anged beforehand. They
meet down on the Old Bench."

"What for?"

"They meet to spoon."

"I find the names Hardy Mackay, Captain Thesel, Dick Swann among these
notes. What can these young society men be to my pupils?"

"Some of the jealous girls have been tattling to each other and
mentioning names."

"Bessy! Do you imply these girls who talk have had the--the interest
or attention of these young gentlemen named?"

"Yes."

"In what way?"

"I mean they've had dates to meet in the park--and other places. Then
they go joy riding."

"Bessy, have you?"

"Yes--but only just lately."

"Thank you Bessy, for your--your frankness," replied Miss Hill,
drawing a long breath. "I'll have another talk with you, after I see
your mother. You may go now."

It was an indication of Miss Hill's mental perturbation that for once
she broke her methodical routine. For many years she had carried a
lunch-basket to and from school; for so many in fact that now on
Saturdays when she went to town without it she carried her left hand
forward in the same position that had grown habitual to her while
holding it. But this afternoon, as she went out, she forgot the basket
entirely.

"I'll go to Mrs. Bell," soliloquized the worried schoolteacher. "But
how to explain what I can't understand! Some people would call this
thing just natural depravity. But I love these girls. As I think back,
every year, in the early summer, I've always had something of this
sort of thing to puzzle over. But the last few years it's grown worse.
The war made a difference. And since the war--how strange the girls
are! They seem to feel more. They're bolder. They break out oftener.
They dress so immodestly. Yet they're less deceitful. They have no
shame. I can blind myself no longer to that. And this last is damning
proof of--of wildness. Some of them have taken the fatal step!...
Yet--yet I seem to feel somehow Bessy Bell isn't _bad_. I wonder if
my hope isn't responsible for that feeling. I'm old-fashioned. This
modern girl is beyond me. How clearly she spoke! She's a wonderful,
fearless, terrible girl. I never saw a girl so alive. I can't--can't
understand her."

In the swift swinging from one consideration of the perplexing
question to another Miss Hill's mind naturally reverted to her errand,
and to her possible reception. Mrs. Bell was a proud woman. She had
married against the wishes of her blue-blooded family, so rumor had
it, and her husband was no