s, it is like this,' she said slowly;
'school is very nice, if you do not mind things being strange at first,
and if you can bear being laughed at, and----'

'Why, that is quite easy!' interrupted Babs, with a smile. 'The boys have
teased me always.'

'Yes,' said Jill, doubtfully; 'the boys have teased you; but that is not
quite the same thing. Girls--girls are not boys, you see.'

'Oh no, I know they're not!' replied Barbara, happily. 'Girls are quiet
and kind and gentle; and they always understand you, and they are ready
to make friends directly they see you. I think I know what _girls_ are
like.'

She was thinking of the princesses in her fairy kingdom; and another
little smile flickered across her face. Jill glanced at her for a moment,
and then suddenly made up her mind how to act.

'Look here, Babs,' she began, smoothing the mop of tangled hair with her
hands; 'you go on thinking that girls are like that, and you'll get along
all right!' Barbara wriggled away from her before she had time to say
any more, gave her a swift look and a smile of gratitude, and darted off
in search of the boys. 'They'll be very stupid if they don't see what a
babe it is,' added Jill to herself.

At the door of the conservatory, however, the small figure in the crumpled
pinafore came to a sudden standstill.

'I say, Jill,' the child blurted out, and she clutched a handful of
pinafore to give herself courage; 'I--I want to tell you something.'

'Do you?' said Jill, smiling.

'I want to explain that I hated you at first, because I thought you
were going to make the boys like you better than me,' Babs went on
breathlessly. 'And you frightened me too, because you laughed in such a
funny way, just as if you were sneering at me for being in a muck. I
thought, perhaps, it was because you were so grand, and your clothes
were so grand, and all that; but I couldn't help being in a muck, because
I always am in a muck, you see; and so, you see--you see----'

[Illustration: 'Look here Babs,' she began, smoothing the mop of tangled
hair]

'I see,' said Jill, quietly; and she looked quite thoughtful for a minute
or two. Babs came a step nearer.

'I don't hate you now,' she said frankly. 'For one thing, the boys
don't like you better than me, after all. They don't even like you so
much as they thought they were going to. But _I_ think you're awfully
nice,--almost as nice as Kit and Nurse and father,--and I shall go and
tell them so, now;