"What did you say?" Gwen asked.
"I don't dare to tell," declared Rob, in a teasing voice.
"You needn't!" cried Gwen, and she rudely turned her back toward
Rob, and commenced to talk to Leslie Grafton.
She talked so fast that she hardly knew what she was saying, but she wished Rob Lindsey to think that she had quite forgotten that he was there.
The bell rang, and while the others turned to hasten toward the school house, Gwen walked along as if merely out for a stroll, and she entered the schoolroom after all the others were seated. The new teacher thought it a happening, but the pupils knew that Gwen had done it to learn if the teacher would rebuke her.
As her tardiness passed unnoticed, Gwen at once decided to do something more striking.
She was bright, and quick to learn, but she cared little for study, and she would have been placed in a much lower class, but for her mother's great influence.
Mrs. Harcourt had listened very patiently while it had been made clear to her that her small daughter was not fitted for the class in which her little friends were placed.
She was a charming woman, and she had begged, even insisted that Gwen be placed in the class with Princess Polly, Rose Atherton, and Sprite Seaford, and thus given the opportunity to prove that she could "keep up" with her class.
The new teacher was amused, and believing that Gwen's stay in the class would be of short duration, she yielded.