CHAPTER XI.
BREAKING THE NEWS.
JEAN and Jack came down the wide sunlit hall with their two heads close together. It was three days since their return from the house party to their own home.
Outside a half-opened door they stopped. "Listen, Jack," Jean whispered, swallowing a giggle. "They have been doing it every single day."
"If three fifths of a number is fifteen, what is the number?" Frieda's voice read slowly and solemnly. She paused fora long moment. "The number is fifteen, isn't it Olive? The sum said so."
Jean would not have swallowed her giggle this time, except that Jack pinched her on the arm. "Do be quiet, Jean," she entreated. "You will hurt their feelings."
"No, Frieda," Olive explained patiently. "You see one fifth of fifteen is five—"
Jack knocked lightly on the door. "May we interrupt the school a minute, please?" she begged. "I have to go away in a little while with Jim and I do want to see what is going on. I think it is perfectly sweet of you, Olive, to be trying to teach Frieda. It makes Jean and me awfully ashamed."
Olive laughed shyly: "Oh, I am not teaching," she answered, "Frieda and I are just studying together. There are such a lot of things I ought to know so you won't be ashamed of me, and I am trying to learn the few that I can. Frieda likes to study too."