'Let your special class go. Listen to the words of wisdom. The fame of your school has spread to Edinburgh; it has been talked about; it has been commented on. It is for that reason, and that reason alone, that I have come here to-day. Put the boys into an annex, and provide them with the necessary teachers—men, of course, if possible. Keep the girls, and I'll engage to get you ten fresh pupils from Edinburgh early next week, twenty from London—that's thirty—and several more from Glasgow, also Liverpool, Manchester, and different parts of England; and when I say I can engage to do this, and fill your school to the necessary number of seventy, I speak with confidence, for I know. The ladies are dying to send their lassies to you, but the mixed school prohibits it. I have no wish or desire to stop the co-education of girls and boys, but to have those of the upper classes mixing in the same boarding school won't go down in this country, Elsie Macintyre. No, it won't do. Now, let me think. You speak of five boys from the neighbourhood—who are their parents?'
'They are the sons of my dear friend Mrs Constable, whose husband, Major Constable, fell in the late war in South Africa.'
'And the eldest is fifteen?'
Yes.'
'Where does Mrs Constable live?'
'A very short way from here, at a place called The Paddock.'
'And you think well of the woman?'
'Cecilia Constable! She is delightful. Why, the dear soul has sent her boys to my school, and comes here herself daily to undertake kindergarten work in order to help her to pay the expenses of her children.'
'Bravo!' said Mrs Maclure. 'Why, of course, she can take them all. Is her house a good size? Has it a respectable appearance?'
'It is a beautiful house, the home of a true lady.'