Monitress Merle | Page 5

after five!
We must simply scoot--oh, I daresay I did promise you might eat
blackberries, but you haven't time now. You shouldn't have stayed so
long at the cove if you wanted a blackberry feed! If you don't hurry up I
shall run off and leave you and go home with Uncle David by myself!
There! Oh, you're coming! Good! I thought you'd hardly care to spend
the night upon the cliffs with the sea-gulls!"
CHAPTER II
A School Ballot
Mavis and Merle started for school on Tuesday morning confident of
finding many changes. Hitherto 'The Moorings' had been a modest
establishment where about twenty-four children had been educated by
Miss Pollard and her sister Miss Fanny, who were the daughters of the
late Vicar of the parish. They were neither of them particularly learned
or up to date, but they had a happy knack with girls, and had been
especially successful in the care of delicate pupils. The remarkably
mild climate of Durracombe made the place peculiarly suitable for
those who had been born in India or other hot countries, and so many
more boarders had been entered for this term that the school was
practically doubled. Recognising the fact that this sudden enlargement
in numbers ought also to mean a march forward in other ways, the

sisters were wise enough to seize their golden opportunity and
completely reorganise their methods. They were fortunate in being able
to get hold of the house next to their own, and, turning that into a hostel
for boarders, they devoted the whole of 'The Moorings' to classrooms.
They engaged a thoroughly competent and reliable mistress, with a
university degree and High School experience, and gave her carte
blanche to revise the curriculum and institute what innovations she
thought fit. They allowed her to choose her own assistant mistress, and
made fresh arrangements for visiting teachers, reserving for themselves
only a very few of the classes, and concentrating most of their energies
on the management of the hostel. These new plans gave great
satisfaction to both parents and pupils.
"It will be rather nice to have somebody modern at the head of things,
so long as Miss Pollard and Miss Fanny aren't entirely shelved,"
declared Merle.
"They're perfect dears! We couldn't do without them," agreed Mavis.
"But they're not clever!"
"Um--I don't know! It depends what you call clever! They mayn't be
B.A.'s and all the rest of it, but they're well read, and they can sketch
and sing and play and do a hundred things that a great many graduates
can't. I call them 'cultured,' that's the right name for them. They're such
absolute and perfect ladies. It's a style you really don't meet every day.
And they're so pretty with their pink cheeks and their silver hair, like
the sweet old-fashioned pictures of eighteenth-century beauties in
powder and patches. I love to look at them, and to listen to the gentle
refined way they talk--I think they're adorable!"
"So they are-but you want something more in a school. I hope the fresh
teacher will be a regular sport, and that she'll use slang sometimes, and
play hockey. That's my ideal of a head mistress."
Miss Mitchell, the new peg upon which so much was now to depend at
'The Moorings,' might not have been blamed for regarding Tuesday
morning as somewhat of an ordeal. If she was nervous, however, she

managed to conceal her feelings, and bore the introduction to her
prospective pupils with cheerful calm.
Forty-six girls, taking mental stock of her, decided instantly that she
was 'the right sort.' She was tall, in her middle twenties, had a fresh
complexion, light brown hair, a brisk decisive manner, and a pleasant
twinkle in her hazel eyes. She was evidently not in the least afraid of
her audience, a fact which at once gave her the right handle. She faced
their united stare smilingly.
"I'm very pleased to meet you all!" she began. "I hope we shall work
together splendidly and have an extremely happy term. As Miss Pollard
has just told you, there have been so many changes at 'The Moorings'
that it is practically a new school. It's a tremendous opportunity to be
able to make a fresh start like this. We can make our own traditions and
our own rules. Some of you have been at the school before and some
have been at other schools, but I want you all to forget past traditions
and unite together to make 'The Moorings' the biggest success that can
possibly be. We're all going to love it and to be very loyal to it. We
hope to do well with our work, and well with our games. I must explain
to you later about all the various societies which we mean to