"She could not bear it," said Mrs. Murray, and then she turned the conversation back to its original theme, and spoke of the school, and her husband's work among the boys, and how rough and backward many of them were.
It was not encouraging to Mrs. Winn to hear such an account of the school, for she was afraid Tom would not benefit much by attending it; and the worst of it was, there seemed to be no other within reach.
Of course, Mrs. Murray said her husband was an excellent teacher, and Tom would be sure to do very well. But Mrs. Winn was by no means so sure of it, for he was just the age when he needed to be at a good school, and which his own folly had rendered impossible.
She went home rather dispirited, but she did not say a word to Tom or Elsie about this. And it was arranged that Tom should go to school the following Monday morning.
The boy was not sorry to hear that he was to go back to school, for he had been away from books and lessons for some months now; and fond as he undoubtedly was of gardening, he had had enough of it to satisfy him for the present, and he was well content to hear that he was to go back to his books again.
So the following Monday morning Tom went to school, fully expecting to see a similar assemblage of boys as he had been accustomed to.
But he stopped short at the door of the schoolroom, and looked round, thinking he must surely have made a mistake; for, to his amazement, there were as many girls as boys seated at the desks, and all were talking together in a fashion that astonished him.
But the sight of the new-comer, standing on the mat, hushed half the voices in the room, and this sudden hush attracting the notice of one of the teachers, he stepped forward and asked Tom what he wanted.
"I have come to school," said Tom, looking round for a class that he thought he might enter.
The young teacher looked puzzled, and sent him to the head-master; and presently Tom was directed to join a class at the further end of the room, as lessons were about to begin.