, and it’s all that keeps her up.

So Norah was always there, and Ben got to know her quite well. Ben always knows the servants, somehow, and they are almost always fond of her. Well, one day Norah looked very sad, and the next day she was sadder, and wouldn’t talk at all, and the day after that, when Ben asked her what the matter was, she burst out crying.

It was Charles, who brings the fresh vegetables from up in the country somewhere. They were engaged, and all was bright before them, and then misfortune, like a menacing cloud, blotted out forever all the happiness of their life. Not that Norah said it like that, of course, but it was that way in the novel we began about it. It was named “His Evil Star, or the Mistake of a Life Time,” and it was really very good—parts of it. Connie Van Cott wrote one chapter and of course we might have known she would have them all die, and she did. Elaine and Archibald and the father all said some poetry about heaven and died, and we couldn’t go on with the thing very well after that.

You see, Norah and Charles had quarrelled about something, and while they were quarrelling, another girl, that works in one of the candy-shops in the village, just led him away from Norah. Norah said she—the other girl—wasn’t fit to be spoken to and wore a great big switch of false hair, “But what does that matter, Miss Benigna, when a man once loses his head?” she said. She wrote long letters to Charles, and he sent one of them to Norah and wrote a note that said that the woman who could write letters like that when far apart had more love in her heart than a girl that never