‘Yes,’ answered the head-mistress; ‘you were the worst, Babs; and you soon found out that the lane did not lead to the enchanted grotto, didn’t you? Now, what we can all see very clearly from this conversation is that we must think a little more carefully in future before we do things. The rules in my school are made for people who think, and not for people who have to be told whether a thing is right or wrong. People of that kind are not the people for me. Are you going to let me trust you again in future, children?’
There was no doubt whatever from their faces that they thought she might; but Babs still wanted something cleared up.
‘Was the Canon’s sermon all wrong, then?’ she asked in her straightforward manner. Jean and Angela looked at the head-mistress nervously; but Miss Finlayson did not seem to mind.
‘The Canon’s sermon was rather like my rules,’ she pointed out; ‘and it was meant for people who think. It is no use being unselfish in a thoughtless kind of way, or else you do as much harm as most people do by being selfish. I want you to try very hard to put lots of thought and cleverness into your good deeds all your life, so that by the time you are grown up your good deeds will be really worth doing. Then you will be able to carry out properly what the Canon told you; for, to tell the truth, the Canon’s sermon was rather meant for grown-up thinking, and perhaps that is why you misunderstood it. But children’s thinking is worth just as much in its own way; don’t forget that, little girls.’
She jumped up and kissed them all round, then glanced hastily at her watch. ‘It strikes me,’ she said gravely, ‘that if somebody looks out of the window in five minutes’ time, somebody will see something in the garden.’
She was just going out of the room, when an exclamation from Barbara called her back. ‘Why,’ she said, ‘you haven’t told us about Angela’s scarlet fever yet!’
‘No more I have,’ said the head-mistress, and she took the thermometer to the window and examined it. Angela tried rather feebly to recover her resigned expression, which she had completely dropped in the last few minutes; and her school-fellows exchanged a look of apprehension.
‘Poor Angela!’ said Miss Finlayson, pensively, as she dipped the thermometer into a glass of water.
Angela put her hand to her head, and the other two closed round her sympathetically.
‘I am truly sorry for you,’ continued Miss Finlayson, returning the thermometer to her pocket and sighing deeply.