In a few weeks' time Alethea did choose to go and live at
Roughborough. A house was found with a field and a nice little
garden which suited her very well. "At any rate," she said to herself,
"I will have fresh eggs and flowers." She even considered the question
of keeping a cow, but in the end decided not to do so. She furnished
her house throughout anew, taking nothing whatever from her
establishment in Gower Street, and by Michaelmas- for the house was
empty when she took it- she was settled comfortably, and had begun
to make herself at home.
One of Miss Pontifex's first moves was to ask a dozen of the
smartest and most gentlemanly boys to breakfast with her. From her
seat in church she could see the faces of the upper-form boys, and
soon made up her mind which of them it would be best to cultivate.
Miss Pontifex, sitting opposite the boys in church, and reckoning them
up with her keen eyes from under her veil by all a woman's criteria,
came to a truer conclusion about the greater number of those she
scrutinized than even Dr. Skinner had done. She fell in love with
one boy from seeing him put on his gloves.
Miss Pontifex, as I have said, got hold of some of these
youngsters through Ernest, and fed them well.
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