ring the thousand and one trifles which the
willing girl had done for her.

For Dawkins was growing old. Under her maid's cap the hair was thin
and gray, and stooping to pick up things the girls had carelessly
thrown down was no longer an easy task.

The rules against carelessness were stringent enough and fairly well
obeyed, yet among three hundred lively girls some rules were bound to
be ignored. But from the first, as soon as she understood them,
Dorothy had been obedient to all these rules; and it was Dawkins's
pride, when showing visitors through the building to point to Dolly's
cubicle as a model. Here was never an article left out of place;
because not only school regulations but real affection for the maid,
who had been her first friend at Oak Knowe, made Dorothy "take care."

Then busy at their tasks, the workers talked of the evening's events
and laughingly recalled the incident of the goat, which they had
witnessed from the upper gallery; a place prepared for them by the
good Bishop's orders, that nobody at his great school should be
prohibited from enjoying a sight of the pupils' frequent
entertainments.

"But sure, 'tis that lad, Jack, which frets me as one not belongin' to
Oak Knowe," said Dora, with conviction.

"Not belonging? Why, woman alive, he's been here longer nor yourself.
'Twas his mother that's gone, was cook here before the _chef_ and pity
for his orphaned state the reason he's stayed since. But I own ye,
he's not been bettered by his summers off, when the school's not
keepin' and him let work for any farmer round. I note he's a bit more
prankish an' disobliging, every fall when he comes back. For some
curious reason--I can't dream what--he's been terrible chummy with
Miss Gwendolyn. Don't that beat all?" said Dawkins whirling her brush.

"I don't know--I don't really know as 'tis. He's forever drawing
pictures round of every created thing, and she's come across him doin'
it. She's that crazy for drawing herself that she's likely took an
int'rest in him. I heard her puttin' notions in his head, once,
tellin' him how 't some the greatest painters ever lived had been born
just peasants like him."

"Huh! Was that what made him so top-lofty and up-steppin'? When I told
him he didn't half clean the young ladies' shoes, tossin' his head
like the simpleton he is, and saucin' back as how he wouldn't be a
boot-boy all his life. I'd find out one these days whom I'd been
tongue-lashin' so long an