"Good luck, dearie, and cheer up!" she cried, seeing the look in the sad blue eyes. "School teaching's heaps of fun, I feel sure. Don't worry about it. We're going to have great times in the evenings. There's always something on. Bye bye, and good luck," and she tripped up the garden path waving her hand gaily.
Helen had scarcely gone half a block under the elm boughs, when she heard her name called out in a musical roar from far up the street behind her. She had not been in Algonquin twenty-four hours, but she knew that voice. She was just a bit scandalised as she turned to see a man waving his cane, as he hurried to overtake her. But she had not yet learned that no one minded being hailed half-a-mile away by Lawyer Ed.
He was accompanied by a lady, a tall woman of such ample proportions, that she had some ado to keep up with Lawyer Ed's brisk step. She wore a broad old-fashioned hat tied under her round chin, and a gay flowered muslin dress that floated about her with an easy swaying motion. She wore, too, a pair of soft low-heeled slippers, that gave forth a soothing accompaniment to the rhythm of her movements. She was surrounded by a perfect bodyguard of children. They danced behind her and ahead of her, they clung to her hands and peeped from the flowing muslin draperies, while she moved among them, serene and smiling like a great flower surrounded by a cloud of buzzing little bees.
"Good morning, good morning!" shouted the chairman of the school board. "Abroad bright and early and ready for work! Well, well, well," he added admiringly, as he shook her hands violently, "if the Algonquin air hasn't commenced to do its work already! Now, my dear, brace up and don't be frightened. It is my duty as chairman of the school board to introduce you to your stern principal. Miss Murray, I have the honour of presenting you to Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby, known in private life as Mrs. Adam; but if you are as nice as you look, you may one day be admitted to the inner circle of her friends, and then you will be allowed to call her Madame."
As the lady took her hand and turned upon her a smile in proportion to her size, Helen suddenly realised why she had seemed so familiar even at the first glance. She was exactly like the wonderful fairy who cared for the water-babies at the bottom of the sea. And the resemblance was further heightened by the presence of the babies themselves who came swarming about to settle all over her, and when shoved out of the way, only came swarming back.
"Bless me, what a mistake!" she cried. "It's you that's the Principal and I'm the assistant. I'm so thankful you're young, my dear. I can't stand old folks, and middle-aged people are my abhorrence. I told Edward Brians that if he put me down there all alone with a middle-aged woman,—a young gay thing like me,—I just wouldn't stand it."
"I don't think there are any old people in Algonquin, are there?" asked Helen.
They were moving on down the street now, and their going was something of a triumphal procession. At every turn some one joined them,—young or old, and from every side greetings were called after them, until the bewildered stranger felt as if she had become part of a circus parade. She was feeling almost light-hearted as the gay throng moved forward, when they passed their escort's office, and in the doorway stood the young Mr. McRae who reminded her so sadly of the past.
"Hooray, Rod," roared his chief. "A graun beginnin', ma braw John Hielanman! Come down here off that perch and do your respects to the March of Education!"
Roderick obeyed very willingly. He had been a pupil of Madame's in his primary days, notwithstanding her extreme youth, and she welcomed him home and hoped he would be as good a boy as he had been when she had him. Then Lawyer Ed introduced him to the new teacher. She shook hands, but she did not say they had met before, and Roderick tactfully ignored the fact also, for which he fancied she gave him a glance of gratitude. They moved on but soon the March of Education was again interrupted. Across the street, Doctor Archie Blair, with his black satchel in his hand and a volume of Burns beneath his arm, was preparing to climb into his buggy for a drive into the country. He stepped aside for a moment and crossed the street to tell Madame how glad he was to see her back from her holidays, for the town had been a howling wilderness without her.