CHAPTER XI
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
It was soon settled that Betty and Bobby were to have the center room ina 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 perfectlyappointed bathroom opening off the center room which the six were toshare. Norma and Alice Guerin were given a room that adjoined thatoccupied by Libbie and Frances, but nominally, Miss Lacey explained, theywould be considered as a unit in the next suite of three connectingrooms. Fortunately two very friendly, quiet girls drew the roomimmediately next to the Guerin girls.
"But, Betty, listen," whispered Norma Guerin, drawing Betty aside as agreat bumping and banging announced the arrival of the trunks. "Who doyou suppose has the room next to the Bennett sisters? Ada Nansen and RuthGladys Royal!"
"You are in hard luck!" commented Bobby, who had overheard, as she dancedoff 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 goundone. 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 oneof the five!"
They directed the perspiring expressman to the right door and, it is tobe regretted, shamelessly peeped while he toiled up and down bringing thefive trunks and three hat boxes. Then he began on the baggage consignedto 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 whatyou 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 putin our room, three I counted, and two in the Bennett girls' room. They'reas 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 andexplain the state of things."
But the luncheon gong sounded just then, and a laughing, colorful throngof 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 tablesthat seated from six to eight, each daintily set and with a slender vaseof flowers in the center of each. Betty and Bobby had the same thought atthe 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 andstood quietly behind the chairs.
Some one, somewhere, gave a signal, and the roomful was seated asif 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 thatwhite-haired woman must be the principal. Yes, and girls, there's thatwoman whom the boys tormented so on the train!"
Sure enough, there she was, looking even more severe now that her hatwas 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 yousuppose this is?"
One of the young clerks from the office approached the table, a largecardboard sheet in her hand.
"I'm filling in the diagram," she explained. "You mustn't change yourseats without permission. Tell me your names, and I'll put you down inthe right spaces."
Betty looked over her shoulder as she wrote down their names. Like thediagram of the seating space of a theatre, the tables and chairs wereplainly marked. Betty swiftly calculated that between one hundred andtwenty-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 toignore or overlook. When they came out from luncheon a notice was postedthat Mrs. Eustice would address the school at two o'clock in the assemblyhall in the main building. It was now one-thirty.
"Let's go look at the gym," suggested Bobby. "We have time. Oh, how doyou 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 themindifferently. The Littell girls they knew were wealthy and had a placein Washington society, but the rest were not yet classified.
"Haven't I seen you before?" Ada languidly questioned Betty. "You're notthe little waitress--Oh, how stupid of me! I was thinking of a girl wholooked 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 trainfrom Oklahoma."
Ada Nansen glanced at her with positive dislike.
"I don't recall," she said icily. "However, I've traveled so much Idaresay many incidents slip my mind. Well, Gladys, let's go in and getgood seats. I want to hear Mrs. Eustice; they say she is a directdescendant of Richard Carvel."
"We might as well go in, too," said Bobby disconsolately. "She's used upso much time we couldn't do the gym justice."
Promptly at two o'clock, white-haired Mrs. Eustice mounted the platformand tapped a little bell for silence.
The principal was a gracious woman of perhaps fifty. Her snow-white hairwas piled high on her head and her dark eyes were bright and keen.Wonderful eyes they were, seeming to gaze straight into the youthful eyesthat stared back affectionately or curiously as the case might be. Mrs.Eustice's gown was of black or very dark blue silk, made simply andfitting exquisitely. Straight, soft collar and cuffs of dotted netoutlined the neck and wrists, and her single ornament was a tiny watchworn 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 clearenough to be heard in every corner of the large room. Surely this lovelywoman could teach them the secret of cultivated, dignified and happyyoung womanhood.
The principal spoke to them briefly of her ideals for them, explained thefew rigid rules of the school, and asked that all exercise tact andpatience for the first week during which the rough edges of newschedules might reasonably be expected to wear off.
"I want to have a little personal talk with each one of you," sheconcluded. "Your corridor teachers will consult with me and will tell youwhen you are to come to me. And I hope you are to be very, very happyhere with us at Shadyside."
A soft clapping of hands followed this speech, and Mrs. Eustice steppeddown from the platform to be instantly surrounded by the girls who hadspent other terms at the school.
After the older girls had spoken to the principal, the newcomers began tomove forward. They were presented by their corridor teachers, who seemedto 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 Royalhappened to head the ranks. Mrs. Eustice put out her hand to Ada, thengazed down at her in evident astonishment.