To be temporarily transformed into boarders was a novel experience for the girls. To Merle it meant an opportunity for making a much more intimate acquaintance with her idol Miss Mitchell, with whom she would now be at close quarters. To sit at the same table with her for meals seemed an unspeakable privilege. Merle was at the age for enthusiastic hero-worship, and in her eyes the popular mistress almost wore a halo. That she bestowed no particular tokens of favour made the devotion none the less, because it gave an added incentive for trying to win at least a glance or a smile.
Though Merle's schoolgirl affections centred in Miss Mitchell, whose modern, up-to-date, twentieth-century methods and opinions entirely appealed to her, Mavis was glad to see something more of Miss Pollard and Miss Fanny. She had loved 'The Moorings' best as it was a year ago, a little 'homey' school, where the classes had been like working with a private governess. She immensely admired the two sweet, grey-haired sisters, with their refined, cultured atmosphere and beautiful, courteous, dignified manner. They seemed the epitome of the nineteenth century, and marked a different era, a something very precious that was rapidly passing away. If flowers are the symbols of our personalities she would have set them down as rosemary and lavender. They had withdrawn almost entirely from teaching, so that the day-girls now saw little of them, but in the hostel they still reigned supreme, and kept to their old custom of amusing the youngest boarders for half an hour before bedtime. The elder ones, owing to the large amount of preparation required under the new regime, could very rarely find time now to come and join this pleasant circle, which met in quite an informal manner in Miss Pollard's room. To Mavis it was a bigger attraction even than tennis, and she would give up her turn at the courts, or would hurry over her home-work, in order to creep in among the juniors for that cosy half-hour.
"Have you written down any more Devonshire folk-tales?" she asked once. "I do so love your stories of the neighbourhood. It makes the pixies seem almost real when you tell about them!"
"They seemed real to the old people from whom I heard them years ago, and who had learnt them from their grandfathers and great-grandfathers. I loved them when I was a child. Yes; they're written in my little manuscript book. I put them carefully down for fear I might forget them. Read you one? If the others would like it! We haven't had a fairy tale for quite a long time, have we, Doreen?"
As the younger children plumped for a story, Miss Pollard fetched her manuscript volume, and hunted for something they had not yet heard. She was a most excellent reader, having that charm of voice and vividness of expression which makes a narrative live before its hearers. It was as if some electric cord linked her with those who listened, and restless little fidgets would sit quite quietly for as long as she chose to go on. The tale which she selected to-night was:
GINNIFER'S DOWRY
In the days when good King Arthur ruled all the west country from Exeter to Land's End, a maiden named Ginnifer lived with her father in a little, round, stone hut on the top of Dartmoor. They were poor, but she was a good girl, and she could spin, and weave baskets, and do many things about the house. One day a young hunter knocked at the door and asked for hospitality, and as there was much game to be had in the neighbourhood he remained for many weeks as a guest of the cottage, going out every day fishing or fowling, and sharing his captures with his hosts. No doubt Ginnifer's blue eyes and gentle glances were the main attraction, and in a short time indeed the young folk became attached to one another. It was only when Ginnifer's father at length questioned the youth, that he confessed to being the son of the great lord of the neighbourhood, who lived in the big Castle beside the river beyond the moor. This was sad news for Ginnifer, for in those days a young noble might not wed with a poor girl, and must marry a bride who could bring a rich dowry with her of jewels and ornaments and silver money. So she quietly told her sweetheart to go back to his father, and learn to forget her; and he went away very sadly, vowing he would get permission to return and marry her, or else he would never wed anyone. When he was gone, Ginnifer went out over the moor among the heather, where she might fight her grief alone, with only the birds and the flowers to see her weep. She lay on the short moorland grass among the sweet bog-myrtle and asphodel, until the sun was setting in a red ball over the hillside. Then, all of a sudden, she heard a rustling and a whispering like countless leaves blown by an autumn wind.
"Who is this?" said a voice. "Who dares to lie in our pixie ring?"
"It's a mortal! A mortal!" cried another.
Ginnifer raised her head. All the moor was alive with tiny pixies, whose green garments were like moving fronds of fern. They crowded eagerly round her.