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?"

"To live in Italy, and to enjoy myself in my own way."

Jo wanted very much to ask what his own way was, but his
black brows looked rather threatening as he knit them, so she
changed the subject by saying, as her foot kept time, "That's a
splendid polka! Why don't you go and try it?"