THE RED-HAIRED GIRL
"Well! I must say it's a good joke on you, Linda," said the tall girl,
called Cora Courtney, in response to Miss Riggs' observation.
"What do you mean?" snapped the railroad magnate's daughter.
"Why, they came up from the station in the auto we girls sent after you.
You know it's against the rules for us to go down into the town so late,
so we couldn't send a delegation for you; but that little Grace Mason
said her brother would bring you up."
"Walter Mason!" exclaimed Linda, hopping out of the old 'bus. "Is that
who was driving that car?"
"Yes. That was Walter. And Walter is as big a dunce as his sister,"
declared Cora, crossly. "He went right by you and brought up these two
girls."
Linda's face was very much flushed. That she had overreached herself in
this matter, taught the obstinate girl nothing. She had deliberately
misinformed the 'bus driver, when she told him there were no other
girls on the train, and had hurried him away from the station.
So she had overlooked Walter Mason and his car, and the boy had not seen
her. Her scowl as she looked upon the now calm Nan and the almost
petrified Bess, did not improve Linda's personal appearance.
"Oh! I am not surprised at anything _those_ two do," scoffed the rich
girl, loftily.
"Hullo!" exclaimed Cora. "They don't seem to have done anything except
to get a free ride."
"Indeed, that is just it!" cried Linda, with a toss of her head.
"Anything _free_ is just what they are looking for. One of them let me
pay for her lunch on the train. And the other----"
"Girls!"
The voice, very mellow and sweet (it reminded Nan Sherwood of her
mother's own in its soft cadence) seemed to quell all harsher sounds
instantly--the sharp voice of Linda, even the querulous notes of the
katydids in the grove before the Hall, and the strident tones of the
crickets.
"Girls!"
Nan flashed a glance up the steps. There had softly swept to the break
of the short flight, a lovely lady in trailing robes, gray bands of hair
smoothed over her ears, gray eyes as luminous as stars; and only the
soft lace at the low-cut neck of her gown to divide its gray shade from
the softly pink complexion of Dr. Beulah Prescott.
"She's beautiful," breathed Nan in her chum's ear.
"Girls!" then said the preceptress of Lakeview Hall again. "The supper
gong is sounding. Bring the new arrivals in. They may have ten minutes
in the lavatory on this floor before appearing at table."
"How do you do, Linda? I hope you are quite well. And these are two of
our new girls?"
Nan and Bess had picked up their possessions and now mounted the steps
hesitatingly.
"Come right here, my dears," said Dr. Prescott, holding out a slim,
beautifully white hand on which there was no jewel. "It must be that you
are the two friends from Tillbury, who were to arrive by this train."
"Yes, Ma'am," Nan said.
"You are Nancy Sherwood?"
"Yes, Ma'am."
"And this other is Elizabeth Harley?" pursued Dr. Prescott, shaking
hands with them both.
Bess began to breathe more freely. It was one thing to face Linda Riggs
down in the train; but in the presence of all these girls who knew her
and did not know the newcomers--bold Elizabeth found her pluck oozing
rapidly away.
Dr. Prescott beckoned to one girl of the group, and said: "Play hostess
in my stead, Laura, please. This is Laura Polk, Nancy and Elizabeth. She
will show you where to freshen up a bit before supper, and lead you to
the dining hall, as well. Owing to the delay of the workmen in making
some repairs, we are still in some confusion, but you will be assigned
to your rooms before supper is over. I hope you will be very happy with
us."
She patted Nan's shoulder, put her arm for a moment around Bess, and
then floated--rather than walked--away. Nan had never seen anybody so
graceful of carriage as this lady. Even "Momsey," whom she worshipped,
could not cross a room as did the preceptress of Lakeview Hall.
The girl whom she had introduced to the two friends, Laura Polk, was a
smiling, freckled girl, with a fiery thatch of hair. It was not bronze,
or red-gold, or any other fashionable color. It was just plain,
unmistakable red--nothing else.
She seemed to be a very pleasant girl. What Linda Riggs had said about
Nan and Bess in her hearing made no impression on Laura.
"Come on, lambkins," she said. "I wager you feel all cinders and smutch
after such a long ride in the cars."
"We do," Nan agreed fervently.
"'Way from Chicago?"
"Yes," said Bess, finding her voice.
"I came up myself day-before-yesterday," said Laura. "I know what it
is."
She led the way through the great entrance hall and down a side passage
to the tiled and enameled lavatory. Even Bess was impressed by the
elegance of the furnishings. The rugs were handsome, the carpets soft,
thick pile, the hangings richly decorative. Nan, of course, had never
seen anything like it.
"What a delightful place," Bess said to her chum. "And such good taste
in the decorating."
"Hope the supper will taste just as good," Nan returned grimly. "I'm
hungry in spite of the lunch I ate. You spoiled your appetite with tea
and candy."
"I didn't suppose there was anything left for me in that old box when
you got through," sniffed Bess.
"Oh, yes there was--and is," laughed Nan. "It's good, too."
"Oh, girls!" broke in their red-headed guide. "Have you really part of
your train lunch left?"
"Yes," said Nan, shyly.
"Is it in that box?" asked Laura Polk, quickly.
"Yes."
"Then hang onto it, do!" begged Laura.
Nan and Bess looked at each other wonderingly, and then both of them
questioningly at Laura.
"Oh, you'll be glad of my advice--probably this very night. Dr. Beulah
doesn't approve of us girls eating between meals, and the girl that
manages to sneak a bite up to her room to eat at bedtime is lucky,
indeed," Laura declared, quite seriously. "I tell you, I have sometimes
lain for hours in the throes of starvation because I didn't have even a
cracker."
"Goodness!" gasped Bess. "I should think you would take up something
from the supper table."
"Ha! ha!" laughed Laura, hollowly. "Wait till you have seen the supper
table."
"What do you mean?" queried Nan, curiously.
"You see all this luxury about you," proclaimed the red-haired girl,
solemnly. "You beheld the magnificence of the main hall as you came in.
And it extends to Dr. Beulah's apartments, which are downstairs here, on
the right of the main door.
"But when you turn the other way," continued Laura, "and approach the
chaste and nunnery-like rooms devoted to the uses of 'us young ladies,'
as Mrs. Cupp calls us, you will at once and immediately be struck,
stroke, and stricken with the vast and monstrous difference between our
part of the castle and Dr. Beulah's.
"Oh!" cried this extravagantly speaking girl, "Dr. Beulah has her course
dinner at night, carried in by black Susan on a mighty tray. I have
often thought that it would be a great lark to catch Susan in the back
hall, blindfold her, threaten her with the boathouse ghost if she
squealed, and bear off the doctor's dinner as the spoils of the
campaign."
"But goodness me!" cried Nan, when she could speak for laughter. "Don't
they really give you enough supper?"
"Wait! Only wait!" repeated Laura, warmly. "You'll soon see. Dr. Beulah
believes most thoroughly in 'the simple life'--for us girls. Oh, she
do--believe me! And I think Mrs. Cupp even counts the crackers that go
on each dish that is set on the table at supper time.
"Sometimes we have crackers and milk for supper," added Laura, dropping
her voice to the tone of one telling a ghost story at midnight. Then in
a still more ghost-like voice she repeated: "Sometimes we have crackers
and milk. The lacteal fluid is usually twice skimmed, first for the
teachers' table (they have cream in their coffee in the morning),
secondly for the thin, anaemic fluid we get on our oatmeal. But, anyhow,
it is milk.
"There are never more than seven crackers on a plate--just seven, the
perfect number," sighed this hyperbolical girl. "I've counted them again
and again. Why seven, and not six, or eight, deponent knoweth not. I
think Mrs. Cupp counts them out that way for some fell purpose of her
own," went on Laura, reflectively. "She must have the crackers all
numbered and she deals 'em around as in a game at cards. Anyhow, I
tried a trick once and it didn't work, so I believe she has them
numbered."
"What did you do?" asked wide-eyed Bess.
"The girl next to me didn't appear at supper. I took her crackers and
slipped them down my stocking. But Mrs. Cupp caught me before I got out
of the room, took me to her den, and made me disgorge the booty----"
A mellow gong clanged through the building. Nan and Bess, who were now
almost convulsed by their new friend's remarks, had managed to make some
sort of a toilet.
"Come on!" whispered the red-haired girl, hoarsely. "Never mind your
bags and wraps. _They_ will be perfectly safe on that settee. But hang
onto the lunch box. If Mrs. Cupp finds _that_ she will confiscate its
contents, I assure you."
She thrust the box into Bess' hands and drove both the new girls before
her, like a fussy hen with two chickens.