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."