Margaret Leigh

“But it was Mr Lloyd who kissed her. She must be in love with Mr Lloyd or she wouldn’t have let him kiss her.” “Perhaps she’s working it off on Mr Lowther. Mr Lowther isn’t married.” It was a fantasy worked up between them, in defiance of Miss Gaunt and her forbidding brother, and it was understood in that way. But Sandy, remembering Miss Gaunt’s

Nominally, they were members of Holyrood, Melrose, Argyll and Biggar, but it had been well known that the Brodie set had no team spirit and did not care which house won the shield. They were not allowed to care. Their disregard had now become an institution, to be respected like the house system itself. For their own part, and without this

Miss Brodie’s struggles with the authorities on account of her educational system were increasing throughout the years, and she made it a moral duty for her set to rally round her each time her battle reached a crisis.

They went to the tram-car stop with her. “It has been suggested again that I should apply for a post at one of the progressive, that is to say, crank schools. I shall not apply for a post at a crank school. I shall remain at this education factory where my duty lies. There needs must be a leaven in the lump. Give me a girl at an impressionable age

some ways the most real and rooted people whom Sandy knew were Miss Gaunt and the Kerr sisters who made no evasions about their belief that God had planned for practically everybody before they were born a nasty surprise when they died. Later, when Sandy read John Calvin, she found that although popular conceptions of Calvinism were sometimes

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

“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.

Rose was greatly popular with these boys, which was the only reason why she was famed for sex, although she did not really talk about sex, far less indulge it.

It had been a delicate question how to present Miss Brodie in both a favourable and an unfavourable light, for now, as their last term with Miss Brodie drew to a close, nothing less than this was demanded.