"Would you please tell us where Hillman's School is?" he asked.
The girl stopped and her somewhat serious face lighted with a smile. "It's right there," she replied, and nodded.
The boys turned to the blankness of a high privet hedge behind an iron fence. The girl laughed softly. "Behind the hedge, I mean," she 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.
"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.