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The Charm School


would be left to her. Nevertheless, she laughed.

"You wouldn't laugh if you had seen him," Miss Curtis went on. "He's just the kind of young man who ought never to be allowed to enter a girls' school at all. He's—he's unsettling; he's beautiful," she added, as if nothing could be wickeder than that.

"Well, if he owns the school we can't keep him out," said Miss Hayes, growing grave in deference to her friend's obvious distress. "You're sure he really is Mr. Bevans?"

Miss Curtis sighed. "Oh, I'm afraid there's no doubt about that. Mr. Johns, the little princess's grandfather, brought him. And the worst of it is he's going to break up the whole morning's work. He wants us all assembled so that he can address us."

"I'll attend to it at once," said Miss Hayes.

A thrill of the wildest excitement ran through the school at the news that the new owner was actually in the building. They knew, of course, that their school had been inherited by a male relation of Mrs. Bevans, and some of them had even got hold of a rumor that he was in the automobile business. But there are all kinds of ways of being connected with this great industry, and two opposing theories had developed in the

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