"Then must you love all the world, and yourself most of all, for all the world is kind to me," said Jack; "but when will you go?"
"Directly, and you will go with me. I am right curious to see this friend of yours."
"Jack is graver than ever," said Cicely, when Jack had left the room.
"He seems a wondrous good lad," observed Sister Barbara. "I had thought all boys rough and cruel."
"They are so, too many of them," answered Cicely; "but our Jack was never like other boys, even before he took this last turn. And yet, though Jack is so grave and thoughtful ever since he came home, he seems happy too. I see him sometimes sit thinking by himself, and his face shines as if there were a light within."
"He is much changed," said Anne. "I cannot make him out. He is not like the same boy he was last winter."
Anne was right. In such circumstances and times as I have been describing, character develops fast, and Jack had grown from a schoolboy into a man.
[CHAPTER XII.]
AN EXPLANATION.
Sir William Leavett caught with avidity at the proposition of Madam Barbara, as she came presently to be called, to teach a girls' school in Bridge Street. A room was found in a house belonging to Master Lucas and suitably arranged; and here did Madam Barbara set up her sceptre over her kingdom of about twenty little maids of all ages from three to twelve, to whom she taught the arts of sewing, knitting, spinning, and reading, promising to advance the best scholars as far as white seam, cut-work, and carpet-work, and possibly even to writing.