CHAPTER IV.


The return of Miss Cressida McKinstry to Indian Spring and her
interrupted studies was an event whose effects were not entirely
confined to the school. The broken engagement itself seemed of little
moment in the general estimation compared to her resumption of her
old footing as a scholar. A few ill-natured elders of her own sex,
and naturally exempt from the discriminating retort of Mr. McKinstry's
"shot-gun," alleged that the Seminary at Sacramento had declined to
receive her, but the majority accepted her return with local pride as a
practical compliment to the educational facilities of Indian Spring.
The Tuolumne "Star," with a breadth and eloquence touchingly
disproportionate to its actual size and quality of type and paper,
referred to the possible "growth of a grove of Academus at Indian
Spring, under whose cloistered boughs future sages and statesmen
were now meditating," in a way that made the master feel exceedingly
uncomfortable. For some days the trail between the McKinstrys' ranch and
the school-house was lightly patrolled by reliefs of susceptible young
men, to whom the enfranchised Cressida, relieved from the dangerous
supervision of the Davis-McKinstry clique, was an object of ambitious
admiration. The young girl herself, who, in spite of the master's
annoyance, seemed to be following some conscientious duty in
consecutively arraying herself in the different dresses she had bought,
however she may have tantalized her admirers by this revelation of
bridal finery, did not venture to bring them near the limits of the
play-ground. It struck the master with some surprise that Indian Spring