he receiver, and sought the
Doctor. He was boiling with rage.

"Brace up, old chap. It's nothing serious, you may be sure of that, or
your uncle would have sent for you at once. And, remember, mum's the
word."

"Yes, sir. I'll remember, sir. And thank you a whole lot, sir, for
letting me phone. I'll hold my jaw--I mean I won't say a single word."

"A pretty state of things, I'll be bound," stormed Dr. Kilton when Athol
had gone. "Why that woman----" he did not complete his sentence.

"I wish she would sell out and go to live in Jericho, or some other
remote place!" cried Mrs. Kilton, petulantly. Then added eagerly: "Oh
Avary, perhaps she will--after all this. It will stir the whole
countryside."

CHAPTER XIX

FOR HAPPIER DAYS

While Athol was fuming at Kilton Hall and trying to keep his promise to
his uncle to "hold his jaw," though it very nearly resulted in lockjaw,
the ferment at Leslie Manor grew.

The older girls had grown rebellious almost to a unit, and the entire
school was terror-stricken or hysterical, the inevitable outcome of a
discipline which had steadily grown more severe and arbitrary; a nagging
surveillance which only incited in the pupils a wild desire to do the
very things of which they were unjustly suspected and accused. They were
never trusted, their simplest, most innocent acts were misconstrued,
their word doubted, and, as in Beverly's case, Miss Woodhull had more
than once cruelly baited and insulted them.

Truly, "the years had wrought strangenesses in her," and a more
short-sighted policy than she had adopted for the past five it would be
hard to conceive.

Mrs. Bonnell and some of the teachers had been painfully alive to all
this for a long time. Two or three of the instructors had resigned and
sought positions elsewhere, unable to work in the unhappy atmosphere
which Miss Woodhull created.

Once Mrs. Bonnell had bearded the lioness in her den and striven to
remonstrate with her, which had drawn upon her devoted head such a storm
of resentment that she had then and there tendered her resignation also.
At that point Miss Woodhull, realizing how entirely dependent she was
upon Mrs. Bonnell's perfect management of Leslie Manor had actually
apologized and begged Mrs. Bonnell to remain. She excused her language
upon the score of excessive fatigue after so many years of unremitting
work. "Unremitting?" Mrs. Bonnell smi