The Charm School
before. Now, her lawyers wrote to say that, as she had left no will, he, as next of kin, appeared to have inherited all her estate. This consisted entirely of her school-grounds of about ten acres overlooking the Sound, two large houses accommodating about fifty pupils with the necessary teaching and household staff, also the small cottage in which Mrs. Bevans herself had lived, all not too heavily mortgaged and yielding the former owner a net income of about $3,000 a year.
"Three thousand a year!" cried David. It seemed to him a very large income.
"And the house," added Bevans.
"You must never go near the place, Austin," said his friend. "If you do, all the little darlings will fall in love with you, and their parents will take them away and the school will be ruined."
"Not go near it!" said Bevans. "I shall live there and direct it exactly as my aunt did—only not in the same direction."
"You're mad," cried David. "You at the head of a girls' school!"
"There's money in it and I need money."
"Your face would wreck a thousand schools," cried the other, with conviction.
David's opposition was not to be shaken. He was naturally inclined to conservatism,
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