"So much as that. Time flies indeed. You must have been too young to remember him I suppose. A handsome man, and a great favourite with everybody! It makes me feel quite middle-aged to see his daughter almost grown-up."
Lesbia had heard so little about her own father that it was interesting to meet someone who had known and remembered him. She treasured the brief incident on that account. It seemed a link with the dim far-away past, when she too had had father and mother of her own to love her and treasure her, instead of being an orphan with no home but the house of a distant cousin, and nothing to look forward to in the future but earning her own living in a way which she would probably find quite uncongenial.
CHAPTER XXI
Lesbia Decides
Lesbia returned to the High School with a feeling of intense relief at finding Miss Tatham once more at the helm. A term's rest had set up the Principal's health, and she seemed her old self again. Her strong, calm personality made an enormous difference in the school; many wheels, which had creaked and jarred, now turned smoothly, and teachers and pupils took on a more united tone. Lesbia went to her and explained the circumstances which had led to her loss of the prefectship. Miss Tatham listened quietly, but made little comment. She was, of course, bound to support Miss Ormerod's régime, recognizing that her locum tenens had done her best during a difficult term.
"You've been kind in screening the juniors, Lesbia," she said. "I think, on the whole, as Kathleen has been made a prefect, it will be wiser to have no further changes. You have quite enough to do as it is. Don't you agree with me?"
"Yes, indeed! Please don't think I wanted the prefectship back. I only wanted to explain."
"I'm very glad you told me, because now I quite understand."
Miss Tatham never gushed, or showed favouritism towards any special girl, but Lesbia always realized her kindly attitude and felt that the head mistress was her friend. She had indeed been her good genius for the last eighteen months. But for her helping hand it would have been impossible to continue at the High School. She had borne patiently with a most imperfect assistant mistress, for whose defects she had often had to make up.
Lesbia owed her more than she could ever hope to repay. It was a great thing to finish her course in the school where she had started as the youngest pupil. At the end of the summer term she would have completed nearly thirteen years at Kingfield High, a record which no other girl had ever equalled. What was to happen to her afterwards? That was a question which troubled her continually. The Pattersons were straining every resource to keep two sons at college and a third at Rugby. It was unfair to be a burden to them any longer. She must think seriously of how she was to begin and earn an independence, and make her own way in the world.