“‘The dear old Bishop’?” Jim repeated, a blank expression on his face. “And who, please, is the dear old Bishop?”
“I’d forgotten you did not meet him, Jim. He’s the head director of the school at Oak Knowe, and one of the very dearest of men. I shall never forget my first impression of him—a venerable man, with a queer-shaped cap on his head, and wearing knee breeches and gaiters, much as our old Colonial statesmen were wont to do. ‘So this is my old friend, Betty Calvert’s child, is it?’ he said. Dorothy imitated the bass tones of a man with such precision that Jim smiled in spite of himself. ‘Well, well! You’re as like her as possible—yet only her great-niece. Ha! Hum!’ etc., etc. Then he put his arm around me and drew me to his side, and, Jim, I can’t tell you how comfortable I felt, for I was inclined to be homesick, ’way up there so far from Aunt Betty. But he cured me of it, and asked Miss Muriel Tross-Kingdon to care for me.”
“Miss Muriel Tross-Kingdon?”
“Why, yes—the Lady Principal. You met her, Jim. You surely remember her kind greeting the night the prizes and diplomas were conferred. She was very courteous to you, I thought, considering the fact that she is so haughty and dignified.”
“Don’t believe I’d like to go to a girls’ school,” said Jim.
“Why, of course, you wouldn’t, silly—being a boy.”
“But I mean if I was a girl.”
“Why?”
“Oh, the life there is too dull.”
“What do you know about life at a girls’ school, Jim?”