oed. 'That's all you know about it. Nobody is ever
punished here.'

It took Barbara a moment or two to get used to this new idea, and by that
time they had reached their rooms. She returned to the subject soon after,
however, when Ruth had opened the doors that led from her room into both
theirs, so that they could talk across her if they liked.

'Can you be as naughty as you choose in this school?' demanded Babs, in
a puzzled tone.

'I don't advise you to try,' remarked Ruth.

'Why not? What would happen if I did?' asked Babs, curiously.

'Well, you'd feel jolly small, and have to come round in the end and
behave like other people,' said Jean, raising her voice to make herself
heard.

Barbara wandered into Ruth's room to have her frock unfastened, and
continued the discussion from there.

'Then, is being good at school the same thing as behaving like other
people?' she said doubtfully.

The others seemed to have some difficulty in answering this. 'There!' said
Ruth, giving her a little push; 'make haste and get undressed.'

Barbara wandered back into her own room again, and thought it over
carefully. 'Being good at home wouldn't be the same thing as behaving
like other people,' she observed presently.

'Home isn't school,' answered Ruth. 'And Finny's school isn't like other
people's schools,' she added.

'Isn't it?' said Babs, with interest. 'Where's the difference?'

'Ask Jean,' replied Ruth; and Jean took up the tale from beyond.

'I was at another school before I came here, and it was very different,
I can tell you,' she remarked. 'There were nothing but rules there, and
you always seemed to be breaking one or another of them, without knowing
it; and then you got punished. I was punished the whole time I was there.'

'What sort of punishments?' asked Barbara.

'Stupid punishments,' answered Jean, vaguely. 'Punishments that made
you feel foolish, and made you hate people. I did hate a lot of people
at that school. I thought I was awfully wicked because I hated so many
people. And then I came here,' she wound up triumphantly.

'And did you find you were good when you came here?' asked Babs.

'You shut up and get yourself ready for bed, or else Fraeulein will catch
you,' was all Jean said in reply to this.

Barbara gave one or two perfunctory taps to her head with a brush. 'I
suppose that's why we're left so much to ourselves,' she remarked, after
a pause. 'We never see the teachers except at meals