Joyce didn’t like to go around flaunting her principles, and never talked about those things unless she had to, but he argued the question with her. He certainly wanted to take her to that dance. But when it came to arguing, Joyce just smiled and said she was sorry to seem ungracious, but she didn’t care to learn to dance. Well, would she go to an orchestra concert in the city with him then? Yes, she said she would enjoy that. So they went. But he, poor soul, felt himself called upon to bring Joyce into a better way of thinking about the dancing, “a more modern view,” he called it, and they certainly did not get on very well. Then he told her how he had hunted for her in Meadow Brook, and how he had admired her from seeing her just once; how she was different from other girls, that was what he admired about her; and Joyce looked up with a smile and said: “Then why are you trying to make me over just like all the rest?” He looked at her a moment embarrassedly, and then began to laugh. “No,” he said after a moment. “I don’t believe I do want to. I like you just as you are.” After that they talked about books, and summer, and the beautiful meadows about Meadow Brook, and they seemed quite good friends. He asked her why she ran away, and she said evasively, that it was hard for her to stay where she and her aunt had been happy so many years, and she felt it would be better for everybody if she went, and went quietly, without waiting to bid all her dear friends good-bye. She saw he had not been intimate with any of her intimate friends, and rightly surmised that he had not heard anything peculiar about her going. It did occur to her that he might write back sometime and speak about her to some one, but it seemed rather unlikely; and she was going to write home pretty soon anyway, so she thought no more of the matter. A very pleasant friendship sprang up between Joyce and John Harrington. Not that there was anything sentimental about it, as yet. John Harrington might express his admiration of a girl, but that was all until he was quite sure of himself; also quite sure of her. It was one thing to run after a new teacher with all his heart. It was quite another thing to commit himself personally. Harrington was a most judicious young man. He would not have been called to take charge of the Silverton School if he had not been. He was well satisfied in his mind as to his own feelings toward Joyce, but it was not yet time to commit himself. Joyce needed molding and modifying. She needed modernizing somewhat before she would be fitted to become the wife of a superintendent. So he set himself to mold and modernize her.