"I'm glad we've come. It will seem a lot different, and rather queer to do everything by rules and on time, but, after all, we had to do almost everything by rule up home."
"Yes, but they were nearly always our own rules; yours, anyway. Why, Peggy, I don't believe there is a girl in this school who ever had things as much her own way as you have had them."
"Maybe that's the reason I didn't get along with Aunt Katherine," answered Peggy whimsically.
"Aunt Katherine!" Polly's whisper suggested italics. "Do you know Miss Sturgis, the math. teacher, makes me think of her a little. Miss Sturgis is strong-minded, I'll bet a cookie. Did you hear what she said when she was giving out our books on sociology—doesn't it seem funny, Peggy, for us to take up sociology?—'She hoped we would become good American citizens and realize woman's true position in the world.' Somehow I've thought Tanta has always had a pretty clear idea of 'woman's position in the world.' At any rate she seems to have plenty to do in her own quiet way and I've an idea that if anyone ever hinted that she ought to go to the polls and vote she'd feel inclined to spell it pole and use it to 'beat 'em up' with, as Ralph and the boys would say. Oh, dear, how we are going to miss 'the bunch,' Peggy."
"We certainly are," was Peggy's sympathetic reply, and for a moment there was silence in the moonlit room as the girls' thoughts flew back to Annapolis. Then Peggy asked: "What do you think of the girls? You've been to school all your life, but it is all new to me."
Polly laughed a low, little laugh, then replied:
"They are about like most school-girls, I reckon. Let's see, which have we had most to do with since we came here twenty-four hours ago? There's Rosalie Breeze. She's named all right, sure enough, and if she doesn't turn out a hurricane we'll be lucky. We had one just like her up at High. And Lily Pearl Montgomery. My gracious, what a name to give a girl! She needs stirring up. She's just like a big, fat, spoiled baby. I feel like saying 'Goo-goo' to her."
"Don't you think Juno Gibson is handsome?" asked Peggy.
"Just as handsome as she can be, but I wish she didn't look so discontented all the time. Why, she hasn't smiled once since we came."
"I wonder why not?" commented Peggy.