'She thinks it's grand to pretend not to care,' added the faithful Angela. This, indeed, was the prevailing opinion among the children of the junior playroom; and it was not comforting to their pride.
All the while, Barbara guessed nothing of the comments she was provoking by her manner. It was enough for her that she had got away once more into her fairy kingdom, and that Kit and the magician and the old fairy godmother had just turned out all the princesses who were called schoolgirls, and had shut the gates in their faces.
It was a very weary little new girl who went up to her bed that evening after prayers. She was almost too tired to think over the events that had been crowded into the last twenty-four hours, almost too sleepy to realise that this was the close of her first day at school, the day she had thought would be the happiest day in her life. Perhaps it was a good thing she was not able to think too much about anything, at the end of that first day at school. The moment Fräulein had turned out her light, she went off into a dreamless sleep that might have lasted unbroken till the morning, had not something occurred most strangely to break it.
She did not hear the small pebbles that were thrown up, one after another, at her window; it would have taken more than that to rouse her from her first sleep, though once a handful of mould and gravel that scattered itself all over the glass panes made her stir uneasily and murmur something sleepily. It was just after this that some one began calling 'Coo-ey' softly, on two particular notes; and after this had been repeated two or three times, it gradually worked itself into the waking dream of the little new girl. At the fourth time, she was wide awake and listening with all her might. Another repetition of it, followed by a gentle whistle that only Peter knew how to blow through his fingers, took her with a flying leap to the window. The moon outside was flooding the world with light and revealing every secret in the landscape for miles: it flooded the big nine-acre field beyond the orchard; it flooded the orchard itself, and the wall that ran along it, just under her window; and it showed her five boys sitting astride on the top of the wall, and five--no, _six_ bicycles leaning against the bottom of the wall.
