THE MADAME
The omnibus lurched through a wide gateway where two huge stone pillars almost hid a tiny lodge, the latter aglow with lamplight. Pinewood had once been a famous private estate, and a Vice-president of the United States had lived in it.
But for many years it had been a girls’ school, and Madame Schakael had come from Germany to be its principal. As a little girl she had attended the school herself, Nancy knew, and she had afterward—after being an instructor in college—married a German professor and gone to his country.
He was now dead and Madame had come back to her native land and to her much beloved preparatory school.
The door of the lodge opened and Nancy saw a very neat looking woman with a dark dress and gingham apron standing in the doorway. She waved a hand and her cheerful voice reached the ears of the wrangling girls in the ’bus.
“Welcome, young ladies! Are you all right? Are there any new ones there?”
“We’re all sophs but one greeny,” called one of the girls. “Glad to see you, Jessie Pease.”
“Thank you, Miss. The new one is to go to the Madame at once. That is the order. Let her go before supper.”
The driver snapped his whip and the ’bus rumbled on. The drive was winding and the trees soon hid the lighted lodge.
But other bright lamps began to appear ahead. By stooping, as she clung to one of the hand-straps, Nancy was able to descry the outlines of several big buildings—or a huge building with several wings; she did not know which it was, and did not feel like inquiring.
Indeed, after entering the ’bus she had not spoken to the girls at all. Some of them had thrown a question at her now and then, but it had been either an impudent or an unkind one, and she had grimly held her tongue.
At last the ’bus stopped at the foot of a wide flight of steps. A great awning of glass and iron sheltered the porch and steps. Under this burned a bright light, and within the building Nancy could see a great hall with two staircases rising out of it.
This was indeed a very different place from Higbee School, with its cottages and one small recitation hall.
“Come on! You get out first, Greeny,” commanded one girl. “You were the last sardine shoved into this awful box. Move; can’t you?”
Nancy rescued her bag from under their feet and staggered out of the door of the ’bus. The other girls piled after her.
There were very few on the porch to receive them; boisterousness would not have been allowed here. But there were lights in a long room at one side—Nancy could see them shining through the windows—and a rattle of china and glass, and loud talking and laughter, pointed the way to the dining room.
“But you’re on starvation diet, Greeny,” said one of the girls, with a malicious laugh. “No dinner for you till you’ve seen the Madame.”
At that moment considerable disturbance was raised over the fact that the ’bus was driving off with one of the girls still in it.
“Let Belle Macdonald out! I told you she was asleep in there,” cried one of the sophs, running after the driver through the puddles.
He pulled up and they managed to rouse Miss Macdonald, who was a fat girl with innumerable bags and parcels. She staggered out of the ’bus, dropping sundry of her impedimenta, sleepy and yawning.
“I don’t care, girls. I was up all last night at a party at home, and I haven’t slept much for a week,” she said, heavily. “Come on, Judy. You bring part of my things; will you?”
“Come on in to dinner,” said the girl who helped the sleepy one.
“Believe me! I’d be asleep in a minute. I’m going to tumble into bed. Anybody know if Judy and I have got the same old hole-in-the-wall to sleep in?”
“Go up and grab it, anyhow,” advised her chum. “I’ll bring the rest of these things when I come. And don’t fall down in one of the corridors and go fast asleep, Belle, for I’ll never be able to drag you off to bed.”
They trooped away, leaving Nancy and her bag practically alone on the porch. Nancy had never realized that girls could be so hateful.
But she forgot that these were all sophomores, and the second-year girls and freshmen at Pinewood Hall were as far apart as the poles.
The new girl went timidly into the hall. The chime of distant laughter still came from the room where the new arrivals were eating their evening meal, evidently under little discipline on this first night.
There seemed to be no real “greeny” but herself about. She saw several girls pass and repass at the far end of the hall, and others mounted the staircases; but at first nobody spoke to Nancy.
She was not naturally a timid girl; but all this was strange to her. She faced a row of closed doors upon the side of the corridor opposite the dining place. One of these might be the door of the principal’s office; but which one Nancy could not guess.
For five minutes she waited. Then suddenly she was aware of a tall and very dark girl coming down one of the great staircases.
This newcomer must have been eighteen or nineteen—a “big girl” indeed in Nancy’s eyes. And such a pretty girl! The “greeny” had never in her life seen so pretty a girl before.
She was dark, her eyes were black, her hair was banded about her head, and her lips were so red that they might have been painted. But her color was natural—cheeks as well as lips. A flashing, cheerful countenance she turned on Nancy, and she said, before she reached the foot of the stairs:
“You’re a new girl, I am sure. Hasn’t anybody spoken to you? Where do you want to go?”
The mere tone of this girl’s voice seemed to change the atmosphere that had so depressed Nancy. That lump was in her throat again, but she could smile at the serene beauty.
“I was told to see Madame Schakael—before having dinner. But I don’t know where to find her,” confessed Nancy.
“Oh, that’s easy,” cried the other girl. “I’ll show you. What is your name, please?”
Nancy told her.
“I am Corinne Pevay,” said the other, pronouncing her name in the French manner. “I am a senior. I hope you will be happy here, Nancy Nelson.”
“Thank you!” gasped the younger girl, having hard work now to keep from crying. The kind word moved her more than the neglect of the other girls.
Corinne led the way to one of the doors and opened it composedly. Through a richly furnished anteroom she preceded the new girl and knocked lightly upon another doer.
“Enter!” responded a pleasant voice.
Corinne turned the knob, looked in, said “Good-evening!” brightly, and then stood aside for Nancy to pass her.
“Another newcomer, Madame—Nancy Nelson.”
“Come in, too, Corinne,” said the pleasant voice.
Nancy passed through and saw the owner of the voice. She was a little lady—a veritable doll-like person. She sat on a high chair at a desk-table, with her tiny feet upon a hassock, for they could not reach the floor.
“Come hither, Nancy Nelson. You are the girl of whom my good friend, Miss Prentice, of the Higbee School, wrote me? I am glad to see you, child,” declared Madame Schakael.
Her hair was a silvery gray, but there was a lot of it, and her complexion was as rosy as Nancy’s own. She must have passed the half-century mark some time before, but the principal of Pinewood Hall betrayed few marks of the years in her face.
She had shrewd gray eyes, however, and rather heavy brows. Nancy thought at once that no girl would undertake to take advantage of Madame Schakael, despite her diminutive size. Those eyes could see right through shams, and her lips were firm.
She took Nancy’s hand and drew the girl around to her side. There she studied the newcomer’s face earnestly, and in silence.
“We have here one of the sensitive ones, Corinne,” she said, at last, speaking to the senior instead of to Nancy. “But she is ‘true blue.’ She will make a fine Pinewood girl—yes, yes!
“We will try to make her happy here—though she does not look entirely happy now,” and Madame laughed in a quick, low way that pleased the new girl vastly.
“Ah! there she smiles. Nancy Nelson, you look much prettier when you smile—cultivate smiling, therefore. That must be your first lesson here at Pinewood Hall.
“Happiness is born of making other people happy. See if you can’t do someone a good turn every day. You’ll get along splendidly that way, Nancy.
“Now, as for the lessons—you stood well in your classes at Higbee. You will find it no harder to stand well here, I am sure. I shall expect to hear good reports of you. Classes begin day after to-morrow.
“Meanwhile, make yourself at home about the Hall; learn your way about; get acquainted—especially with the members of your own class. I shall put Nancy Nelson on your side of the Hall, Corinne—the West Side.”
“Then I’ll take her right up and show her the room. What is it to be, Madame?” asked Corinne, cheerfully.
The principal ran through several pages of a ledger before replying.
“Number 30, West.”
“She’s chummed with Miss Rathmore, then,” said the older girl, quickly.
“Yes. I must break up that clique. Put her with Miss Rathmore. And do see that the child has some dinner; she must be hungry,” said the Madame, laughing again.
Then she once more shook Nancy’s hand.
“Go with Corinne, dear. If you want to know anything, ask her. Read the rules of the Hall, which you will find framed in your room. If you obey them cheerfully, you can’t go far wrong. Good-night, Nancy Nelson! and I hope you will sleep well your first night at Pinewood Hall.”