"Father is going to help with the practice. Uncle David has too much work, and wants somebody to take part of it off his hands. He and Father will go into partnership as soon as we can sell the practice at Whinburn. We shall all live here at Bridge House. It's a splendid arrangement, because then I can take care of Aunt Nellie. She's such an invalid now that she needs constant nursing. Jessop wants to leave and keep house for a brother, who is a widower, and Aunt Nellie would be lost without Jessop, unless she had me to look after her instead. Don't you think it's a lovely plan?" "Lovely! It's absolutely splendiferous!" "And if Daddy brings the Ford car down here I can drive it for him," sparkled Merle. "We'll see about that; you wouldn't have had that wild motoring expedition if I had been on the spot, you young madcap!" "But I fetched Mrs. Jarvis, and if I hadn't she might never have known it was her own son at the hospital, and then she wouldn't have told about the papers, and Bevis would never have got the Talland property. It's like the story of the old woman and her pig: the fire began to burn the stick, and the stick began to beat the dog, and the dog began to bite the pig, and the pig jumped over the stile, and she got home at last. We did Bevis a good turn when we tore over to Chagmouth that evening, didn't we, Mavis?" "Rather! Though we didn't guess it at the time." "So 'Whinburn High' will know us no more. Well, we've settled down quite comfortably at The Moorings. It's rather a decent school now Opal has gone." "I hope it will improve very much," said Mrs. Ramsay. "Miss Pollard tells me that in September she's going to have a first-class English teacher, a B.A. with plenty of experience, who will run the school on new lines. Funnily enough, it happens to be Eve Mitchell, who was educated at St. Cyprian's College, Cousin Sheila's old school. I've often heard her talk about Eve. _She_'ll soon reorganize The Moorings. They have such a splendid record at St. Cyprian's for games and musical societies, and literary clubs, and nature-study unions, and all the rest of it. It was a school in a thousand, according to Sheila. Miss Pollard has the promise of ever so many fresh boarders, elder girls, not little ones. The climate of Durracombe is getting quite a reputation, I hear, and specially suits anyone who has been born in India. If the numbers increase so much, particularly in the upper forms, it will give the school a far better opportunity in every way, especially in games." "Hooray," exulted Merle joyfully. "That's the one thing where The Moorings has been really slack. We could do nothing with only that crowd of kids. But with girls of our own age, and a mistress from St. Cyprian's, we ought to forge ahead now, and have topping times. I'm looking forward to the September term."