Bessie pursed up her pretty lips, and imitated the manner of the prim schoolmistress, to the great amusement of our hero.
"Is that the way she talked?" he asked.
"Yes; and she glared at me through her spectacles. She looked like a beauty, with her tall bony figure, and thin face. Did you ever go to boarding-school?"
"No," said Tom; "nor to any other," he might almost have added.
"You wouldn't like it, though boys' boarding-schools may be better than girls'. I have been two years at Miss Wiggins' boarding-school, in Buffalo. Now I'm going home, on a vacation, and I really hope papa won't send me there again."
"Do you live in Cincinnati?"
"Yes—that is, papa does. Are you going to stay there long?"
"I think I shall live there," said Tom, who fancied it would be agreeable to live in the same city with Bessie Benton.
"Oh, I hope you will! Then you could come and see us."
"That would be bully," Tom was about to say, but it occurred to him that it would be in better taste to say: "I should like to very much."