“She got together with some teachers that she knew and she started Hilltop. She started with ten pupils, and now I wish you’d look at us. We’re the most wonderful school in the country.”
Gladys finished as though she were closing a speech to the Senate.
“But what about the ballroom?” Janet insisted.
“I’m coming to that, if you have a little patience,” Gladys told her.
“Miss Hull remembered her grandfather, and she remembered how he liked to have the rooms called by their special name, so she goes on calling them the same and so you see, instead of having lectures in an assembly hall, like everybody else, we have them in a real ballroom, that’s the most beautiful room in the state.
“That’s why we call it the ballroom still, and why we call the dining room the hall, why Miss Hull’s room is the boudoir instead of an office, and why we have history in the library instead of a classroom. You see, it gives us an advantage over other schools, makes Hilltop original instead of an ordinary boarding school.”
Gladys paused, and looked at her listeners for appreciation.
The twins sighed. “It’s just wonderful!” Janet said.
“Why it makes you think you’re living in the time of white wigs and patches,” Phyllis whispered, looking about her as though she expected to see Colonel Hull walk through one of the heavy oak doors, ready for a day with the hounds.
Janet’s eyes held the look of dreamy speculation that had so often filled them when she was reading old-world stories in her Enchanted Kingdom.