However, she was more pleased with me for what I had remembered than angry for what I had forgotten. 'At any rate you can come and see it now,' she said, and turning back she led the way towards a broad meadow in the valley of the Muick, with a fair view of the little river and of the hills beyond, which would have been a very good site for a school, if a school had been needed. 'An awfully nice place for it,' I agreed, as she expatiated upon the merits of a rising ground with drainage towards the river, and shelter from the woods above. 'And if the school ever gets built, I expect there will be only one thing it will want.' 'Go on, though I know what you are going to say,' said she. 'Scholars,' I finished briefly. Miss Farington nodded. 'They will come,' she said confidently, 'if the thing is properly organised.' Organisation was her hobby. If that little affair came off, my library would be partly catalogued and partly burnt, and To-to would be organised into the stable-yard. Still I did not flinch. 'Think,' said she enthusiastically, 'what it would mean! To plant the first footing of knowledge, civilisation, refinement, among these peasants! To give them eyes to see the beauty of the nature which surrounds them! To give them resources for refined enjoyment when winter closes the door of nature to them! To widen their knowledge of the world, and teach them that "hinter den Bergen sind auch Leute!" Oh, Mr. Maude, if building and starting this school were to cost ten thousand pounds, I should say the money had been well spent if in it but one single Highland boy were taught to read!' Rather appalled by the thought of the lengths to which such a boundless enthusiasm might carry her, I murmured something to the effect that it would be rather expensive. Whereat she turned upon me-- 'And can you, Mr. Maude, who profess to revel in Montaigne and Shakespeare, delight in Charles Lamb and Alfred de Vigny, deny such pleasures to your humble neighbours?' 'But my humble neighbours wouldn't read Shakespeare or Montaigne, nor even Wilkie Collins nor Dumas the Elder. They'd read the _Bow Bells_ novelettes. And as to teaching them to admire their own hills, why they love them more than you do, for Nature isn't to them a closed book in winter as it seems to you.' I was on the wrong tack altogether, as I felt, when by good luck the lady herself brought me to more congenial ground. 'Then I suppose I mustn't expect much help from you, Mr. Maude,' she said, rather stiffly. 'Yes, you may indeed, you may expect every help,' I said, rushing at the opportunity, and growing hot over it. 'It's true I--that--I don't much care--I mean I'm not deeply interested in Highland children, except as scenery, you know, picturesqueness and all that; but--er--but for you--in a plan of yours, that is to say, I should be delighted to do whatever lay in my power.'