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By Root 2066 0

to be the lover of Teddy Lloyd. "I have had much calumny to put up with on account of my good offices at Cramond," said Miss Brodie. "However, I shall survive it. If I wished I could marry him tomorrow." The morning after this saying, the engagement of Gordon Lowther to Miss Lockhart, the science teacher, was announced in The Scotsman. Nobody had expected it. Miss Brodie was greatly taken aback and suffered untimely, for a space, from a sense of having been betrayed. But she seemed to recall herself to the fact that the true love of her life was Teddy Lloyd whom she had renounced; and Gordon Lowther had merely been useful. She subscribed with the rest of the school to the china tea-set which was presented to the couple at the last assembly of the term. Mr. Lowther made a speech in which he called them "you girlies," glancing shyly from time to time at Miss Brodie who was watching the clouds through the window. Sometimes he looked towards his bride to be, who stood quietly by the side of the headmistress half-way up the hall waiting till he should be finished and they could join him on the platform. He had confidence in Miss Lockhart, as everyone did, she not only played golf well and drove a car, she could also blow up the school with her jar of gunpowder and would never dream of doing so. Miss Brodie's brown eyes were fixed on the clouds, she looked quite beautiful and frail, and it occurred to Sandy that she had possibly renounced Teddy Lloyd only because she was aware that she could not keep up this beauty; it was a quality in her that came and went. Next term, when Mr. Lowther returned from his honeymoon on the island of Eigg, Miss Brodie put her spare energy into her plan for Sandy and Rose, with their insight and instinct; and what energy she had to spare from that she now put into political ideas.

6

Miss Mackay, the headmistress, never gave up pumping the Brodie set. She knew it was useless to do so directly, her approach was indirect, in the hope that they would be tricked into letting fall some piece of evidence which could be used to enforce Miss Brodie's retirement. Once a term, the girls went to tea with Miss Mackay. But in any case there was now very little they could say without implicating themselves. By the time their friendship with Miss Brodie was of seven years' standing, it had worked itself into their bones, so that they could not break away without, as it were, splitting their bones to do so. "You still keep up with Miss Brodie?" said Miss Mackay, with a gleaming smile. She had new teeth. "Oh, yes, rather..." "Yes, oh yes, from time to time..." Miss Mackay said to Sandy confidentially when her turn came round — because she treated the older girls as equals, which is to say, as equals definitely wearing school uniform — "Dear Miss Brodie, she sits on under the elm, telling her remarkable life story to the junior children. I mind when Miss Brodie first came to the school, she was a vigorous young teacher, but now — " She sighed and shook her head. She had a habit of putting the universal wise saws into Scots dialect to make them wiser. Now she said, "What canna be cured maun be endured. But I fear Miss Brodie is past her best. I doubt her class will get through its qualifying examination this year. But don't think I'm criticising Miss Brodie. She likes her wee drink, I'm sure. After all, it's nobody's business, so long as it doesn't affect her work and you girls." "She doesn't drink," said Sandy, "except for sherry on her birthday, half a bottle between the seven of us." Miss Mackay could be observed mentally scoring drink off her list of things against Miss Brodie. "Oh, that's all I meant," said Miss Mackay. The Brodie girls, now that they were seventeen, were able to detach Miss Brodie from her aspect of teacher. When they conferred amongst themselves on the subject they had to admit, at last, and without doubt, that she was really an exciting woman as a woman. Her eyes flashed, her nose arched proudly, her hair was still brown, and coiled matriarchally at the nape of her neck. The singing master,