"Cheer up, girls; cheer up!" he said. "A marvellous and very wonderful thing has happened to-day. Harriet Lane has left us, and we cannot regret it. I have written a line to her father who will receive her, I believe, not unkindly. You girls, who will meet her at the school, will, I am certain, do your utmost to help her to retrieve the past. As far as Ralph and I are concerned, she has gone as completely out of our lives as dear Robina wanted to go when I met her to-day before breakfast. "Now, Jane Bush; I mean to take you in hand. You are not a good child by any means, but I think you have the making of one, and I know a school where you can be well and happily educated; and I mean to make enquiries about your little brother and sister and,--who knows? but Miriam may be allowed to join you later on at the same school. Anyhow, it is best for you and Harriet not to be together at present. And now please, all the rest of you, come back immediately to the study, for the election of the school-mother has not yet taken place." They all followed Mr Durrant back again to the same room. The windows were wide open, and the delicious autumn air, all fragrant with flowers and sunshine, was coming in, and there, standing close together, his arm around her waist, his hand clasping hers, was that small boy, who seemed to divide the attributes of a fairy boy and a human boy in all his ways and thoughts and doings. And there was Robina, the colour in her cheeks, and the light in her eyes. "Ralph's school-mother. Congratulate her and Ralph," said Mr Durrant. "Oh! how glad I am!" said Patience. "And how glad we all are!" cried the others, even Jane Bush joining in the chorus. So Robina was surrounded by her companions; and so the clouds rolled away and the sun came truly out once more at Sunshine Lodge. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The End. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Little School-Mothers, by L.T. Meade