“Oh come now, come and look at this view; isn’t this quite superb?”
But Peggy refused to admire. Jessie snatched up a school story which she was reading and turned her back upon the other two, pretending to read.
Peggy whispered to Molly, “Why thin, I don’t like her. What’s put her in that sulk now, you tell me?”
“You mustn’t speak against my sister,” Molly whispered back.
Then Jessie shrugged one of her shoulders, for of course she heard the whispering, and made up her mind that, come what would, she would try to induce Mrs. Fleming to send Peggy away from the school.
Thus these three young people were by no means in a state of harmony when they arrived at The Red Gables.
CHAPTER IX.
THE IMP OF THE RED GABLES.
It was the custom at The Red Gables for the entire school to meet together, and in the presence of their teachers to have tea together during the first evening of each term. Afterwards the Upper and the Lower School might still remain in the great central hall, talking with their mutual friends and discussing how and where the holidays were spent. This evening was looked forward to with deep interest by all the old pupils; they had so much to say, to inquire about, to whisper together. For the rules were very strict, and except in the case of a holiday, or the Saturday half-holiday, the pupils of the Upper and Lower Schools never met except on this one precious evening.
But while the old pupils delighted in these few moments of reunion, the new pupils—when there were new pupils—did not find this time of mutual confab so agreeable. They, poor things, felt strange and out in the cold, and as a rule longed for the moment when they might cross the quadrangle and retire to their own rooms.
The Red Gables was an old-fashioned house, built round three sides of a square. This gave it a slightly foreign appearance. On the fourth side a great archway was flung across where the square opened on to the long avenue, which was very broad and straight.