"You said you couldn't go with us to Laurel Hall," said the third of the trio, repeating the statement made by Jo Morley a moment before as though she still could not credit it. "Why, Jo, it was only yesterday we were talking over our plans for boarding school! You expected to go then, didn't you?"
"Of course I did! I learned the awful news only last night!"
Over Jo's dark head Nan Harrison and Sadie Appleby exchanged frowning glances. Then Nan slipped a coaxing arm within Jo's.
"Suppose you tell us all about it, Jo," she said. "It's the worst news in the world, of course, but we might as well hear it now as later."
"I hardly understand about it myself, yet," said poor Jo, with a telltale quiver of her lips. "But it has something to do with Dad's business. He's had a heavy money loss, as he calls it, and—and he can't afford to send me away to boarding school. That's all."
"All!" echoed Nan Harrison, aghast. "It's enough! Why, Jo, if you can't go to Laurel Hall it will just spoil everything! I don't want to go at all!"
"Nor I!" said Sadie Appleby.
The three girls walked along moodily for a distance, pondering this unexpected change in their prospects.
Nan Harrison, the tallest of the three chums, was fair-haired and blue-eyed, a fine specimen of the athletic schoolgirl. Jo Morley formed a rather striking contrast to Nan in that her hair and eyes were as dark as Nan's were fair. Jo was small, too, and as lithe and active on her feet as a little cat.
Sadie Appleby, on the other hand, was rather a cross between the two, being of medium height, and having light brown hair and gray eyes.