explained. “The gate is a little way around the corner there, on Summit Street.”

“Oh,” said Laurie. That laugh was contagious, and he grinned in response. “A man at the station told us it was only three quarters of a mile, but we’ve been walking for hours!”

“I guess it’s nearer a mile than three quarters,” answered the girl, slowly. She appeared to be giving the matter very serious consideration and two little thoughtful creases appeared above her nose, a small, straight nose that was bridged by a sprinkling of freckles. Then the smile came again. “Maybe it did seem longer, though,” she acknowledged, “for it’s uphill all the way; and then, you had your bags. You’re new boys, aren’t you?”

Ned acknowledged it, adding, “Think we’ll like it?”

The girl seemed genuinely surprised. “Why, of course! Every one likes it. What a perfectly funny idea!”

“Well,” said Laurie, defensively, “we’ve never tried boarding-school before, you see. Dad didn’t know anything about Hillman’s, either. He chose it on account of the way the advertisement read in a magazine. Something about ‘a moderate discipline rigidly enforced.’”

The girl laughed again. (She had a jolly sort of laugh, they decided.) “You’re—you’re twins, aren’t you?” she asked.

“He is,” replied Ned, gravely.

“Why—why, aren’t you both?” Her brown eyes grew very round and the little lines creased her nose again.

“It’s this way,” explained Laurie. “Ned was born first, and so, as there was only one of him, he wasn’t a twin. Then I came, and that made two of us, and I was a twin. You see, don’t you? It’s really quite plain.”

The girl shook her head slowly in puzzlement. “I—I’m afraid I don’t,” she answered apologetically. “You must be twins—both of you, I mean—because you both look just like both—I mean, each other!” Then she caught the sparkle of mischief in Ned’s blue eyes and laughed. Then they all laughed. After which they seemed suddenly to be very good friends, such good friends that Laurie abandoned custom and spoke out of turn.

“I suppose you know a lot of the fellows,” he said.

The girl shook her head. “N—no, not any, really. Of course, I see most of them when they come to Mother’s, but she doesn’t like me to—to know them.”

“Of course not,” approved Ned. “She’s dead right, too. They’re a pretty poor lot, I guess.”

“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