MISS WALTERS
In spite of their eagerness to reach their destination, the ride seemed
all too short to the boys and girls. They started when the guard called
out, "Molata, next stop!"
Hardly knowing what she was doing, Billie found her hat and coat, put
them on, and then sat on the very edge of her seat with her gladstone
bag grasped tightly in one hand. Then she looked around at Laura who was
sitting in the seat beside her.
It was then she got her surprise. For Laura was sitting in almost the
same position as herself, perched on the edge of the seat, bag tightly
gripped in one hand, pocketbook in the other and--this was the fact that
made Billie chuckle--Laura's hat was very much over one eye.
Laura looked up at the sound of the chuckle and giggled as her eyes met
Billie's.
"I'm so excited," she whispered in Billie's ear, "that my knees are
trembling. I'm afraid I'll never be able to walk out."
"Well, you needn't expect me to carry you," said Billie, reaching up and
putting Laura's hat on straight. "Because I'm going to have all I can do
to manage myself. Goodness, what's that?"
It was merely the train stopping, but by the tone of Billie's voice one
might have thought it was the end of the world.
"Say, are you girls all ready?" asked Ferd, leaning over the back of
their seats.
The girls nodded nervously.
"Well, then let's go," Teddy chimed in, grabbing his suitcase and cap.
"Come on, pick up your hats, girls, and don't forget your feet."
"Oh, isn't he funny?" gibed Laura making a face at him. Then she grabbed
wildly at her bag as one of the excited girls seemed bent upon carrying
it off with her. "Say, come back with that," she cried. "Isn't one
enough for you?"
However, they did succeed at last in getting themselves safely on the
station platform. It was a pretty station, and this being their first
glimpse of the place where they were going to spend so much time, they
looked about them with interest.
Molata was the nearest town to Three Towers Hall and Boxton Military
Academy. Both of these schools were situated on Lake Molata, for which
the town had been named. Most of the inhabitants of Molata were wealthy,
and the estates in and about the town were magnificent. There was also
a large hotel, filled during the summer season.
Even the station was in keeping with the general air of prosperity. In
the minute the girls had to look about them, they saw a stone-built
waiting room with a red-tiled roof. A beautiful green velvety lawn
completely surrounded the station on three sides, while on one side a
beautiful fountain sent its sparkling spray high into the clear air. And
further back through the trees they caught glimpses of beautiful
estates.
They found themselves being hustled toward the other end of the station
where two conveyances, one from Three Towers Hall and the other from
Boxton Military Academy, were waiting to take the girls and boys to
their destination.
Two attendants tended to the trunks and deposited the luggage inside the
cabs, while the girls and boys said excited good-byes to each other on
the platform.
"We'll be only a little over a mile away from you," Chet called out.
"And when we get an afternoon off we'll row down the lake and get you
girls."
"Oh, won't that be fun!" cried Vi, her eyes dancing. "I'm just crazy to
get out on the lake."
"Goodness, we haven't even seen it yet," Laura reminded her.
"Yes, and if we're going to," Billie added, "I guess we'd better get
started. Come on, girls. Everybody's in but us. Good-bye, Chet!
Good-bye, Ferd and Teddy! Please be good and don't get sent home the
first week--we wouldn't have anybody to give us that row, you know.
Good-bye--good-bye----"
Laura and Vi had already clambered into the long, car-like machine with
_Three Towers Hall_ painted in gold letters on the outside and were
impatiently commanding Billie to follow them.
As soon as she was inside the boys rushed to the car with _Boxton
Military Academy_ painted in gold letters on the outside, and the
good-byes were over.
As they left the station and swung into a wide smooth road on their way
to Three Towers Hall the girls relaxed with a sigh of happiness.
"Isn't this a wonderful road?" said Billie, screwing her head around so
that she could look out the window. The machine had two long seats on
either side, running from the front to the back of it so that, in
turning, Billie accidentally stuck her elbow into the girl next to her.
She had not noticed the girl, but now, when the latter spoke, Billie
turned around quickly. The girl was Eliza Dilks, Amanda Peabody's chum,
and beside her sat Amanda herself looking on with her usual sneering
grin.
"Say, if you haven't got room enough," Eliza said in a thin high voice,
"I can move over to the other side of the car."
For a minute Billie just stared, while several girls about them paused
in their own conversations to listen. Vi was aghast and Laura was
furious.
"Well," said Billie at last, letting her gaze travel from Eliza's mean
face to her ill-fitting shoes--somewhere Billie had heard that people
hate to have you look at their feet--"maybe you'd better move. There's
lots more room on the other side."
The girls chuckled. Laura said: "Good for you, Billie," under her
breath, and Eliza flushed angrily. She seemed about to speak, but as
Billie was still gazing steadily at her feet she looked down at them
herself and thereby lost the battle.
However, the incident had made them miss some of the prettiest scenery
in Molata, and it was almost with a feeling of regret that the girls saw
the majestic three towers of Three Towers Hall rise before them.
Their regret did not last long, however; and when the car started up the
broad driveway the girls strained their eyes for a better view.
It was a beautiful place. The hall itself was built of rough,
greenish-gray stone, and over the whole front of it, twining round the
windows, hanging over the doors, grew clinging, bright green ivy.
A smooth velvety lawn sloped down straight to the water, and the girls
cried out at this, their first glimpse of Lake Molata. Through the
trees, the water of the lake glistened and shimmered and danced while
the soft rippling sound of tiny wavelets lapping at the bank seemed to
call to them invitingly.
"Oh, g-girls, it's lovelier even than we pictured it!" cried Laura,
stammering in her eagerness. "Aren't you just c-crazy to get out on that
water?"
"Yes. But look!" cried Billie, grasping her arm and pointing to the
front door of Three Towers Hall. "There's the president, I suppose,
waiting to welcome us."
For in the doorway was standing a slender figure in white, evidently
waiting, as Billie had said, to welcome the girls to Three Towers Hall.
Other girls had noticed her, too, and as the attendant came around and
opened the door, they all scrambled down in a flurry of excitement.
"It's Miss Walters," the whisper went around, and Billie felt a thrill
of excitement.
"Miss Walters!" Always she had seemed to Billie a person to be looked up
to--a sort of goddess set apart from ordinary mortals. For Miss Sara
Walters had been head of Three Towers Hall for a number of
years--always, it seemed to Billie. And now Billie was actually going to
see her, talk to her, perhaps even make her take notice of her, Billie,
above the others!
As she rather breathlessly ascended the steps to the entrance of Three
Towers with the other girls she studied this slim, straight woman who
had been the heroine of so many of her day dreams.
And what she saw satisfied even Billie.
Miss Walters was only thirty-five, but her hair was snow white and
framed her face in thick wavy masses. Her complexion was pink and white,
and her dark violet eyes looked almost black under their dark lashes.
And her figure was that of a girl of twenty.
"Isn't she wonderful?" Vi whispered in her ear; but Billie squeezed her
arm warningly.
"Sh-h," she said. "She might hear us."
"I wouldn't care if she did," said Violet with unusual spirit, and in
her heart Billie could not blame her.
A moment more and Miss Walters was speaking to them, saying a few words
to each of them, welcoming them to Three Towers Hall.
Then she turned and led the way into the building, the girls crowding
after her eagerly.
"And her voice," said Billie, adoringly in Laura's ear, "is the very
sweetest part of her!"