estion from their side, feeling sure that
sooner or later would arise questions which she would wish them to regard
from hers; and therein lay the key-note of her success.

She would no more have thought of raising the barrier of teacher and pupil
between herself and her girls than she would have thought of depriving
them of something necessary to their physical welfare. The girls were her
friends and she theirs--their best and truest, to whom they might come
with their joys or their sorrows, sure of her sympathy with either, and,
rather than cast a shadow upon their confidence, she would have toiled up
the hill with the whole school swarming about her, and an express-wagon of
sweets following close behind. That was the secret of her wonderful power
over them. They never realized the disparity between their own ages and
hers, because she had never forgotten when life was young.

CHAPTER VI

DULL AND PROSY

It is to be hoped that those who read this story will not run off with the
idea that I am trying to set Miss Preston's school up as a model in every
sense of the word, for I am not. I am simply trying to tell a story of
boarding-school life as it really was "once upon a time." And I think that
I ought to be able to tell it pretty correctly, having seen with my own
eyes and heard with my own ears many of the pranks related. The methods
followed and the results obtained may be believed or not; that rests with
the individual reading. Long ago, in my own childhood days, our "old
Virginy" cook used to say to me: "La, chile, dey's a heap sight mo' flies
ketched wid 'lasses dan vingegar," and I have come to the conclusion that
she had truth on her side.

The girls were by no means saints. Saints, after all, are rather ethereal
creatures, and Miss Preston's girls were real flesh and blood lassies,
brimful of life and fun, and, like most lassies, ready for a good time.

As Ruth had said, there were no rules; that is, the girls were never told
that they must _not_ do this, or that they _must_ do the other thing. A
spirit of courtesy dominated everything, and a subtle influence pervaded
the entire school, bringing about desired results without words. The girls
understood that all possible liberty would be granted them, and that their
outgoings and incomings would be exactly such as would be allowed them in
their own homes, and if some were inclined to abuse that liberty they soon
learned where license began.

No s