“Yes.”

“In what way?”

“I mean they’ve had dates to meet in the park—­and other places.  Then they go joy riding.”

“Bessy, have you?”

“Yes—­but only just lately.”

“Thank you Bessy, for your—­your frankness,” replied Miss Hill, drawing a long breath.  “I’ll have another talk with you, after I see your mother.  You may go now.”

It was an indication of Miss Hill’s mental perturbation that for once she broke her methodical routine.  For many years she had carried a lunch-basket to and from school; for so many in fact that now on Saturdays when she went to town without it she carried her left hand forward in the same position that had grown habitual to her while holding it.  But this afternoon, as she went out, she forgot the basket entirely.

“I’ll go to Mrs. Bell,” soliloquized the worried schoolteacher.  “But how to explain what I can’t understand!  Some people would call this thing just natural depravity.  But I love these girls.  As I think back, every year, in the early summer, I’ve always had something of this sort of thing to puzzle over.  But the last few years it’s grown worse.  The war made a difference.  And since the war—­how strange the girls are!  They seem to feel more.  They’re bolder.  They break out oftener.  They dress so immodestly.  Yet they’re less deceitful.  They have no shame.  I can blind myself no longer to that.  And this last is damning proof of—­of wildness.  Some of them have taken the fatal step!...  Yet—­yet I seem to feel somehow Bessy Bell isn’t bad.  I wonder if my hope isn’t responsible for that feeling.  I’m old-fashioned.  This modern girl is beyond me.  How clearly she spoke!  She’s a wonderful, fearless, terrible girl.  I never saw a girl so alive.  I can’t—­can’t understand her.”

In the swift swinging from one consideration of the perplexing question to another Miss Hill’s mind naturally reverted to her errand, and to her possible reception.  Mrs. Bell was a proud woman.  She had married against the wishes of her blue-blooded family, so rumor had it, and her husband was now Chief of Police in Middleville.  Mrs. Bell had some money of her own and was slowly recovering her old position in society.

It was not without misgivings that Miss Hill presented herself at Mrs. Bell’s door and gave her card to a servant.  The teacher had often made thankless and misunderstood calls upon the mothers of her pupils.  She was admitted and shown to a living room where a woman of fair features and noble proportions greeted her.

“Bessy’s teacher, I presume?” she queried, graciously, yet with just that slight touch of hauteur which made Miss Hill feel her position.

“I am Bessy’s teacher,” she replied, with dignity.  “Can you spare me a few minutes?”

“Assuredly.  Please be seated.  I’ve heard Bessy speak of you.  By the way, the child hasn’t come home yet.  How late she always is!”