"Do you know," she remarked, pausing with her hairbrush in her hand, "I verily believe that Hopscotch either already is, or is just about to be--engaged!" If Cupid himself had darted in through the window, bow and arrows in hand, the occupants of the Cowslip Room could not have been more electrified. "What!" "Hopscotch?" "You're ragging!" "It's the limit!" Miss Hopkins, the mathematics mistress, had never struck the school as a likely subject for romance. She was middle-aged, nippy, determined, brusque, and a disciplinarian. There was a slight burr in her speech, acquired north of the Tweed, and she had a habit of saying, "Come, come, girrls!" She had never yet been seen without her pince-nez, and it was a tradition that she slept in them. In the minds of her pupils she was indissolubly intertwined with decimals, equations, and problems of geometry. They connected her with triangles, not hearts, though of course there was no telling where the little blind god might suddenly elect to shoot. "I'm not ragging!" declared Irma earnestly. "I tell you I really mean it. What's more, I've seen him!" "When?" "Where?" Irma enjoyed an audience. She sat down on Janet's bed with the pleasant consciousness that she had gripped her listeners. "I went into the study this afternoon to fetch Miss Kennedy's fountain-pen, and I found Hopscotch there--alone with a gentleman. I'm afraid I surprised them." "Did they look embarrassed?" "Well, they both stopped talking, and stared at me while I hunted about for the pen. _I_ felt embarrassed!" "What's he like?" "Middle-aged, with a moustache that's growing grey--not bad-looking on the whole." "It would be very suitable," decided the others. They were trying to readjust their mental attitude towards Miss Hopkins, and transfer her from the mathematical plane to the sentimental. To do so required a wrench, but it was decidedly thrilling. They all suddenly began to remember symptoms of incipient romance on the part of the mistress. "She wears a locket on her watch-chain. It's probably got his photo inside," decided Ethelberga. "And she always snatches up her letters in a frantic hurry," added Janet sagely. "Has she known him long?" asked Avelyn. Irma nodded doubtfully. "I should think it's probably quite an old affair. They may have been boy and girl together." "Perhaps they've been separated for years and years, and have only just cleared up their misunderstandings," suggested Laura. "Was he holding her hand?" asked Janet. "N--no, I can't say he was holding her hand; but then, you see, I'd knocked at the door first, and she'd said 'Come in!'" "That would give them time," agreed Janet.