The long platform was crowded. Betty followed Bob, who carried their bags. She tried to peer ahead, but the moving forms blocked her view. Just after they passed through the gate, some one caught her.
"Betty, you lamb! I never was so glad to see any one in my life!" cried a gay voice, and Bobby Littell hugged her close in one of her rare caresses.
Bob Henderson held out his hand as soon as Bobby released Betty. He liked this straightforward, brusque girl who so evidently adored Betty.
"Why, Bob, you've grown a foot!" was Bobby Littell's greeting to him.
Bob modestly disclaimed any such record, and then Louise and Esther, who had swooped upon Betty, turned to shake hands with him.
"The rest of the crowd is out in the car," said Bobby carelessly.
Outside the station, in the open plaza, a handsome closed car awaited them. The gray-haired chauffeur, cap in hand, stood back as a procession of boys and girls advanced upon Bob and Betty and their escort.
"Oh, Betty, dear!" Short, plump Libbie Littell, who had relinquished her claim to the name of "Betty" in Betty Gordon's favor some time ago, hurled herself upon her friend. "To think we're going to the same school!"
"Well, Frances is going, too," said Bobby practically. "She might like to be introduced, you know. Betty, this is Frances Martin, a Vermont girl who is out after all the Latin prizes."
Frances smiled a slow, sweet smile, and, behind thick glasses, her dark near-sighted eyes said that she was very glad to know Betty Gordon.
"Now the boys!" announced the irrepressible Bobby, apparently taking Bob's introduction to Frances for granted. "The boys will please line up and I'll indicate them."
The five lads obediently came forward and ranged themselves in a row.
"From left to right," chanted Bobby, "we have the Tucker twins, Tommy and Teddy, W. M. Brown, who asks his friends to use his initials and punches those who refuse, Timothy Derby who reads poetry and Sydney Cooke who ought to—" and Bobby completed her speech with a wicked grin, for she had managed to hit several weaknesses.
"As an introducer," she announced calmly to Carter, the personification of propriety's horror, "I think I do rather well."
They stowed themselves into the limousine somehow, the girls settled more or less comfortably on the seats, the boys squeezed in between, hanging on the running board, and spilling over into Carter's domain.
Bob liked the five boys at once, and they seemed to accept him as one of them. If he had had a little fear that he would feel diffident and unboyish among lads of his own age, it vanished at the first contact.
"Betty, you sweet child, how we have missed you!" cried Mrs. Littell, standing on the lowest step under the porte-cochère as the car swept up the drive of Fairfields, as the Littell's home was called.
Behind her waited Mr. Littell, fully recovered from the injury to his foot which had made him an invalid during Betty's previous visit.
From Carter, who had beamingly greeted her at the station, to the pretty parlor maid who smiled as Betty entered her room to find her turning down the bed covers, there was not a servant who did not remember Betty and seem glad to see her.
"It is so good to have you two here again," Mr. Littell had said.
"I never knew such people," Betty repeated to herself twenty times that evening. "How lovely they are to Bob and me!"
Mrs. Littell, who was happiest when entertaining young people, had put the six boys on the third floor in three connecting rooms. The girls were on the second floor, and Esther, the youngest, who had strenuously fought to be allowed to go to Shadyside with her two sisters, was almost beside herself with the effort to be in all the rooms at once and hear what every one was saying.
"I'm so glad your uncle let you come," said Bobby, as they waited for Betty to change into a light house frock for dinner. "I don't know much about this school, except that mother went to school with the principal."
That was a characteristic Bobby Littell remark, and the other girls laughed.
"I had a letter from a girl who lives in Glenside," confided Betty, re-braiding her hair. "She and her sister are going—Norma and Alice Guerin. I know you'll like them. Norma wrote her mother went to Shadyside when it was a day school."
"Yes, I believe it was, years and years ago," returned Louise Littell. "The aristocratic families who lived on large estates used to send their daughters to Mrs. Warde. Her daughter, Mrs. Eustice, is the principal now."
Betty wondered if Norma Guerin's mother had belonged to one of the families who owned large estates, but they went down to dinner presently and she forgot the Guerins for the time being.
That was a busy week for the school boys and girls.
The beautiful house and grounds of Fairfields were at their disposal, and the gallant host and gentle hostess gave themselves up to the whims and wishes of the houseful of young people.
"Racket while you may, for school-room discipline is coming," laughed Mr. Littell, when he went upstairs unexpectedly early one night and caught the abashed Tucker twins sliding down the banisters.
Both Bob and Betty had wired Mr. Gordon of their safe arrival in Washington, and Bob had also telegraphed his aunts. While they were at Fairfields a letter reached them from Miss Hope and Miss Charity, describing in glowing terms the boarding house in which they were living and the California climate which, the writers declared, made them feel "twenty years younger." So Bob was assured that the elderly ladies were neither homesick nor unhappy and that added appreciably to his peace of mind.
He and Betty found time, too, to slip away from their gay companions and go to the old second-hand bookshop where Lockwood Hale browsed among his dusty volumes. He had set Bob upon the trail that led him West and brought him finally to his surviving kin, and the boy felt warm gratitude to the absent-minded old man.
Mr. and Mrs. Littell rigidly insisted that the last night before the young folks started for Shadyside must be reserved for final packing and early retirement so that the gay band might begin their journey auspiciously. The Tuesday evening before the Thursday they were to leave for school, the host and hostess gave a dance for their young people.
"I'm glad to have at least one chance to wear this dress," observed Bobby, smoothing down the folds of her rose-colored frock with satisfaction. "The only thing I don't like about Shadyside, so far, is that restriction about party clothes."
"I imagine it is a wise rule in many ways," said Betty sagely, thinking particularly of the Guerin girls, who would probably be hard-pressed to get even the one evening frock allowed. "You know how some girls are, Bobby; they'd come with a dozen crêpe de chine and georgette dresses and about three clean blouses for school-room wear."
"Like Ruth Gladys Royal," giggled Bobby. "I remember her at Miss Graham's last year. Goodness, the clothes that girl would wear! The rest of us didn't even try to compete. And, by the way, girls, Ruth Gladys is going to Shadyside. Her aunt telephoned mother last night while we were at the movies."
"That's the girl we went to call on that day we saw Mr. Peabody tackle Bob in the hotel," Louise explained in an aside to Betty. "I wonder why every one seems bent and determined to go to Shadyside this year."
"Because it is a fine school with a half-century reputation," Bobby, who had studied the catalogue, informed her sister primly.
"I'm not going," objected Esther. "I think it's mean."
"Mother and dad need one girl at home, dearest," her mother reminded her, as she came in looking very handsome and kindly in a black spangled net gown. "All ready, girls? Then suppose we go down."
It was a simple and informal dance, as befitted the ages of the guests, but Mr. and Mrs. Littell knew to perfection the secret of making each one enjoy himself. There were a handful of outside friends invited, and Betty, to whom a party was a never-failing source of delight, felt, as she confided to Bob, as though she were "walking on air."
"You look awfully nice in that white stuff," he said frankly, and Betty liked the comment on her pretty ruffled white frock which she had dubiously decided a moment before was too plain.
Betty was what country folk call a "natural-born dancer," and she quickly learned the new steps she had had no opportunity to practice since going West. All the girls and most of the boys were excellent dancers, too, and Bob was not allowed to beg off. Frances Martin, the last girl one would have named, had taught a dancing class in her home town with great success and she volunteered to lead Bob. To his surprise, the boy found he liked the music and movement and before the evening was over he was in a fair way to become a good dancer.
The party broke up promptly at eleven o'clock, and a few minutes later the whir of the last motor bearing home the departing guests died away. There was a natural lingering to "talk things over," but by twelve the house was silent and dark.
Betty had just fairly dozed off when some one woke her by shaking her gently.
"Betty! Betty, please wake up!" whispered a frightened little voice.
Betty shared a room with Bobby. The single beds were separated by a table on which an electric drop light and the water pitcher and glasses were placed.
Betty's first impulse was to snap on the light, but as she put out her hand, Esther grasped her wrist.
"It's only me," she whispered, her teeth chattering with fright. "Don't wake Bobby up."
"Are you cold?" asked Betty, sitting up anxiously. "Perhaps you were too warm dancing. Do you want to get into bed with me?"
It was a warm night for October, and Betty was at a loss to understandEsther's shivering.
"I can't find Libbie!" Esther cried. "Oh, Betty, I never thought she would do it, never."
Betty reached for her dressing gown and slippers.
"Don't cry, or you'll wake up Bobby," she advised the sobbing Esther."Come on, I'll go back with you. Don't make a noise."
The girls occupied three connecting rooms, and Esther and Libbie had slept in the end of the suite. To reach it now, the two girls had to go through the room where Louise and Frances lay slumbering peacefully. Betty breathed a sigh of relief when they gained Esther's room and she closed the door carefully and turned on the light.
Esther's bed, madly tumbled, and Libbie's, evidently occupied that night, but now empty, were revealed.
Esther dropped down on the floor, wrapping her kimono about her, and regarded Betty trustfully. She was sure her friend would straighten things out.
"Where is Libbie?" demanded Betty. "What is she doing?"
"I don't know," admitted Esther unhappily. "But I tell you what I think—I think she's eloped!"
Esther was only eleven, and as she sat on the floor and stared at Betty from great wet blue eyes, she seemed very young indeed.
"Eloped!" gasped Betty. "Why, I never heard of such a thing!"
"She's always talking about it," the younger girl wailed, beginning to cry again. "She says it's the most romantic way to be married, and she means to throw her hope chest out of the window first and slide down a rope made of bedsheets."
"Well, I think it's very silly to talk like that," scolded Betty. "And, what's more, Esther, however much Libbie may talk of eloping, she hasn't done it this time. All her clothes are here, and her shoes and her hat. Here's her purse on the dresser, too."
"I never thought of looking to see if her clothes were here," confessedEsther. "But then, where is she, Betty?"
"That's what I mean to find out," announced Betty, with more confidence than she felt. "Come on, Esther. And don't trip on your kimono or walk into anything."
They tiptoed out into the wide hall and had reached the head of the beautiful carved staircase when they saw a dim form coming toward them.
Esther nearly shrieked aloud, but Betty put a hand over her mouth in time.
"Who—who, who-o-o are you?" stammered Betty, her heart beating so fast it was painful.
"Betty!" Bob stifled a gasp. "For the love of Mike! what are you doing at this time of night?"
"Esther's here—we're hunting for Libbie," whispered Betty. "She isn't in her room."
"So that's it!" For some reason unknown to the girls Bob seemed to be vastly relieved. "I was just going after Mr. Littell," he added.
"But Libbie is lost! Maybe she is sick," urged Betty.
"She's all right," declared Bob confidently. "You see, I couldn't go to sleep, and after I'd been in bed about an hour I got up and sat by the window. I was staring down into the garden, and all of a sudden I saw something white begin to move and creep about. I watched it a few moments and I got the idea it was a burglar or a sneak thief, it kept so close to the house. I came down to call Mr. Littell and bumped into you."
"Do you suppose it is Libbie?" chattered Esther. "Why would she go into the garden in the middle of the night?"
"Walking in her sleep," explained Bob. "I've heard it is dangerous to waken a sleep-walker suddenly. Perhaps you'd better call Mrs. Littell, Betty, and I'll sit here on the window seat and see that she doesn't walk out into the road."
The two girls hurried off and tapped lightly on Mrs. Littell's door. That lady hurriedly admitted them, her motherly mind instantly picturing something wrong.
"It's Libbie," said Betty softly. "Bob saw her from his window in the garden and he thinks she's walking in her sleep. We don't want to frighten her. What can we do?"
"I'll be right out," said Mrs. Littell reassuringly. "Libbie's mother used to walk in her sleep, too. I think I can get the child into bed without waking her at all."
In a few moments she came out, a heavy corduroy robe and slippers protecting her against the night air.
"Esther, lamb, you stay here in the hall with Bob," she directed her youngest daughter. "You won't be afraid with Bob, will you, dear? I don't want too many to go down or we may startle Libbie."
Betty crept downstairs after Mrs. Littell, the soft, thick rugs making their progress absolutely noiseless. Not a step in the well-built staircase creaked.
They found the chain and bolt drawn from the heavy front door. Libbie had evidently let herself out with no difficulty. From the wide hall window Bob and Esther watched breathlessly.
"Just go up to her quietly and take one of her hands," Mrs. Littell whispered to Betty. "I'll take the other, and, if I'm not mistaken, we can lead her into the house."
Libbie stood motionless beside a rosebush as they approached her. Her eyes were wide open, and her dark hair floated over her shoulders. In her white nightdress, the moonlight full upon her, she looked very pretty and yet so weird that Betty could not repress a shiver.
Mrs. Littell did not speak, but took one of the limp hands in hers, and Betty took the other. Libbie made no resistance, and allowed them to draw her toward the house. They crossed the threshold, led her upstairs, past the quivering Esther and Bob huddled on the windowseat, and into the bedroom she had so unceremoniously left.
Then Mrs. Littell lifted her in strong arms, put her gently down on the bed, and Libbie rolled up like a little kitten, tucked one hand under her cheek and continued to sleep.
"Now go to bed, children, do," commanded Mrs. Littell. "Bob, I'm so thankful you saw that child—she might have wandered off or caught a severe cold. As it is, I don't believe she has been out very long. What's the matter, Esther?"
"Can I come and sleep with you?" pleaded Esther. "I'm afraid to sleep with Libbie. She might do it again."
"I don't think so—not to-night," said her mother, smiling. "However, chicken, come and sleep with me if you'll rest better."
Betty awoke and went in later that night to see if Libbie had vanished again, but found her sleeping normally. In the morning the girl was much surprised to find she had been wandering in the garden and betrayed considerable interest in the details. Betty decided that it would be better to omit Esther's belief that she had eloped, and Libbie was allowed to remain in blissful ignorance of the action her youthful cousin attributed to her.
The last day sped by all too soon, and what the Tucker twins persisted in pessimistically designating the "fateful Thursday" was upon them.
"I don't know why you sigh so frequently," dimpled Betty, who sat next toTommy Tucker at the breakfast table. "I'm very anxious to go to school.Don't you really like to go back?"
"It's like this," said Tommy, the "dark Tucker twin," solemnly. "From four to ten p.m. (except on drill nights) I like it well enough, and from ten, lights out, till six, reveille, I'm fairly contented. But from nine to four, when we're cooped up in classrooms, I simply detest school!"
Teddy, the "light Tucker twin," nodded in confirmation.
"I suppose we have to be educated," he admitted, with the air of one making a generous concession to public opinion, "but I don't see why they find it necessary to prolong the agony. Any one who can read and write can make a living."
"Perhaps your father hopes you'll do a bit more than that," suggested Mr.Littell slyly.
This effectually silenced the twins, for their wealthy father was a splendid scientist who had made several explorations that had contributed materially to the knowledge of the scientific world, and he had lost the sight of one eye in a laboratory experiment undertaken to advance the cause for which he labored.
The Littell car carried the twelve to the station soon after breakfast, and though Shadyside and Salsette, unlike many of the large northern schools, ran no "special," the few passengers who were not school bound found themselves decidedly in the minority on the "9:36 local" that morning.
"Remember, Betty, you and Bob are to spend the holidays with us," saidMrs. Littell, as she kissed her good-bye. "If your uncle comes down fromCanada, he must come, too."
"All aboard!" shouted the conductor, who foresaw a lively trip. "No'm, you can't go through the gate—nobody can."
The crowd of fathers and mothers and younger brothers and sisters pressed close to the iron grating as the train got under way. On the back platform the Tucker twins raised their voices in a school yell that would have horrified the dignified heads of the Academy had they been there to hear it.
"I'm Salsette born!" trilled Tommy Tucker soulfully.
"And Salsette bred!" chimed in his brother
"And when I die—" caroled Tommy.
"I'll be Salsette dead!" they finished together.
Then, highly satisfied with this intelligible ditty, they burst into the car where the others were waiting for them.
The boys had appropriated the seats at the forward end of the car, and unfortunately their selection included a seat in which an elderly, or so she seemed to them, woman sat. She fidgeted incessantly, folding and unfolding her long traveling coat, opening and closing a fitted lunch basket, and arranging and re-arranging several small unwieldy parcels and heavy books that slid persistently to the floor with the jarring of the train. When the conductor came through for tickets, she discovered that she had mislaid hers and it was necessary to flutter the pages of every book before the missing bit of pasteboard finally dropped from between the leaves of the last one opened.
Bob, with instinctive courtesy, had offered to help her search, but she had rebuffed him sharply.
"I don't want any boy pawing over my belongings," she informed him tartly.
Bob flushed a little, it was impossible not to help it, but he said nothing. Meeting Betty's indignant eyes, he smiled good-humoredly.
"Sweet pickles!" ejaculated Tommy Tucker indignantly. "Here, you Timothy, hand me that suitcase at your feet—it belongs to the little dark girl."
Libbie, "the little dark girl," smiled dreamily as Timothy passed her suitcase to Tommy. She and Timothy Derby, ignoring the jeers of their friends, were deep in two white and gold volumes of poetry. Timothy, Libbie had discovered, had a leaning toward the romantic in fiction, though he preferred his served in rhyme.
The wicked Tommy had a motive in asking for Libbie's suitcase. It was much smaller and lighter than any of the others, and he swung it deftly into the rack over the vinegary lady's unsuspecting head. With a deftness, born it must be confessed of previous practice, he balanced the case on the rim so that the first lurch of the train catapulted the thing down squarely on the woman's hat, snapping a shiny, hard black quill in two.
"I must say!" she sputtered, rising angrily. "Who put that up there? If anything goes in that rack, it will be some of my things. I paid for this seat."
She set the suitcase out into the aisle with a decided bang, and lifted up the wicker lunch basket. To the glee of the watching young people, as she lifted it to the rack, two china cups, several teaspoons and a silver cream jug sifted down. The cups broke on the floor and the other articles rolled under the seats.
"Get 'em, quick!" cried the owner. "My two best cups broken, and I thought I had them packed so well! Pick up those teaspoons, some of you—they're solid silver!"
"If you don't mind boys pawing them—" began Teddy Tucker, but Betty intervened.
"Oh, don't!" she protested softly. "Don't be so mean. Pick them up, please do."
So down on their hands and knees went the six lads, and if, in their earnestness, they bumped into the elderly woman's hat box, and knocked down her books, that really should not be held against them.
"Now for mercy's sake, don't let me hear from you again," was her speech of thanks to them when the teaspoons had been recovered and restored to her.
She might have been severely left alone after this, if Sydney Cooke had not discovered a remarkable peculiarity she possessed. Sydney was a great lover of games, and he had brought his pocket checkerboard and men with him. He persuaded Winifred Marion Brown to play a game with him, and the rest of the party crowded around to watch.
"I'll trouble you to let me pass," said the owner of the teaspoons, whenSydney had just made his first play.
The group parted to let her through, closed in again, and opened again for her when she came back. No one paid any attention to this until she had made the request four times.
"What ails that woman?" demanded Sydney irritably.
Each time she had passed him she had brushed his elbow, scattering his checkers about. Ordinarily sweet-tempered, Sydney was beginning to weary of this performance.
"What do you think?" snickered Bobby Littell. "She takes a white tablet every five minutes. Honest! I've been watching her. She sits there with her watch in her hand, and exactly five minutes apart—I've timed her—she starts for the water cooler. She puts something on her tongue, swallows a glass of water, and comes back."
"Well, somebody carry her a gallon jug," muttered Sydney impatiently. "I can't get anywhere if she is going to parade up and down the aisle incessantly."
"Don't worry," said Tommy Tucker soothingly. "I'll adjust this little matter for you."
If Sydney had been less interested in his game, he might have felt slightly apprehensive. The Tucker twins were famous for their "adjustments."
Tommy went down the aisle and slipped into the seat directly back of the woman who did not approve of boys. She turned and regarded him hostilely, but he gazed out at the flying landscape. The moment she turned around, he ducked to the floor.
"What do you suppose he is doing?" whispered Bobby to Betty. "Tommy can think up tricks faster than any boy I ever knew."
Whatever Tommy was doing, he finished in a very few moments and sauntered back to the checker game, his eyes dancing.
Sydney and Winifred were absorbed in their game, and the others, with the exception of Bobby and Betty, had not noticed Tommy's brief absence.
"Oh, look!" Betty clutched Bobby's arm excitedly. "What has happened to her?"
The woman, who had sat with her watch in her hand, snapped it shut, prepared to make another journey to the water cooler. She half rose, an alarmed expression flitted over her face, and she sank into her seat again. Tommy's eyes were studiously on the checkerboard.
With one convulsive effort, the woman struggled to her feet, grasped the bell-cord and jerked it twice, then dropped into her seat and began to weep hysterically.
The brakes jarred down, and the train came to a sudden stop that sent many of the passengers m a mad scramble forward.
In a few moments the conductor flung open the car door angrily. Behind him two anxious young brakesmen peered curiously.
"Anybody in here jerk that bellcord?" demanded the conductor, scowling.
"Certainly. It was I," said the elderly woman loftily.
"Oh, you did, eh?" he bristled, apparently unworried by her opinion."What did you do that for? Here you've stopped a whole train."
"I considered it necessary," was the icy reply. "Perhaps you will be good enough to call a doctor?"
"Are you ill?" the conductor's voice changed perceptibly. "I doubt if there is a doctor on the train, but I'll see."
"Tell him to hurry," said the woman commandingly. "I think I'm paralyzed."
"Paralyzed!" Tommy Tucker gave a loud snort and fell over backward into the arms of his twin.
The conductor shot a suspicious glance toward him. He had traveled on school trains before.
"You seem to be all right, Madam," he said to the stricken one courteously. "There's a doctor at the Junction, I'm sure. What makes you think you're paralyzed?"
"My good man," said the woman majestically, "when a person in good health and accustomed to normal activity suddenly loses the power to use her—er—feet, isn't that an indication of some physical trouble?"
Her unfortunate and un-American phrase, "my good man," had nettled the conductor, and besides his train was losing time.
"We'll miss connections at the Junction if we fool away much more time," he said testily. "I wonder—Why look here! No wonder you can't use your feet!"
To the elderly woman's horror he had swooped down and laid a not ungentle hand on her ankle in its neat and smart-looking shoe. Now he took out his knife, slashed twice, and held up the pieces of a stout length of twine.
"You were tied to the seat-base by the heels of your shoes," he informed the patient grimly. "One foot tied to the other, too. Well, Jim, take in your signals—guess we can mosey along."
"And who would have expected her to wear high-heeled boots!" exclaimedBobby, with real amazement showing in voice and look.
The few passengers in the car, aside from the school contingent, were openly laughing. The victim of this practical joke turned a dull red and the glare she turned on the back of the luckless Tommy's head was proof enough that she knew exactly where to lay the blame.
However, she said nothing, nor did she make another trip down the aisle and as Tommy philosophically whispered, this was worth all he had dared and suffered. Sydney and Winifred finished their game before the Junction was reached and that brought a wild charge to get on the train that would carry them to Shadyside station.
To their relief, there was no sign of the elderly woman in the new car, and as they were all a bit tired from the journey and excitement the hour's ride to Shadyside from the Junction was comparatively quiet.
Betty looked eagerly from the window as the brakesman shouted,"Shadyside! Shadyside!"
"Isn't it a pretty station!" said Louise Littell.
Betty agreed with her.
The lawn was still green about the gray stone building and the tiles on the low-hanging roof were moss green, too. The long platform was roofed over and seemed swarming with girls and boys. Evidently a train had come in from the other direction a few minutes before the Junction train, for bags and suitcases and trunks were heaped up outside the baggage room door and the busses backed up to the edge of the gravel driveway were partially filled with passengers.
The blue and silver uniforms of the Salsette cadets were much in evidence, and Betty's first thought was of how nice Bob Henderson would look in uniform.
"There's our friend!" whispered Tommy Tucker, directing Betty's attention to the severe-looking elderly woman whom he had so bothered on the train. "Gee, do you suppose she goes to Shadyside? I thought it was a girls' School!"
"Oh, do be quiet!" scolded Bobby Littell "Tommy, you've got us in a peck of trouble—she's one of the teachers!"
"How do you know?" demanded Tommy. "Who told you?"
"Well, if you'd keep still a minute, you'd hear," said the exasperated Bobby.
Sure enough, a pleasant, fresh-faced woman, hardly more than a girl, was escorting the gray-haired woman to a waiting touring car.
"You're the last of the staff to come," she said clearly. Mrs. Eustice was beginning to worry about you. Will you tell her that I'm coming up in the bus with the girls?"
"All right, you win," admitted Tommy. "Why couldn't she say she was a teacher instead of acting so blamed exclusive? Anyway, she probably won't connect you girls with me—all boys look alike to her."
"She has a wonderful memory—like a camera," surmised Bobby gloomily."You wait and see."
"Girls, are all of you for Shadyside?" The young woman had come up to them and now she smiled at the giggling, chattering group with engaging friendliness. "I thought you were. We take this auto-stage over here. Give your baggage checks to this porter. I'm Miss Anderson, the physical instructor."
"Salsette boys this way!" boomed a stentorian voice.
"Good-bye, Betty. See you soon," whispered Bob, giving Betty's hand a hurried squeeze. "We're only across the lake, you know."
"You chaps,move!" directed the voice snappily.
With one accord the group dissolved, the boys hastening to the stage marked "Salsette" and the girls following Miss Anderson.
There were two stages for the Academy and two for Shadyside, and a smaller bus which, they afterward learned, followed the route to the town, which was not on the railroad.
"Betty, darling!"
A pretty girl tumbled down the stage steps and nearly choked Betty with the fervency of her embrace.
It was Norma Guerin, and Alice was waiting, smiling. Betty was delighted to meet these old friends, and she introduced them to the Littell girls and Libbie and Frances in the happy, tangled fashion that such introductions usually are performed. Names and faces get straightened out more gradually.
The stage in which they found themselves, for the seven girls insisted on sitting near each other, was well-filled. They had started and were lurching along the rather uneven road when Betty found herself staring at a girl on the other side of the bus.
"Where have I seen her before?" she puzzled. "I wonder—does she look like some one I know? Oh, I remember! She's the girl we saw on the train—the one that took Bob's seat!"
Just then a girl sitting up near the driver's seat leaned forward.
"Ada!" she called. "Ada Nansen! Are you the girl they say brought five trunks and three hat boxes?"
"Well, they're little ones!" said the girl sitting opposite Betty. "I wanted to bring three wardrobe trunks, but mother thought Mrs. Eustice might make a fuss."
So the girl's name was Ada Nansen. Betty was sure she remembered their encounter on the train, if for no other reason than that Ada studiously refused to meet her eye. Betty was too inexperienced to know that a certain type of girl never takes a step toward making a new friend unless she has the worldly standing of that friend first clearly fixed in her mind.
"What gorgeous furs she has!" whispered Norma Guerin. "Do you know her, Betty?"
Betty shook her head. Strictly speaking, she did not know Ada. What she did know of her was not pleasant, and it was part of Betty's personal creed never to repeat anything unkind if nothing good was to come of it.
"I can tell Bob, 'cause he knows about her," she said to herself. "Won't he be surprised! I do hope she hasn't brought a huge wardrobe to school to make Norma and Alice feel bad."
Though both the Guerin girls wore the neatest blouses and suits, any girl could immediately have told you that their clothes were not new that season and that the little bag each carried had been oiled and polished at home.
That Ada Nansen's trunks were worrying Norma, too, her next remark showed.
"Alice and I have only one trunk between us," she confided to Betty."Mother said Mrs. Eustice never allowed the girls to dress much. I madeAlice's party frock and mine, too. They're plain white."
"So's mine," said Betty quickly. "Mrs. Littell wouldn't let her daughters have elaborate clothes, and the Littells have oceans of money. I don't believe Ada can wear her fine feathers now she has 'em."
Twenty minutes' ride brought them in sight of the school, and as the bus turned down the road that led to the lake, many exclamations of pleasure were heard.
A double row of weeping willows, now bare, of course, bordered the lake, and the sloping lawns of the school led down to these. The red brick buildings of the Salsette Academy could be glimpsed on the other shore. Shadyside consisted of a large brick and limestone building that the last term pupils in the busses obligingly explained was the "administration," where classes were taught. The gymnasium was also in this building. In addition were three gray stone buildings, connected with bridges, in which were the dormitories, the teachers' rooms, the dining room, the infirmary, and the kitchens. The administration building was also connected with the other buildings by a covered passageway which, they were to discover, was opened only in bad weather. Mrs. Eustice, the principal, had a theory that girls did not get out into the fresh air often enough.
The main building possessed a handsome doorway, and here the busses stopped and discharged their passengers.
"Ada, my dear love!" cried a girl from the bus behind the one in whichBetty and her friends had ridden.
An over-dressed, stout girl advanced upon Ada Nansen and kissed her affectionately.
"Look quick! That's Ruth Gladys Royal!" whispered Bobby. "I hope they room together—they'll be a pair. Ada, my dear love!" she mimicked wickedly. "Libbie, let that be a warning to you—Ruth Gladys Royal is terribly romantic, too!"
Miss Anderson, smiling and unhurried, marshaled her charges into the large foyer and announced that they would be assigned to rooms before luncheon.
"Mrs. Eustice will speak to you in the assembly hall this afternoon," said Miss Anderson. "And you will meet her and the teachers for a little social hour."
Two busy young clerks were at work in the office adjoining the foyer, and for those who were already provided with a room-mate the task of securing a room was a matter of only a few moments.
Our girls, with the exception of Louise, had paired off when they had registered for the term. Bobby Littell and Betty Gordon were, of course, inseparable. Libbie and Frances, great friends in their home town, naturally gravitated together, though Betty would have chosen a less studious room-mate for the dreamy Libbie—she needed a girl who would know more accurately what she was doing. Norma and Alice Guerin were to share a room, and Louise felt forlornly out of things when Miss Anderson came up to her bringing a red-haired, freckle-faced girl with wide gray eyes and a boyish grin.
"Louise Littell—you are Louise, aren't you?" asked the teacher. "Well, here's a girl who's come to us from a Western army post. Her name is Constance Howard, and she doesn't know a single girl. Don't you think you two might be happy together?"
Constance smiled again, and Louise warmed perceptibly. Louise was the least friendly of the three Littell girls.
"I'll let you play my ukulele," offered Constance eagerly.
"Let me. She doesn't know a ukulele from a music box," said Bobby, with sisterly frankness. "Come on, girls, let's go up and see our rooms."
They tramped up the broad staircase and crossed one of the bridges to find themselves in a delightful, sunny building with corridors carpeted in softest green. The rooms apparently were all connecting, and the teacher who met them said the eight friends might have adjoining rooms as long as "they gave no trouble."
"I'm your corridor teacher, Miss Lacey," she explained.
"Let's be glad she isn't the one we saw on the train," whispered the irrepressible Bobby, as they all trooped into the first room.
It was soon settled that Betty and Bobby were to have the center room in a suite of three and Libbie and Frances should be on one side of them, and Louise and Constance Howard on the other. There was a perfectly appointed bathroom opening off the center room which the six were to share. Norma and Alice Guerin were given a room that adjoined that occupied by Libbie and Frances, but nominally, Miss Lacey explained, they would be considered as a unit in the next suite of three connecting rooms. Fortunately two very friendly, quiet girls drew the room immediately next to the Guerin girls.
"But, Betty, listen," whispered Norma Guerin, drawing Betty aside as a great bumping and banging announced the arrival of the trunks. "Who do you suppose has the room next to the Bennett sisters? Ada Nansen and Ruth Gladys Royal!"
"You are in hard luck!" commented Bobby, who had overheard, as she danced off to open the door to the grinning expressman.
"All the porters are busy!" the man explained.
"So I just told 'em Tim McCarthy wasn't one to stand by and let work go undone. Where would ye be wantin' these little bags put now?"
He had a trunk on his back that, as Bobby afterward remarked to Betty, "would have done for an elephant."
"Girls, whose trunk is this?" demanded Bobby.
"Not mine!" came like a well-drilled chorus.
"'Miss Ada Nansen,'" read Betty, examining the card. "Bobby, that's one of the five!"
They directed the perspiring expressman to the right door and, it is to be regretted, shamelessly peeped while he toiled up and down bringing the five trunks and three hat boxes. Then he began on the baggage consigned to Ruth Gladys Royal, and the watchers counted three trunks.
Betty looked at the Guerin girls and laughed.
"Eight trunks!" she gasped. "They can't get that number in one room. Not and have any room for the furniture. Norma, do go and see what you can see."
Norma sped away, and returned as speedily, her eyes blazing.
"What do you think?" she demanded furiously. "They've had some of 'em put in our room, three I counted, and two in the Bennett girls' room. They're as mad as hops!"
"The Bennett girls are my friends," declared Bobby Littell sententiously. "I only hope they're mad enough to hop right down to the office and explain the state of things."
But the luncheon gong sounded just then, and a laughing, colorful throng of femininity swept down the broad stairs to the dining room.
"How lovely!" said Betty involuntarily.
There were no long tables in the large, airy room. Instead, round tables that seated from six to eight, each daintily set and with a slender vase of flowers in the center of each. Betty and Bobby had the same thought at the same moment.
"If we could only sit together, all of us!" their eyes telegraphed.
"They're all taking the tables they want and standing by the chairs," whispered Betty. "Let's do that."
A table set for eight was close to the door. Betty, Bobby, Louise, Frances, Libbie, Constance, Norma and Alice gently surrounded this and stood quietly behind the chairs.
Some one, somewhere, gave a signal, and the roomful was seated as if by magic.
"I see—those four tables over by the window are for the teachers," whispered Betty. "I see Miss Anderson and Miss Lacey, and that white-haired woman must be the principal. Yes, and girls, there's that woman whom the boys tormented so on the train!"
Sure enough, there she was, looking even more severe now that her hat was removed and her sharp features were unrelieved.
"If this isn't fun! I'm sorry for poor Esther at Miss Graham's," said Bobby, looking about her with delight. "Mercy, what do you suppose this is?"
One of the young clerks from the office approached the table, a large cardboard sheet in her hand.
"I'm filling in the diagram," she explained. "You mustn't change your seats without permission. Tell me your names, and I'll put you down in the right spaces."
Betty looked over her shoulder as she wrote down their names. Like the diagram of the seating space of a theatre, the tables and chairs were plainly marked. Betty swiftly calculated that between one hundred and twenty-five and one hundred and fifty girls must be seated in the room. Later she learned that the total enrollment was one hundred and sixty.
Just outside the dining room was a large bulletin board, impossible to ignore or overlook. When they came out from luncheon a notice was posted that Mrs. Eustice would address the school at two o'clock in the assembly hall in the main building. It was now one-thirty.
"Let's go look at the gym," suggested Bobby. "We have time. Oh, how do you do?"—this last was apparently jerked out of her.
"I didn't know you were coming to Shadyside, Bobby," said Ruth GladysRoyal effusively. "Do you know my chum, Ada Nansen? She's from SanFrancisco."
"Constance Howard is from the West, too—the Presidio," said Bobby.
Gracefully she introduced the others to Ada and Ruth who surveyed them indifferently. The Littell girls they knew were wealthy and had a place in Washington society, but the rest were not yet classified.
"Haven't I seen you before?" Ada languidly questioned Betty. "You're not the little waitress—Oh, how stupid of me! I was thinking of a girl who looked enough like you to be your sister."
Bobby bristled indignantly, but Betty struggled with laughter.
"I remember you," she said clearly. "You had the wrong seat on the train from Oklahoma."
Ada Nansen glanced at her with positive dislike.
"I don't recall," she said icily. "However, I've traveled so much I daresay many incidents slip my mind. Well, Gladys, let's go in and get good seats. I want to hear Mrs. Eustice; they say she is a direct descendant of Richard Carvel."
"We might as well go in, too," said Bobby disconsolately. "She's used up so much time we couldn't do the gym justice."
Promptly at two o'clock, white-haired Mrs. Eustice mounted the platform and tapped a little bell for silence.
The principal was a gracious woman of perhaps fifty. Her snow-white hair was piled high on her head and her dark eyes were bright and keen. Wonderful eyes they were, seeming to gaze straight into the youthful eyes that stared back affectionately or curiously as the case might be. Mrs. Eustice's gown was of black or very dark blue silk, made simply and fitting exquisitely. Straight, soft collar and cuffs of dotted net outlined the neck and wrists, and her single ornament was a tiny watch worn on a black ribbon.
"I wish Ada Nansen would take a good look at her," muttered Bobby.
"I am so glad to welcome you, my girls," began Mrs. Eustice.
Betty thrilled to the magic of that modulated voice, low and yet clear enough to be heard in every corner of the large room. Surely this lovely woman could teach them the secret of cultivated, dignified and happy young womanhood.
The principal spoke to them briefly of her ideals for them, explained the few rigid rules of the school, and asked that all exercise tact and patience for the first week during which the rough edges of new schedules might reasonably be expected to wear off.
"I want to have a little personal talk with each one of you," she concluded. "Your corridor teachers will consult with me and will tell you when you are to come to me. And I hope you are to be very, very happy here with us at Shadyside."
A soft clapping of hands followed this speech, and Mrs. Eustice stepped down from the platform to be instantly surrounded by the girls who had spent other terms at the school.
After the older girls had spoken to the principal, the newcomers began to move forward. They were presented by their corridor teachers, who seemed to possess a special faculty to remember names, and here and there Mrs. Eustice recognized a girl through the association of ideas.
As Miss Lacey swept her girls forward, Ada Nansen and Ruth Gladys Royal happened to head the ranks. Mrs. Eustice put out her hand to Ada, then gazed down at her in evident astonishment.
"Diamonds," whispered Betty to Norma Guerin, who seemed depressed. "She wears three diamond rings and one sapphire and a square-cut emerald. And her wrist-watch is platinum set with diamonds."
Mrs. Eustice gazed at the soft little hand she held for a few moments, then released it. She said nothing.
"Ah, your mother wrote me of you," was the principal's greeting to the Littell girls. "You look like her, Louise. And Bobby is much like her father as I remember him."
"This is Betty Gordon," said the loyal Bobby, indicating her chum."Mother wrote about her, too, didn't she?"
"Indeed she did," assented Mrs. Eustice warmly. "I must have a special talk with Betty soon, for she has an ambitious program before her. And here are Libbie and Frances from the state I remember so affectionately from girlhood visits there."
But it was Norma and Alice Guerin, sensitive Norma and shy Alice, who were welcomed most cordially after all.
"So you are Elsie Guerin's daughters!" said the principal, putting an arm around Norma and holding her hand out to Alice. "My own dear mother taught your mother when she was a little girl with braids like yours. And your dear grandmother used to give the most wonderful parties. People talk about them to this day. It was at her Rose Ball I first met my husband. You must go up the north road some day and see the old Macklin house."
Norma and Alice fairly glowed as they went back to their rooms with the other girls. Ada Nansen had heard, and she was regarding them with evident respect.
Norma and Alice might have been uneasy had they heard Ada's comment when she and Ruth were once more in their own rooms.
"They must have money," argued Ada, "though I never saw such ordinary clothes. Giving balls and parties in the lavish Southern style costs, let me tell you. Probably they have some fine family jewels in that shabby trunk."
"I'll tell you what I think," said Ruth Gladys wisely. "I think the money is all used up. Probably they're here as charity pupils for old friendship's sake."
This speculation was duly stored up in Ada Nansen's mind to be brought out when needed.
After dinner Miss Anderson played for them to dance in the broad hall, but every one was tired from train journeys, and at nine o'clock they voluntarily sought their rooms.
"Get into a kimono and brush your hair in here," hospitably suggestedBetty, and Bobby seconded her by flinging the suitcases under the beds.All of the rooms were fitted with pretty day-beds so that a cover quicklytransformed them into couches and the bedrooms into sitting rooms.
Four gay-colored kimono-wrapped figures came pattering in presently and curled up comfortably on the beds. Norma and Alice were the last to arrive, and when they did come they mystified their friends by prancing in silently and waltzing gaily about the room.
"Oh, girls!" they chortled when they had tired of this performance, "what do you think?"
"We couldn't help hearing," said Norma deprecatingly.
"Laura Bennett called us in," declared Alice.
"Don't sing a duet," commanded Bobby sternly. "What are you talking about? One at a time. You tell, Norma."
"Laura Bennett called us into her room," obediently recited Norma. "Miss Lacey was talking to Ada and Ruth. You could hear every word without listening—that is without eavesdropping—you know what I mean. Mrs. Eustice must have spoken to Miss Lacey, because she told the girls they would have to send all the trunks home except one apiece. Ada must put all her jewelry in the school safe and at the Christmas holidays she is to take it home and leave it there. Both of them have to wear their hair down or in a knot—you know they have it waved now and done up just like my mother's. And Miss Lacey is to go over their clothes to-morrow and tell 'em what they can keep!"
"I'm glad some one has some sense!" was Bobby's terse comment.
Something in Norma's face told Betty that she would like to speak to her alone, so half an hour later when the girls had dispersed for the night, she made a bent nail file an excuse to go to the Guerins' room.
"I was hoping you'd come, Betty," said Norma gratefully. "We have to put out the lights at ten, don't we? I'll try to talk fast. You see, Alice and I want to tell you something."
A fleecy old-fashioned shawl lay across the bed and Norma flung this about Betty's shoulders.
"Alice's kimono is flannel and so is mine," she explained in answer to the protest. "You never met Grandma Macklin, did you, Betty?"
"No-o, I'm sure I never did," responded Betty thoughtfully. "Does she live with you?"
"Yes. But while you were at the Peabodys she was visiting her half-sister in Georgia," explained Norma. "She is mother's mother, you know."
"What was it Mrs. Eustice said about her?" questioned Betty with interest. "Did she live near here? Was that when your mother went to this school?"
"It was a day school then, you know," put in the laconic Alice.
"Yes, and grandma lived in a perfectly wonderful big house," said Norma."It must be fully five miles from here. Uncle Goliath, an old coloredman, used to drive her over every day and call for her in the afternoon.Mother has always been determined Alice and I should graduate fromShadyside."
"Well then, it's lovely she is to have her wish," commented Betty brightly.
"Oh, goodness, I don't see that we're ever going to have four years," confessed Norma. "If you knew what they've given up at home to send us for this term! And though we wouldn't say anything, mother and grandma worked so hard to get us ready, Alice and I are positively ashamed of our clothes. You see, Betty, I think when you're poor, you ought to go where you'll meet other poor girls. Alice and I ought to have entered the Glenside high school, I think. But when I said something like that to dad he said it would break mother's heart. But if she knew how hard it was to be poor and to have to rub elbows with girls who have everything—"
"I don't think you ought to feel that way," urged Betty. "You have something that no amount of money could buy for you, and no lack can take away—birth and breeding. And the training your mother wants you to have is worth sacrificing other things for. Ever since I heard Mrs. Eustice talk I feel that I know what makes her school really successful."
A soft tap fell on the door.
"Lights go off in ten minutes, girls," said Miss Lacey pleasantly.
"Do you know, Betty," confessed Norma hurriedly, "dad has lost quite a lot of money lately. He's such a dear he never can bear to press payment of a bill and half the county owes him. And a friend got him to invest what he did have in some silly stock that never amounted to a hill of beans, as the farmers say. So it's no wonder the Macklin fortune worries mother whenever she thinks of it; a family like ours could use money so easily."
"Most families are like that," said Betty, with a flash of Uncle Dick's humor. "I didn't like to ask, Norma, but your grandmother must have been wealthy."
"She was," confirmed Norma. "Not fabulously so, of course. But even in those days when lavish hospitality was common Grandma Macklin was famous for the way she ran the estate. She was left a widow when a very young woman, and mother was her only child. Her husband didn't believe women knew very much about money, and he left his fortune mostly in bonds and jewels—the most magnificent diamonds in three counties, grandma says hers were. And she had a rope of emeralds and two strings of exquisitely matched pearls. Besides, there were rose topazes and lovely cameos and oh, goodness, I couldn't repeat the list; Alice and I have been brought up on the story.
"Well, about the time mother had finished school, Grandma Macklin came to the end of her bank account. Several mortgages had been paid her in gold, and she kept this money with the jewelry and a lot of solid silver in a little safe in her room. Foolish, of course, but she says others did it in those days, too. She meant to take the gold and some of the diamonds to her lawyer and get a check which would take her and mother around the world on a luxurious cruise. And the day before she had the appointment with Mr. Davies—"
A soft blackness settled down over the girls like a blanket. The electric lights had gone out!
"Move closer, and I'll finish," whispered Norma.
Betty snuggled up between the two, and shivered a little with excitement.
"The day before she was to drive to Edentown," repeated Norma, "a band of Indians from the reservation in the next state came through on their annual tramping trip and walked in on poor little grandma as she sat at her mahogany secretary turning over her jewels and counting her beautiful shining gold. Every darkey on the place fled in terror, and those rascally Indians simply scooped up everything in sight and locked grandma and mother in the room!"
"Couldn't any one stop them?" demanded Betty eagerly. "Surely a band ofIndians could have been easily traced. Didn't any one try?"
"Oh, they tried," admitted Norma. "That's the maddening part. Suppose I told you, Betty, that I know where grandma's inheritance is this minute?"