“Very well, then; because Miss Nelson deserves a more pleasant and agreeable roommate, you may change places with Jennie Bruce, Miss Rathmore.”
“I don’t care how you put it, Madame!” exclaimed Cora, with a toss of her head. “I am glad to get out of Number 30. And, however you may put it, Nancy Nelson is a nobody——”
“You will lose your recreation hours until the Christmas holiday, Miss Rathmore,” declared the Madame, rapping on her desk with a pencil. “And don’t let me hear any more of this back-biting and unkindness in the freshman class. Understand? You are all four excused.”
They obeyed the little woman who—by turns—could be so stern and yet so kind. Cora Rathmore flashed out in the lead and, crying with shame and anger, ran upstairs without speaking to her chums at the foot of the flight.
Corinne came out of the anteroom with an arm around the waist of each of the smaller girls. Quite a number of the West Side girls were either coming down the stairs, or had already gathered to wait for the doors to open into the dining room.
“I want you girlies to know,” said the captain, cheerfully, “that we’ve got two perfect little bricks in this class of greenies at Pinewood Hall. And one of ’em’s named Jennie Bruce and the other’s named Nancy Nelson.
“I prophesy, too,” pursued the beauty of the school, “that Jennie and Nancy are going to be the most notorious female Damon-and-Pythias combination we have ever had at Pinewood.
“Now, run along, you two children,” she added, giving Jennie and Nancy a little shove each, “and get your eyes cooled off and wash your dirty little hands for supper. Hurry up!”
And did Nancy and Jennie care what the girls said to them now? Not a bit of it!
They went up the stairs and through the long corridor with their arms around each other. And Jennie insisted upon taking Nancy to her room to fix up for supper.