“I suppose you are going to college soon? I see you pegging away at your books⁠—no, I mean studying hard”; and Jo blushed at the dreadful “pegging” which had escaped her.

Laurie smiled, but didn’t seem shocked, and answered, with a shrug⁠—

“Not for a year or two; I won’t go before seventeen, anyway.”

“Aren’t you but fifteen?” asked Jo, looking at the tall lad, whom she had imagined seventeen already.

“Sixteen, next month.”

“How I wish I was going to college! You don’t look as if you liked it.”

“I hate it! Nothing but grinding or skylarking. And I don’t like the way fellows do either, in this country.”

“What do you like?”