Page:Angela Brazil--the leader of the lower school.djvu/133

Rh "What's going to happen?"

"Is it anything worth knowing, or not?"

"Really, that depends how you take it," said Barbara, enjoying herself.

"Look here, kiddie, you get on and tell us!"

"Gee up, stupid!"

Barbara paused, prolonging for one more blissful moment the joy of tantalizing her audience; but in that moment her chance was lost, for the door opened suddenly, and in burst Hetty Hancock, like a tempestuous north wind, proclaiming without either hesitation or reserve the important tidings.

"I say, isn't it a joke? There's actually a new boarder coming to-morrow."

"New girls seem to choose odd times to come nowadays," said Lennie. "Why didn't she wait till the half term—it's only about two weeks off?"

"Perhaps she's been shipwrecked, like I was," suggested Gipsy.

"Not a bit of it! She doesn't come from far. Her home's only about ten miles off, I believe. Her name's Leonora Parker."

"Parker! Parker! Surely not the Parkers of Ribblestone Abbey?" commented Norah Bell.

"I really don't know."

"But I know!" put in Barbara Kendrick, delighted to score at last by her superior information. "They are the Parkers of Ribblestone Abbey."

"Then they're most enormously rich people."

"Yes, millionaires! And Leonora's the only child."

"So she's an heiress!"