Mrs. Willis also believed much in that quiet half-hour each evening, when the girls who cared to come could talk to her alone. On these occasions she always dropped the school-mistress and adopted the _rôle_ of the mother. With a very refractory pupil she spoke in the tenderest tones of remonstrance and affection at these times. If her words failed--if the discipline of the day and the gentle sympathy of these moments at night did not effect their purpose, she had yet another expedient--the vicar was asked to see the girl who would not yield to this motherly influence.