“You’ll have to get along the best you can the rest of the afternoon. The supper bell will ring at six-thirty and you be there.”
Mrs. Cole didn’t say where the dining room was; she didn’t say a lot of other things that Mimi discovered for herself that sunny autumn afternoon. The campus paths, the friendly trees, the inscription on the corner stone:
“SHERIDAN SCHOOL, DEDICATED TO CHRISTIAN
PIETY AND FEMALE EDUCATION.”
All informed her. The lonely corridors rang with her echoing footsteps. Once she glanced around quickly, as if a dainty hand had patted her shoulder saying, “Don’t be lonesome—we’re here.” She wondered which rooms they had lived in—great Aunt Patricia, Auntie Gay and Mother Dear.
The great dining hall with only one of so many tables set for supper did not bewilder Mimi. The faculty members who had been arriving all afternoon did not awe her. They rather ignored her or looked bored as if to say, “Can’t we have a last fling without a student butting in?” Mimi sat next to Mrs. Cole at the end of the table. Of all the faces about her, one in particular stood out. It was fresh and the voice was crisp and vigorous. From that supper time on, Mimi loved Miss Bassett, the physical education teacher who still remembered her school days at Sargeant and planned things the girls enjoyed. She had the knack of making fun out of work.
“You needn’t be afraid to stay in your room by yourself, Mimi. Several of us would hear you if you called out. I shall be up early myself. Run along now and write your parents.” When all else slipped her mind, Mrs. Cole said, “Write your parents, dears.”
Mimi intended to. She located her fountain pen, dusted off the study table, but then she pulled the curtain back to let the breeze in and saw the harvest moon rising full and splendid from behind a dark bank of clouds and treetops. She rested her red head on her arms and gazed up at the moon as a seer would gaze into a golden crystal. What lay ahead of her here at Sheridan? Sometime later she picked up the pen, wrote a few feverish impressions into her new diary and, putting on her gayest new pajamas, went to bed.
She was awakened next morning by hurrying feet, excited voices. Over night the corridors had come to life. Some Magic had peopled the cave-like halls and summer-musted rooms with an ever increasing number of chattering girls. Mimi had slept through breakfast, a thing she would not be permitted to do again unless she were ill, and the arrival of the station wagon which had met the first train.
Which of those strangers would be Mimi’s roommate? How she wished one of the campers could have come to Sheridan, too! “I do hope I get somebody peppy and cute!” Mimi wished aloud as she finished putting on the plaid wool dress and started to the office of the registrar.