“Aren’t they, really?” asked Wally, much interested. “Well, they look it; there’s a girl over there with red hair who looks nearly too good to be true”—wherein Mr. Meadows showed as much penetration as is usually given to man. “You don’t mean to say that they’re all accustomed to getting across a flower bed in your fashion, Norah?”
“Oh, I’ll get into a dreadful row if Miss Winter happened to see me, I expect!” Norah said. “It’s against the rules, of course—but I had to run or to yell, or I’d have missed you—and it’s riskier to yell. Oh, Wally, I am glad to see you!”
“So am I,” said Wally, heartily—“to see you, I mean. You’ve grown immense, too, Norah.”
“Yes, haven’t I? All my frocks are too short, and I know Dad will say I’ve put my feet too far through them. Oh, Wally, have you seen Dad—and Jim?”
“Saw them yesterday. They ought to be here pretty soon—but my brother motored me down, so I didn’t come with them. Norah—there’s a girl looking at me, and if you don’t take her away I shall scream!”
“Why, that’s Jean Yorke,” said Norah, wheeling. “She’s my chum, and you’ve got to be extra nice to her, ’cause she is coming home with me for the holidays.”
“Then she deserves any one’s kind sympathy,” said Wally, solemnly. He advanced upon Jean with outstretched hand and a smile that went far to put that somewhat shy individual at her ease, while Norah murmured a haphazard introduction.
Jean was a short and rather thickset person, with blue eyes and a freckled nose, and a square, honest face. Neither chum could have been regarded as pretty. They were wholesome-looking girls—alike in the trim neatness that is characteristic of the Australian schoolgirl; and alike also in the quality of sturdy honesty that looked straight at the world from blue eyes and grey. Jean was fair, her thick masses of hair gathered in more tightly than Norah’s curly brown mop ever permitted—whereat Norah was frankly envious. She was also wont to be apologetic, because, although a year the younger, she towered over Jean by half a head. The unfulfilled ambition of Jean’s dreams was to be tall and slender, and Norah bore a lasting grudge against Fate for denying so moderate a longing on her friend’s part. She watched her anxiously for signs of growth, and at frequent intervals measured her height, while tactfully ignoring what she herself would have called her girth.
Across the introduction came a cold voice.
“Your brother, I presume, Norah?”