You were booked to go." "Why, Laura ?" Miss Quincey was mystified and a little hurt.
"Because"-- a sinister convulsion passed over the ugly little pariah face--"because"-- the Mad Hatter had learnt the force of under-statement--"because I _like_ you." At that Miss Quincey broke down.

"My dear little girl--I am going because I am too old to stay." "Write to me, dear," she said at the last moment; "let me know how you are getting on." But she never knew.

The Mad Hatter did not write.

In fact she never wrote anything again, not even verses.

She was handed over next term to Miss Quincey's brilliant and efficient successor, who made her work hard, with the result that the Mad Hatter got ill of a brain fever just before the Christmas holidays and was never fit for any more work; and never became Classical Mistress or anything else in the least distinguished.