"Yes, you'd have felt all rubbed the wrong way, just as Cicely and I feel, and just hate the sight of a teacher, and want to do everything you could to plague them," said Toinette, petulantly.

"Well, you won't want to do that _here_" answered Edith, emphatically. "If you cut any such capers in _this_ school, it won't be the _teachers_ who will go for you, but the _girls_," with a significant wag of her head.

"The girls?" asked Cicely, with a puzzled expression.

"Certain. We think our school about the best going, and we aren't going to let anyone else think differently, if we can help it; are we, Ruth? So, if a girl takes it into her head to be rude and cranky to the teachers, or other girls, she finds herself in a corner pretty quick, I can tell you."

"Suppose you break the rules?" asked Toinette.

"Aren't any to break," answered happy-go-lucky Ruth, as she pranced down the big room after the ball, which had gone bouncing off.

"No _rules!_" incredulously.

"Not a single one. All you've got to do is to be nice to everybody, remember you're a gentlewoman (or you wouldn't be here, let me tell you), and do your jolly best to pa.s.s your examinations. If you don't it is your own fault, and you have to suffer for it; no one else, that's sure; for you can have all the help you ask for."

Toinette and Cicely exchanged glances.

"Oh, I daresay you don't believe us," said Edith, who had correctly interpreted the glances, "but just you wait and see. All the new girls think the same, and I daresay that we should have, too, if we had come here from some other school; but, thank goodness, we didn't. There aren't any more schools like this, are there, Ruth?"

"Nary one; there's only one, and we've got it," cried the irrepressible Ruth, and two weeks later the girls found that, truly, no rules could be broken where none existed.

CHAPTER V

TWO SIDES OF A QUESTION

It could hardly be expected that, after her training of the past six and a half years, Toinette would at once respond to the wiser, more elevating influences now surrounding her. The old impulses would return, and a desire to conceal where no concealment was necessary often placed her in a false light. She distrusted those in authority simply because they were in authority, rather than that they ever made it apparent. It seemed to have become second nature with her, and bade fair to prove a work of almost infinite patience and love upon the part of the teachers to undo the mischief wrought in those miserable years.

But, after making a toy of the poor child for all that time, fickle fate seemed about to make amends, and, although it was yet to be proven, Toinette was now launched upon a sunny sea, and destined to sail into a happy harbor.

She was sitting in her room one beautiful afternoon about a week after her arrival at the school, and, unconsciously doing profitable examples in rhetoric by drawing nice contrasts between her present surroundings and her former ones. Presently a tap came upon her door, and she called: "Come in."

In bounced Ruth, crying: "Come on down to the village with us, will you?

Edith and Cicely are waiting at the gate."

"Which teacher is going with us?" asked Toinette, suspiciously.

"Teacher?" echoed Ruth. "Why, none, of course. Why don't you ask if we are going in a baby-carriage?" and she laughed as she slipped her arm through Toinette's.

"You don't mean to say that we will be allowed to go by ourselves?"

"Toinette Reeve, I think you've got the queerest ideas I ever heard of!

Come on!"

In spite of Ruth's a.s.surance, Toinette cast apprehensive glances about her, as though she expected a frowning face to appear around some corner and rebuke them. Instead, however, they came upon Miss Howard just at the end of the corridor, who asked in a cheery voice:

"Where away so briskly, my lady birds?"

"Only to the village; good-bye," answered Ruth, waving her hand in farewell.

"Pleasant journey. You will probably run across Miss Preston down there somewhere, and can act as bodyguard for her."

The girls walked briskly on, and presently Cicely asked:

"What are you going for, anyway?"

"Some good things, to be sure. I'm just perishing for some cream-peppermints, and my week's pocket-money is scorching holes in my pocket as fast as ever it can."

"Do you think Miss Preston would scold if I got something, too?" asked Toinette.

"What would she scold about? You didn't _steal_ the money you're going to buy it with, did you? And your stomach's your own, isn't it? Besides, when you've been here a while longer you'll learn that Miss Preston _doesn't_ scold. If she thinks a thing isn't good for you to do, she just asks you not to do it, and she takes it for granted that you've got sense enough to understand why."

"Oh, I guess you're all _saints_ in this school," replied Toinette, sarcastically.

"Well, as near as _I_ can make out, you had a pretty good supply of sinners where you came from," was the prompt retort.

When Ruth's pocket was saved from destruction the girls started homeward.

They had not gone far when three of the boys from the large school at the upper end of the town were seen coming toward them.

"Oh, jolly," cried Edith, "there are Ned, Allan and Gilbert! Now we'll have fun; they're awfully nice. Allan has the dearest pony and trap you ever saw, and is just as generous as can be with it."

The boys were now beside them, and, raising their caps politely, joined the party and were introduced to the new girls. This was a complete revelation to Cicely and Toinette, for at Miss Carter's school boys had been regarded as a species of wild animal, to be shunned as though they carried destruction to all whom they might overtake.

But here were Ruth and Edith walking along with three of those monsters in manly form, and, still worse, talking to them in the frankest, merriest manner, as though there were no such thing on earth as schools and teachers. Toinette and Cicely dropped a little behind, and soon found an opportunity to draw Edith with them.

"Don't forget that Miss Howard said that Miss Preston was down in the village. I'll bet a cookie there'll be a fine rumpus if she catches us gallivanting with all these boys," whispered Toinette.

A funny smile quivered about the corners of Edith's mouth, but before she could answer Miss Preston herself stood before them. She had suddenly turned in from a side street. As though detected in some serious misdemeanor, Toinette and Cicely hung back, and Edith remained beside them.

With such a smile as only Miss Preston could summon, she bowed to the group, and said:

"How do you do, little people? Are you going to let me add one more to the party? I'm not very big, you know, and I like a bodyguard. Besides, I haven't seen the boys in a 'blue moon,' and I think it high time I took them to task, for they haven't been to call upon us in an age. Give an account of yourselves, young sirs. Before very long there is going to be a dance at a house I could mention, and you don't want to be forgotten by the hostess, do you?"

Toinette and Cicely found it difficult to believe themselves awake.

Touching Edith's elbow, they indicated by mysterious signs that they wished to ask something, and dropped still further behind.

"What does it all mean, anyhow? She doesn't really mean to have the boys at the house, does she?"

Edith's eyes began to twinkle as though someone had dropped a little diamond into each, and, without answering, she gave a funny laugh and took a few quick steps forward. Slipping an arm about Miss Preston's waist, she said: "Miss Preston?"

"Yes, dear," turning a pleasant face toward the girl.

"The girls are planning a candy frolic for next Friday night, and were going to ask your permission to-day, only they haven't had time yet. May we have it over in the kitchen of the cottage, and may the boys come, too?"

A merry smile had overspread Miss Preston's face, and when Edith finished speaking, she said: