Johnston Annie Fellows - The Little Colonel at Boarding-School стр 2.

She passed the plate to each one, and then, sitting down on the top step beside it, helped herself to a slice of the hot, spicy cake.

"Oh, Rob, we're going to have such larks!" she began. "I've always wanted to go away to school, and have midnight suppahs and do the things you read about in stories. I've heard mothah talk about the funny things that happened at the seminary when she was a girl, till I was simply wild to go there, too. And now it seems too good to be true, that we are really going, and are to have the very same room that she had one term when grandfathah was away from home, and she boahded there in little old Lloydsboro Seminary just as we are going to do. There!" she added, ruefully, clapping her hand over her mouth. "I've gone and told you, and I intended to keep you guessing for an hou'ah. I knew you'd nevah think that we were going to stay right here in the Valley."

"Of course not," answered Rob. "You've been a day pupil at that old seminary for the last five years, ever since you started to school. I'd naturally suppose that when you packed up all you owned and started off to school you'd at least go out of the sight of your own chimney smoke. I don't see where the fun is coming in. I can't think of anything more stupid. Instead of tearing around the country on horseback after lessons, as you've always done, riding where you please, you'll have to take walks with a gang of other girls with a teacher at the head of the procession. It's great exercise, that, taking steps about an inch long and saying nothing but prunes and prisms."

"Don't you believe that's all!" cried Lloyd. "We'll have to take the walks, of co'se, but think of the time we'll have for basket-ball. We'll be able to play the Anchorage girls by Thanksgiving, and I couldn't have been on the team if I'd been only a day pupil."

"Of course we'll miss the ponies," Betty added. "Godmother tried to make some arrangement with President Wells to let us ride every day; but he said he couldn't make an exception in our case without being accused of partiality. If we came as regular pupils we must conform to the regular rules, and could not have even the liberties we always had as day pupils."

"Except in one thing," corrected Lloyd. "We can still go to the post-office for our mail, instead of having all our lettahs pass through the principal's hands. Mothah thought it wouldn't be worth while to change the address for just one term, especially as she wants me to forward the mail that comes to our box for Papa Jack. He changes his address so often on these business trips that he couldn't keep notifying the postmistress all the time, so I am to do it."

"Well, I pity you !" exclaimed Rob, teasingly, tapping his racket against the toes of his tennis shoes. "Boarding-schools are a bad lot, all that I've ever heard of. Scorched oatmeal and dried apples, with old cats watching at every keyhole! Ugh!"

Both girls laughed at his scowl of disgust, and Betty hastened to say, "But we'll have Aunt Cindy to fall back on if the fare gets too bad. That's the beauty of staying so near home. Mom Beck is to come every Monday to get our clothes to launder, and every Saturday to bring them back and see that we are all right, and you know she'll not let us starve. And there aren't any old cats in this school, Rob. Miss Edith is a dear. The girls fairly love the ground she walks on, and I'm sure that nobody could be nicer and more motherly than Mrs. Gelling."

"How about Miss Bina McCannister?" asked Rob, with a wry face. "She is cross enough to stop a clock, sober and prim and crabbed, with eyes like a fish. I went up there one day with a note from grandfather to Professor

Fowler, and she gave me such a stony glare because I happened to let a door bang, that I had cold shivers down my spine for a week."

"Oh, Rob," laughed Lloyd. "Aren't you ashamed to talk so? Anyhow, Miss McCannister will not bother us, because we are not in any of her classes."

"But she'll take her turn in trotting you out to walk, just the same. Then think what a glad procession that will be. You'll feel like prisoners in a chain-gang."

"Talk all you want to, if it amuses you any," said Lloyd, passing the gingerbread around once more. "It won't keep us from having a good time at bo'ding-school."

"Well, I'm coming out again at Thanksgiving. There's to be a big family reunion at Oaklea this year, and if you've stood the storm and still think that boarding-school life is funny, I'll stand treat to a five-pound box of Huyler's best. You can let that thought buoy you up through all the hungry hours between that time and this."

"Mercy, Rob, don't throw cold water on all our bright hopes like that," cried Betty, springing up as she heard her name spoken in the hall. "Mom Beck wants me. She is ready to begin packing my trunk."

"I must go in a few minutes," said Rob, "so if you're disappearing now, I'll say good-bye till Thanksgiving."

Betty held out her warm little hand. "Good-bye. 'Be good, sweet child, and let who will be clever,'" she quoted, as Rob gave it an awkward shake.