They set to work. They were not the only studious girls on the corridor; but there was a good deal of noise outside, and Beth closed the door to shut some of it out. Having retired to Number Eighty, Molly hoped her old friends would not annoy her.
“I am determined to delight the aunts this year,” Molly said. “I’ve told them I have a new chum and that she is studious. Maybe it’s catching.”
This evening was within the first fortnight of the term. Naturally, Beth had not made many friends as yet. The girl who attends strictly to her lessons in a boarding school is slower in making friendships than she who is careless of her standing on the reports. So the gay ones were not apt to come and pound on the door of Number Eighty for admittance.
Not that Beth did not take plenty of recreation. Indeed, that was compulsory to a certain extent. There was a physical instructor and a splendid gymnasium—the latter a handsome building, the gift of a wealthy graduate of Miss Hammersly’s establishment.
There was a splendid athletic field, too, with a cinder track, courts for basket-ball and tennis; and at the foot of the bluff, which was reached in the school wagonette, was a boathouse with a number of two, four, and eight-oared shells, as well as canoes and a power launch of some size.
Nothing was neglected that would add to the physical development, as well as the mental well-being, of the girls. Miss Hammersly did not graduate weaklings in any particular.
Save Maude Grimshaw, such girls as had spoken to Beth had been kind. But except Molly and a few of her intimate friends, nobody at Rivercliff had paid very much attention to her. She had been popular in Hudsonvale, and she missed Mary Devine and her other schoolmates who had deferred to her there.
She did not even have an opportunity of talking with Cynthia Fogg, the strange girl who had come up to Rivercliff with her on the steamboat. She saw Cynthia now and then, going about her duties. She waited at a neighboring table to Beth’s in the dining-room. But there could be no communication of any extended character between the “young lady students” and the maids employed at the school. Madam Hammersly’s eye was too sharp.
This night, while Beth and Molly were deeply engaged in their books, both suddenly looked up to see an unexpected figure standing in the doorway of the passage into Molly’s room. It was that of a girl in a kimono with a red bag over her head, masking her completely, for there were only two little holes in the bag to see through. It was a startling apparition, and Molly exclaimed:
“Cracky-me! How you scared us! Go away—do!”