"Oh, I shall be with twenty other girls," said Jean; "a kind of club, you know. Isobel says it's lovely. And then we get so stuck here!"
Cuthbert admitted that it wasn't the thing for them all to be cooped up in Ridgetown.
"Couldn't stand it myself, without work," said he. "And then, it's ripping, of course."
It was lovely to have Cuthbert back, and he made a new acquaintance in Isobel. She had been a queer little half-grown thing when he had last seen her.
In an indefinite way he did not approve of her, but finding her on terms of such intimacy with every one, he only gave signs of pleasure at meeting her.
Elma was in dismay because there were heaps and heaps of things for which she wanted Cuthbert, and he only stayed two days. An idea that he could put a number of crooked things straight, if he remained, made her plead with him to come again.
Cuthbert promised in an abstracted manner.
"Give me one more year, Elma, and then you may have to kick me out of Ridgetown," he said. "Who knows? At least, I shall make such a try for it, that you may have to kick me out."
Everybody nice seemed to be leaving, and Adelaide Maud was away.
It was rather trying to Elma that Isobel should about this period insist on visiting at Miss Annie's. Isobel seemed to be with them on every occasion, from the moment that Jean arranged to go to London.