“Oh, no, they’re not, really! Only, you see—” She stopped, and then went on a trifle breathlessly: “I guess she wouldn’t be awfully pleased if she saw me now! I—I hope you’ll like the school.”
She nodded and went on.
“Thanks,” called Laurie. “If we don’t like it, we’ll change it. Good-by.”
“Nice kid,” observed Ned, tolerantly, as they turned the corner of the hedge. “Wonder who she is. She said most of the fellows went to her mother’s. Maybe her mother gives dancing lessons or something, eh?”
“If she does, she won’t see me,” responded his brother, firmly. “No dancing for mine.”
“Maybe it’s compulsory.”
“Maybe it’s esthetic,” retorted Laurie, derisively. “It makes no never mind. I’m agin it. This must be the place. Yes, there’s a sign.”
It was a very modest sign a-swing from a rustic post beside a broad entrance giving on to a well-kept drive. “Hillman’s School—Entrance Only,” it read. Laurie stopped in pretended alarm and laid a detaining clutch on Ned’s shoulder.
“‘Entrance Only’! Sounds as if we couldn’t ever get out again, Ned! Do you dare?”
Ned looked doubtfully through at the curving drive and the red-brick building that showed beyond the border of trees and shrubbery. Then he threw back his shoulders and set foot bravely within.