SOME OF THE GIRLS
"Lovely to be back," said Alison, warmly kissing the pretty childish
face," but you are too late for us to be roommates, Jo. I have another
roommate, a new girl, Marcia West. Marcia, this is Joan Wentworth, who
roomed with me last year."
Joan shook back her light fluffy hair, looking rather taken aback for an
instant, as Marcia emerged from the closet, where she had been
invisible, arranging a rack of shoes. "How do you do?" Marcia said
briefly. "I didn't know I was taking your room. Miss Harland put me in
here. She said there wasn't any other room, or I'd go somewhere else.
I'm sorry."
"Oh, it's all right," Joan answered, recovering her equanimity quickly.
"I'll go and see if Kathy can take me in, for the night, anyway. She's
just across the hall, and she's by herself. I'll look her up."
She was gone, leaving Alison and Marcia to shake down together as best
they could. Conversation languished. Alison tried to talk about her
school work. It developed that they would be in the same classes; but
Marcia seemed to have no enthusiasms. She had come to school because she
was made to, and she looked forward to nothing but getting through.
Finally she said she was tired and lay down on her bed; and seeing
presently that she had fallen asleep, Alison slipped out of the room
across the hall to the room opposite, which was Katherine Bertram's.
Katherine was better off financially than most of the girls. Her mother
was dead and she had traveled and lived in hotel rooms for several years
previously, and so her room at school was more like a home than anything
she had known since her mother's death. It was prettily furnished, and
her pictures and rugs were better and more luxurious than most
schoolgirls' rooms could boast. Nevertheless, she was known as "a good
fellow," and was popular with the girls.
Alison's tap at the door was answered by a cordial "Come in," and she
entered, to find Katherine and Joan curled up on the bed, talking
vigorously, but both sprang up to greet her joyously. She found a seat
on a velvet-covered stool beside the couch, and Joan resumed her
interrupted grumble.
"I'm just too disappointed and cross for anything," she lamented. "Here
I came flying back to our old quarters like--like a homing pigeon, only
to find my place taken by that cross-looking thing. I don't believe you
are going to like her a bit, Alison. She doesn't look as if she would
fit in."
"It is too bad; but then it gives me Joan for a roommate, which is a
silver lining," said Katherine equably. "I didn't know there was a
chance of your losing your place, or I would have spoken to Miss Harland
and tried to get one of the old girls to change with her."
"Oh, well, it's only the first day; maybe something will happen; or we
may like her better when we know her," said Alison hopefully.
"And in the mean time, Joan is welcome with me as long as she likes.
I'll ask for a cot for her. There's plenty of room," said Katherine
hospitably. "We shall be close by and can get together whenever we like.
So cheer up, Jo, it won't be so bad."
They fell into an animated discussion of school matters, which was
presently interrupted by a tumultuous rush outside, the door was opened
without ceremony, and in flocked the rest of the "Kindred
Spirit,"--Evelyn and Polly, boon companions, unlike as they were;
studious Rachel; Rosalind, the school beauty, whose golden head and
apple-blossom face scarcely suggested books or scholarship. These with
Alison, Katherine and Joan, made up the seven "Kindred Spirits," an
informal little club of loyal friends. Their favorite gathering place
last year had been the room occupied by Alison and Joan, and
consternation reigned when the news spread that the newcomer had
usurped Joan's place.
"It won't be the same thing at all," complained Polly, flinging herself
back on the bed in a paroxysm of disappointment.
Katherine poured oil on the troubled waters. "You can meet here just as
well. And maybe, as Alison says, we shall like her when we know her.
Don't let us judge her too hardly beforehand."
"So charitable, Kathy always is," murmured Evelyn.
Rachel changed the subject.
"Well--did you know we have a new English teacher?"
"No. What's her name?"
"Miss Burnett--Cecil Burnett. She's lovely. And she's to be at our
table."
"Are Helen Yorke and Brenda Thornton back?"
"Yes. I saw them this morning. As musical as ever. Oh, is that the
supper bell? It can't be six o'clock already."
"It seems it can--for it is," said Alison, consulting her wrist watch
and finding it correspond with the bell. "I must go and see if my
roommate is awake, and take her down to supper. Please be nice to her,
girls. I don't know yet whether she is cross or just shy." She gave the
group an appealing look as she left the room, and Katherine answered it
with a reassuring smile.
But Joan shrugged her shoulders and made a face. She had not been
prepossessed in favor of the new girl.