Jo nodded agreement.
“I wonder Mother didn’t write,” she said. “But I suppose she’s pretty busy: and she’s just waiting to talk it all out when we get home. How do you think we’ll get on at teaching Billy?”
Jean laughed.
“Oh, there will be a good deal of wool flying, now and then,” she said. “Billy hasn’t been exactly all jam for the governesses—he won’t be keen on obeying a mere pair of sisters. Perhaps it would have been as well if we’d had a bit of experience as prefects first.” She hesitated, looking out across the Bay at the sunset sky, against which the tall masts of a wheat-ship showed black and slender. “And only this afternoon we were scared blue at the very idea of becoming prefects!”
“Well, it needn’t scare us now,” Jo said, drily. “Oh, Jean, it’s going to be hateful to leave!”
“Yes, isn’t it?” Jean said. “And it’s hateful to have to tell every one—so we’d better get it over as soon as we can. Let’s go and see Miss Dampier, and then tell the girls.”
“All right,” Jo answered. “And if young Pearlie Alexander patronizes us I’ll—I’ll—well, I’ll cease to be a perfect lady immediately!”
“You’ll have to begin by being one, first,” responded her twin. “And so far, there hasn’t been any sign of it!” At which they managed to laugh, and so took not uncheerful countenances to the study where Miss Dampier sat reading the evening paper.
The Head was not at all cheery. She was to be bereft of so many of her seniors that next year’s discipline presented something of a problem to her; in addition, she was genuinely fond of the twins and of their mother, and sympathized very heartily in their difficulties. She spoke so kindly that Jo and Jean found her suddenly more human than they had ever imagined that she could be, and talked freely to her of their disappointment and their hopes and fears for the future. It came upon both with a shock of horror, later on, that they had used slang expressions several times, and that the Head had never seemed to notice it!
She dismissed them at length, and they went slowly down the passage that led to the senior girls’ studies. No preparation was done on the last nights of term; already the holiday spirit had infected every one. From the big schoolroom came the notes of a piano and a shouted chorus that showed that the junior school was making merry. Several of the studies they passed were in darkness, their doors ajar, their owners released from the tedium of nightly toil. Helen Forester’s door was also ajar, but light streamed from it, and the sound of many voices. The twins looked in.