'Now let 's count how many you have got in the school,' said Mrs Maclure. 'Everything sounds well, but the boys will ruin the whole affair.'
'Oh, nonsense, Jane. If only you were not so narrow-minded.'
'I know the world, my dear friend, and I don't want the best school in Scotland to be spoiled for the lack of a little care—care bestowed upon it at the right moment. Your girls, counting the Lennoxes, make fifteen. Altogether in the school you have therefore twenty-three children. How many teachers, pray?'
Mrs Macintyre was never known to be angry, but she felt almost inclined to be so now. She mentioned the number of her tutors, her foreign governesses, and her English teachers—the best-trained teachers from her own beloved Cheltenham.
'How many servants?' was Mrs Maclure's next query.
'Really, Jane, you are keeping me from my duties; but as you have come all the way from Edinburgh to question me so closely, I will confess that I have got ten indoor servants; that, of course, includes the housekeeper and a trained nurse in case of illness.'
'Dear, dear!' exclaimed Mrs Maclure. 'Prodigious! And then, I presume, you get special masters and mistresses from Glasgow and Edinburgh.'
'I certainly do. The school is a first-rate one.'
'My poor Elsie, it won't be first-rate long. You are taking all this enormous expense and trouble for twenty-three children. How many can your school hold?'
'My school could hold quite seventy pupils,' said Mrs Macintyre; 'but you must remember that it was only opened last Tuesday. Really, I greatly fear that I shall have to leave you, Jane. This is a half-holiday, and I have a special class to attend to.'