“If he were in this school,” added Josy, breathing deeply, “wouldn’t I get ideas from him for the prize!”
“He’d win it himself, I should imagine,” corrected the superior Stella. “There wouldn’t be much chance for any of us! I’m going to ask dad for ideas at the week-end. If he knows any good ones, I’ll tell you on Monday.”
“Why, it’s the week-end to-morrow,” exclaimed Margot. “Where do you live, Stella? Shall you walk home, or how do you get there?”
“No, the trap comes,” said Stella. “We live off the road that goes to the station. It’s nearly five miles away; you must have passed it as you came, only you wouldn’t see the house, perhaps; it’s behind trees.”
“We saw one house,” broke in Gretta excitedly—“a little house with no windows.”
“Did you notice that?” exclaimed Stella with animation. “The ‘Little House’! Oh, what do you think of it?”
“I thought it was the rummiest place I’d ever seen,” declared Margot. “I’ve been longing to ask someone about it ever since we got here. We saw it first from the train, and then we saw it from the trap, and we asked Miss Read about it. Somehow or other she didn’t tell us much: something about an old man, but I thought—didn’t you, Gretta?—that she seemed to try and shut us up rather.”
“No wonder!” said Stella, in a hollow tone of mystery.
CHAPTER VII
HERMITS AND HORSES
“OH, do go on!” begged the Dormitory, intrigued by Stella’s mysterious accents.