"And if Daddy brings the Ford car down here I can drive it for him," sparkled Merle.
"We'll see about that; you wouldn't have had that wild motoring expedition if I had been on the spot, you young madcap!"
"But I fetched Mrs. Jarvis, and if I hadn't she might never have known it was her own son at the hospital, and then she wouldn't have told about the papers, and Bevis would never have got the Talland property. It's like the story of the old woman and her pig: the fire began to burn the stick, and the stick began to beat the dog, and the dog began to bite the pig, and the pig jumped over the stile, and she got home at last. We did Bevis a good turn when we tore over to Chagmouth that evening, didn't we, Mavis?"
"Rather! Though we didn't guess it at the time."
"So 'Whinburn High' will know us no more. Well, we've settled down quite comfortably at The Moorings. It's rather a decent school now Opal has gone."
"I hope it will improve very much," said Mrs. Ramsay. "Miss Pollard tells me that in September she's going to have a first-class English teacher, a B.A. with plenty of experience, who will run the school on new lines. Funnily enough, it happens to be Eve Mitchell, who was educated at St. Cyprian's College, Cousin Sheila's old school. I've often heard her talk about Eve. She'll soon reorganize The Moorings. They have such a splendid record at St. Cyprian's for games and musical societies, and literary clubs, and nature-study unions, and all the rest of it. It was a school in a thousand, according to Sheila. Miss Pollard has the promise of ever so many fresh boarders, elder girls, not little ones. The climate of Durracombe is getting quite a reputation, I hear, and specially suits anyone who has been born in India. If the numbers increase so much, particularly in the upper forms, it will give the school a far better opportunity in every way, especially in games."
"Hooray," exulted Merle joyfully. "That's the one thing where The Moorings has been really slack. We could do nothing with only that crowd of kids. But with girls of our own age, and a mistress from St. Cyprian's, we ought to forge ahead now, and have topping times. I'm looking forward to the September term."
"And yet I loved the last one," said Mavis. "I feel nothing will ever quite come up to my first peep at Devonshire, and those Saturdays at Chagmouth. It was like seeing a new world. It's been a first impression, a fresh experience, a gorgeous spring, an idyllic few months—what else can I call it?"
"Call it a very fortunate term," finished Merle.