“Indeed, Dr Bolter—I assure you—I am shocked—I hardly know—the young ladies have been kept in—I only discovered—”
“Hum!” ejaculated the doctor, frowning. “I am rather surprised. Let me see,” he continued. “I suppose that fair-haired girl stooping over the flower-bed yonder is Miss Perowne, eh?”
“My sight is failing,” stammered Miss Twettenham, who was terribly agitated at the untoward incident; “but your description answers to Miss Stuart.”
“And that’s Miss Stuart is it? Hum! Too far off to see what she is like. Then I suppose that tall dark girl on the seat is Miss Perowne?”
“Tall and dark—yes,” said Miss Twettenham, in an agitated way. “Is she sitting down? You said tall?”
“Hum! no,” said the doctor, balancing his glasses; “she is standing right on the top of the back of a seat, and seems to be looking over the garden wall.”
“Oh!”
“Bless my heart! Hum! Sham or real?” muttered the doctor.
Real enough, for the agitation had been too much for the poor old lady, so proud of the reputation of her school. A note over the garden wall—a young lady looking over into the lane, perhaps in conversation with a man, and just when a stranger had arrived to act as escort for two finished pupils. It was too much.
For the first time for many years Miss Twettenham had fainted away.