Tomasine Rendalen was no exception to this rule. She was, however, prudent enough to ask herself sometimes if she were fit for all that the Dean proposed in the school work. She suspected that he, like all reformers, was oversanguine, demanding the work of three generations from one, and expecting a single man to give the result of a thousand. She also had good sense enough to doubt if a little more knowledge of languages, a little better teaching of history and similar acquirements, would seriously help forward morality and independence. But the symbol outweighed these objections of good sense. And it really did seem as if a distinct commission had been given to a special person. Here she was in the Kurt inheritance, well qualified for school work: that was undoubted. Fancy obliterating the evil example with a good one. She had had great practice in that. At all events, it gave her strength. Once determined, she exerted herself to make it go forward, and made others do the same. She raised a new loan on her property and renovated the house from top to bottom. All the windows were removed and enlarged. The rooms on the ground-floor, on the right as one comes in from the great steps, remained as they were. But those on the left, in the wing and upstairs, were for the most part altered, in so far as that the doors between them were walled up, so that they only led into the long inner passage. The great Knights' Hall on the left hand, just as one comes in from the steps, was made into a gymnasium. The pupils were to assemble there, and morning prayers were to be read in it as well. The double staircase in the passage, which led up to the first floor, was cut off from the entrance hall by a wall in which were two doors, one on each side. By this means Fru Rendalen kept the hall for herself. The famous steps only led to it, and to the Knights' Hall on great occasions. The teachers had their separate entrance from the court yard, while the lower part of the great, empty, useless tower was converted into an anteroom. Outside, the plaster was removed from the walls, and the red colour of the bricks freshened up. It all looked like new. There was a great pilgrimage up there when it was all finished, and many good wishes were expressed for the new school. Tomasine incurred considerable debt--she had to pay a large sum for the school which she took over. But from the first, the influx was unprecedented. Little girls from the country, nay, even from the nearest towns, were entered. They were boarded with different people, whom she recommended. She did not wish at first to have any in the house. She must regulate the school.