"Oh what a waste of strength," said Jack Marvin, with a well affected yawn. "I got started first and called fer my cousin Dot, and by tugging her all the way I managed to get her here, too." The Langham twins, to whom Jack was very attentive, looked at each other in amazement. They admired Jack, but was he untruthful? The idea that he was joking never occurred to them. Reuben Jenks described them as "joke proof," as they had never been known to see the point of any witticism, and if it chanced to be explained to them they would stare placidly at the speaker and then invariably remark, "Why I don't call that funny." "I'm going to tell Miss Gilman that my name is Dorothea. I'm tired of being called Dot, 'specially as I'm round and dumpy," remarked Jack's cousin resolutely. "I'll call you Dorothea every time as loud as I can roar it, see if I don't," said Jack, but as Miss Gilman touched her bell just at this moment, Jack was obliged to wait for an opportunity to address his cousin by her full name. As the scholars were taking their places in the seats which had been assigned them, Molly Wilson entered, looking very pretty in a gown of a dark, rich red and a pair of new boots which squeaked with every step. "Her new dress is just like yours," whispered Dot Marvin to Randy, but Randy, whose cheeks were suddenly very pink, seemed not to have heard, and Dot was obliged to be contented with looking from Molly's dress to Randy's and wondering how it happened that they chanced to be alike. The scholars from the youngest to the oldest were loud in their praise of the new school, and delighted that Miss Gilman was again their faithful teacher, but in the merry throng there was one who found it difficult to be content, and that was Phoebe Small. That the schoolroom was warm and cheerful, that there was plenty of room, and ample opportunity for study counted for little since she had set her heart upon going to boarding school, and therefore an ordinary day school seemed a very tame affair. At recess she confided to Dot Marvin that she didn't see why ma couldn't approve of having her daughter at a boarding school since she (Mrs. Small) attended one when she was a girl. "I'd 'nough sight rather be at home," drawled Dot, "even with my cousin Jack to tease me. When he goes a little too far I can hit back by teasing him 'bout the Langham twins. That always stops him. But Phoebe," she continued, "I shouldn't think you would like to go away to school. They'd all be strangers and seems to me you'd be lonesome and homesick." "That's what ma said, but I wanted to try it. I can't, it seems, so I've got to stay here and try to think I like it," said Phoebe, with an expression upon her face of extreme dissatisfaction. In another part of the yard an animated conversation of quite a different character was in progress. Little Hi Babson and Prue Weston were swinging upon the gate. "Why how naughty," Prue was saying. "I shouldn't a thought you'd dare to."