She was the daughter of a rich banker—­his only daughter.  The gods all seemed to have been very good to her.  She was not only a really beautiful girl, she was, for her age, a distinguished girl,—­one of the sort who seemed to do everything better than any one else, and with a lack of self-consciousness or pretension.  Every one admired her.  Some of her comrades would have loved her if she had given them the chance.  But no one could ever get intimate with her.  She came and went from school quite alone, in the habit of the American girl of those days before the chaperon became the correct thing.  She was charming to every one, but she kept every one a little at arm’s length.  Of course such a girl would be much talked over by the other type of girl to whom confidences were necessary.

As always happens in any school there was a popular teacher.  She taught history and literature, and I imagine girls get more intimate with such a teacher than they ever do with the mathematics.

Also, as always happens, there was a “teacher’s pet,” one of those girls that has to adore something, and the literature teacher, as she was smart and good looking, was as convenient to adore as anything else,—­and more adjacent.

Of course “teacher’s pet” never has any secrets from the teacher, and does not mean to be a sneak either.  Just can’t help turning herself inside out for her idol, and when the heart of a girl of seventeen turns itself inside out, almost always something comes out that is not her business.  That was how it happened that one day the literature teacher was told that the “Principal Girl” was receiving wonderful boxes of violets at the school door, and “Don’t you know ONE DAY she was seen by a group of pupils who happened to be going home, and were just behind her, getting into a closed carriage and driving away from the corner of the street!”

Now the literature teacher did not, as a rule, encourage such confidences, but this time it seemed useful.  She liked the Principal Girl—­admired her, in fact.  She was terribly shocked.  She warned her pet to talk to no one else, and then she went at once to the clergyman who was at the head of the school.  She knew that he felt responsible for his pupils, and this had an unpleasant look.  He took the pains to verify the two statements.  Then there was but one thing to do—­to lay the matter before the parents of the girl.

Now, as so often happens in American families, the banker and his wife stood in some awe of their daughter.  There was not that confidence between them which one traditionally supposes to exist between parents and children.  I imagine that there is no doubt that the adolescent finds it much easier to confide in some one other than the parents who would seem to be her proper confidants.

At any rate the banker and his wife were simply staggered.  They dared not broach the subject to the Principal Girl, and in their distress turned to the family lawyer.  As they were too cowardly to take his first advice—­perhaps they were afraid the daughter would lie, they sometimes do in the best regulated families,—­it was decided to put a discreet person “on the job,” and discover first of all what was really going on.