Norah slipped down beside him.
"I've been thinking," she said, a little anxiously. "It's been so lovely to think of no old school until midwinter—but I'd go sooner—when you're quite well—if you're worried really, Dad. I don't want to be a duffer—and of course I don't know half that other girls know."
"Jim will be able to keep you from going back, I expect," her father said, watching the troubled face. "He won't be exactly a stern tutor, and possibly lessons may be free and easy; still, after all, Jim was a prefect, and the handling of unruly subjects is probably not unknown to him."
"If Jim attempts to be a prefect with me," said Norah, "things will be mixed!" She laughed, but the line came back into her forehead. "It's not the lessons I was thinking of, Dad."
"Then what is it?"
"Oh, all the other things I don't know that other girls do. Do you think it really matters, Dad? I know perfectly well I don't do my hair properly—"
"I seem to like it."
"And I can't talk prettily—you know, like Cecil did; and I don't know a single blessed thing about fancywork! I'd—I'd hate you to be ashamed of me, Dad, dear!"
"Ashamed?" He held her close; and when he spoke again there was something in his voice that made Norah suddenly content.
"Little mate!" was all he said.