Tired as they were, the three chums were so fascinated with their new surroundings and their new friends that the preliminary bell for "all lights out" found them still unwilling to go to their room.
"To-morrow's Sunday so we shall be expected to go to church in the morning," said Jessie, as they lingered in the hall for a last word. "But in the afternoon after dinner we'll show you all about the place."
"I want to see the tennis courts. Don't forget the tennis courts," begged Nan.
"We won't forget the tennis courts," their new friends laughed, and with a last gay wave of the hand went off toward their own rooms.
The three girl chums were so full of the crowding experience of the day that they had expected to stay up for the best part of the night—surreptitiously of course and ready to jump into bed at the first sound in the corridor—discussing them.
But they had counted without the comfortable beds at Laurel Hall and their own complete exhaustion. Three heads had scarcely touched three pillows before three pairs of eyes closed in dreamless sleep.
That was the end of the first day at Laurel Hall.
After that several days flew by in rapid succession, each so crowded with pleasant experiences that the girls scarcely noticed their going.
Long letters were written home, fairly bulging with news. Jo started something which interested Sadie and was heartily approved by Nan. This was a diary—or, as Jo preferred to call it, a journal in which she recorded daily the most interesting doings of that day. Jo could write amusingly. Her wit always sparkled more on paper than in speech. The journal that she prepared for that first week was so funny when read aloud to a roomful of girls that she was unanimously acclaimed a "coming literary light."
"We have been harboring a genius in our midst," Gladys Holt declaimed with full dramatic effect. "I'm going to speak to Gerry Middleton about you, and if she doesn't get you a job on the Pied Piper she hasn't as much sense as they give her credit for."