Harry and Dick were sitting on the lower step of the little flight leading to the Cottage porch. It was between ten and eleven of a perfect May morning. The crumbling red bricks paving the short path which led to the curving drive glowed warmly in the sun, and the little blades of grass springing up between them were very green and pert. The campus looked vastly different to-day from what it had that January afternoon when Harry had introduced Dick to Ferry Hill. To-day there was the bluest of blue skies overhead, and instead of the waste of snow the grass stretched away on every side fresh and verdant. The Grove was fast clothing itself in new, tender green, and beyond, at the foot of the long hill, the river dimpled and shone in the sunshine. Something of this occurred to Harry, I think, for she stopped pulling Snip’s ear—an operation which that member of the group, half-asleep in the sunlight, thoroughly approved of—and asked:
“Dick, do you remember the day I brought you up here to show you the school? And how cold it was? And how nasty and dismal everything looked? After you’d gone I never thought for a minute that you’d come back.”
“Neither did I,” answered Dick with a little laugh. “I guess I’d have stayed at Hammond and liked it all right if I hadn’t got there before school opened. It seemed so beastly lonesome over there, and the fellows who stayed during vacation were such a ghastly bunch, that I just had to get out. It was a toss-up whether I’d come over here and try this or hit the trail for home.”
“Are you sorry you came?” asked Harry anxiously.
“Not a bit,” replied Dick with convincing heartiness. “I like it, and I like you and Chub and Roy. You’ve all been so decent to me, you know. You’re all three mighty good fellows, Harry.”
Harry flushed and looked pleased.
“I—I guess we liked you,” she said. “I’m glad you like Roy and Chub,” she continued. “I just love them! They’re—they’re the nicest boys I ever knew, I guess; and you too, Dick.”
Dick shook his head sorrowfully.
“I’m jealous,” he said. “You put Roy and Chub first.”