‘Why not? What would happen if I did?’ asked Babs, curiously.
‘Well, you’d feel jolly small, and have to come round in the end and behave like other people,’ said Jean, raising her voice to make herself heard.
Barbara wandered into Ruth’s room to have her frock unfastened, and continued the discussion from there.
‘Then, is being good at school the same thing as behaving like other people?’ she said doubtfully.
The others seemed to have some difficulty in answering this. ‘There!’ said Ruth, giving her a little push; ‘make haste and get undressed.’
Barbara wandered back into her own room again, and thought it over carefully. ‘Being good at home wouldn’t be the same thing as behaving like other people,’ she observed presently.
‘Home isn’t school,’ answered Ruth. ‘And Finny’s school isn’t like other people’s schools,’ she added.
‘Isn’t it?’ said Babs, with interest. ‘Where’s the difference?’
‘Ask Jean,’ replied Ruth; and Jean took up the tale from beyond.
‘I was at another school before I came here, and it was very different, I can tell you,’ she remarked. ‘There were nothing but rules there, and you always seemed to be breaking one or another of them, without knowing it; and then you got punished. I was punished the whole time I was there.’