"Yes. I know when she laughs, no matter how cross her voice sounds," declared Tess, confidently. "If you look right through her spectacles you'll see her eyes jumping. But I guess she's afraid to let us all see that she feels pleasant."
"She's afraid to spoil her discipline, I suppose," said Ruth. "But if ever I teach school I hope I can govern my scholars by making them love me--not through fear."
"Why, of course they'll all fall in love with you, Ruthie!" cried Agnes, with assurance. "Who wouldn't? But that old Pepperpot is another proposition."
"Perhaps she is a whole lot better than she appears," Ruth said mildly. "And I don't think we ought to call her 'Pepperpot.' Tess certainly has found her blind side."
"Ah, of course! Tess is like you," rejoined Agnes. "She would disarm a wild tiger."
"Oh! oh!" cried Neale, hearing this remark--and certainly what Agnes said was wilder than any tiger! "How would you go to work to disarm a tiger, Aggie? Never knew they had arms."
"I don't know how smart I am," said Neale. "I was setting here thinking----"
"You mean you were _sitting_," snapped Agnes. "You're neither a hen nor a mason."
"Why," returned the girl, "a hen _sets_ on eggs, and a mason _sets_ the stone in a wall, for instance. You _sit_ on that seat, I should hope."
"Oh, cricky! Get ap, Dobbin and Dewlap! What do you know about Aggie's turning critic all of a sudden?" cried Neale.
"Alas for our learning!" chuckled Ruth. "A hen _sets_ only in colloquial language. To a purist she always _sits_--according to my English lesson of yesterday.
"But you'd better see where you are turning to, young man," she went on, briskly. "Isn't yonder the road to Lycurgus Billet's place? He owns the chestnut woods."
"We can go that way if you like," admitted Neale. "But I want to come around by the Ipswitch Curve on the interurban, either going or coming."
"What for?" asked Ruth, while Agnes cried:
"Oh, don't Neale! I never want to see that horrid place again."
"I just want to," said Neale to Ruth. "Mr. Bob Buckham lives near there and I worked for him once."
Until Neale's uncle, Mr. William Sorber, had undertaken to pay for the boy's education, Neale had earned his own living after he had run away from the circus.