It happened in this way that Jim was very ready to be led in any quarter where a little novelty or amusement was to be found. Not in any quarter; for supposing he had at that moment met the good old General, whose company could do him nothing but good, who had told him, perhaps, that he had a young nephew, perhaps a pretty niece, to whom he wished to introduce the Rector’s son, Jim would at once have found that he had to go back to his Greek: he would not have gone to the General’s, nor to any house, as his mother said, ‘in his own rank of life.’ And why this should be I am quite unable to tell. Houses which were in his own rank of life did not seem to him to have what he wanted; he would have felt sure in advance that the General’s nephew would be a prig, or perhaps an insolent young soldier, thinking nobody was anybody who was out of the service; and the General’s niece, ugly and stupid. This he would have felt sure of, though he could not have told why. Neither can I tell why, nor any of those to whom it would be of the greatest advantage to make this all-important discovery. It would be even more important than finding out how to resist a deadly disease; and in the one case as in the other, there are many surprises and many experiments. But nobody as yet has been able to find out the way. It was while he was thus moving along on the other side of the street, not desiring to go to the ‘Blue Boar,’ yet not knowing where else to go, and having within him an imperious wish to go somewhere, that Jim suddenly heard in the soft stillness of the evening air--for the wind had quite fallen as night came on--a pleasant voice saying, ‘Good evening, Mr. Plowden’; a voice which was quite new to him, and which he could not associate with anybody in Watcham. He knew everybody in Watcham, great and small, so that it was not easy to take him by surprise. He turned round, startled, and saw a woman, a lady, standing in the half-light in the door of the house next to the schools, which was appropriated to the village schoolmistress. He knew there was a new schoolmistress, for he had heard it talked of, but he had not seen her, so that this was about the only person in Watcham whose voice he did not know. Jim stopped suddenly and made a clutch at his cap. I hope he would on any occasion have taken off his hat to the schoolmistress, but at all events this voice made it imperative, for it was a refined voice, the voice of a lady, or else an exceedingly good make-believe. ‘Good evening,’ he replied vaguely. He could not very well make out her face, but yet there was something in it which it appeared to him he had seen before. ‘You do not remember me?’ she said. ‘You have newly come to the school, I suppose,’ he said. ‘I beg your pardon. I don’t think I have seen you before.’ ‘You have seen me before, but not here, and if I were quite sure you did not remember me I should be very glad.’ ‘That is rather a queer thing to say,’ said Jim.