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Having read the letter twice, Bevans raised his eyes, shining with excitement, and said:

"Dave, I've inherited a school."

"A school? An automobile school?"

"No, a girls' boarding-school."

"A what?" said David, who had heard perfectly.

"You see before you," answered his friend, "the principal of the well-known fashionable school—the Bevans Boarding-school for Young Ladies."

"Well, next to inheriting the Sultan's harem, I can't think of anything pleasanter. Now let's have the facts."

But almost all the available facts were already before him. Bevans had not even seen the announcement of his aunt-by-marriage's death in the papers a few weeks ​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.