"Why then he must have been in the Academy when Mr. Harold was there. He graduated two years later. I wonder if they knew each other. Mr. Harold would have been a youngster, and your father a first-classman, and first-classmen HAVE been known to notice youngsters."
Peggy looked puzzled. Although she had always lived within ten miles of the Academy, she had never entered its gates, and knew nothing of its ways or rules. Polly was wiser, having spent a month with her aunt. She laughed as she explained:
"A first-classman is a lordly being who is generally at odds with a second-classman, but inclined to protect a third-classman, or youngster, simply because the second-classman is inclined to make life a burden for him, just as he in turn is ready to torment the life out of a fourth- classman, or plebe. I am just beginning to understand it. It seemed perfectly ridiculous at first, but I guess some of those boys are the better for the running they get. I've only been here since the first of October, but I've learned a whole lot in four weeks. Maybe you will come over to see us some time and you will understand better then."
"I'd love to, I am sure. But may I offer you something more? No? Then perhaps we would better go down to the paddock."
They stepped from the piazza and walked through the beautifully kept garden. On either side late autumn flowers were blooming, the box hedges were a deep, waxen green, and gave forth a rich, aromatic odor. Polly cried:
"I just can't believe that you—you—why that you are the mistress of all this. I don't believe you can be one bit older than I am."
"I was fourteen last January," answered Peggy simply.
"And I fifteen last August," cried Polly with the frankness of her years.
"Then you are exactly five months older than I am, aren't you?" Peggy's smile was wonderfully winning.
"And when I look at all this and hear you talk I feel just about five YEARS YOUNGER," was Polly's frank reply. "Why I've never done a single thing in my life.''