“That’s the sort of girl Beth Baldwin is,” Molly said, out of her new chum’s hearing, of course. “She is true blue, she is! And it isn’t that she doesn’t need the money. She does. She’s only got enough to pay for this first year’s schooling, she tells me; and she is determined to get three years at Rivercliff in order to teach. I know she’s the kind of girl who will succeed. Most of us here at Rivercliff are a lazy pack——”
“Speak for yourself, Jolly Molly!” cried one.
“That’s all right, Bertha Pilling. I don’t have to hire a prime to come in every morning and put a cold key down the neck of my nightgown to get me out of bed in time for breakfast,” shot back Molly, and the other girls giggled delightedly, for Bertha was a lie-abed.
“At any rate,” Molly continued, “Beth wants to earn all she can toward her next year’s tuition in these two semesters.”
“Why! what can a girl like her do?” demanded a senior. “Fancy trying to earn money at Rivercliff. She might borrow it.”
“Beth Baldwin isn’t of the borrowing kind,” said Molly, staunchly. “She’s earned some money this summer. She told me so.”
“What doing? Picking berries?” cried one girl. “She comes from the country, doesn’t she? I have a cousin who lives on a farm, and she earned six dollars one summer picking berries. Her father put enough more to it to pay for a piano and Madge is always telling about her piano that she earned by picking berries!”
When the laughter over this story had passed, Molly said:
“Why, Beth Baldwin posed for an artist. She told me the woman used her in painting a magazine cover.”
“What magazine?” demanded the senior, suddenly diving for the magazine shelf of her study table. “I thought I’d seen that face before.”