"No, it's only the first part of it. Let me finish, and then you'll see. Dr. Redford says the drains can't possibly be touched while we're all in the house, and yet they must be opened at once. Can't you guess now?"
"Miss Russell never means to send us home when we've only just come back?" gasped Lindsay hopefully.
"No, not that, though it's nearly as jolly. She's taken a beautiful old manor house in the country, and it's to be our school for the whole of the summer term. We're to go there in a body—girls, and teachers, and servants, and everyone."
If Nora had hoped to astonish her companions she had certainly succeeded. They were wild with curiosity, and fired off questions all three together.
"Where is it?"
"When are we going?"
"One at a time, please," said Nora, enjoying her importance. "I met Mildred Roper in the hall just now. Miss Russell has been explaining it to the monitresses, and said they might tell us as soon as they liked. It's a lovely Elizabethan house, at a place called Haversleigh, a long way from here. We're to start next Tuesday."
Such a tremendous event as the removal of the school from town to country was without precedent in the annals of Winterburn Lodge.
"It's almost too good to be true," cried Cicely rapturously.