Her vigorous life in the woods during the past six months had stored up within her a greater supply of energy than she had ever before possessed. She had, too, seen men and boys doing really big things in the woods; she had seen courage displayed; she had partaken of adventures herself that called upon her reserves of character, as well as muscle.
Indeed, Nan was quite a different girl in some respects from the timid, wondering child who had gone away from Tillbury clinging to Uncle Henry’s hand. More than ever she felt the protecting instinct stir within her when she saw her chum going wrong. She knew she must assume the burden of looking after Bess Harley in this new world they were entering.
Two hundred girls to compete with! It looked to be such a lot! Lakeview Hall was a very popular institution, and although the building was not originally intended for a school, it answered amply for that purpose—as Professor Krenner told her. One end of the great structure had never been completed; for its builder’s ideas had been greater than his resources.
She knew that the castle-like structure standing upon the bluff overlooking Freeling and the troubled waters of Lake Huron, was much too vast for a private dwelling, and that as a summer hotel it had years before signally failed.
Under the executive care of Dr. Beulah Prescott the place had expanded into a large and well-governed school. Nan looked forward with both hope and fear to meeting so many other girls all at the same time.
The cost of tuition at Lakeview precluded the presence of many pupils whose parents were not at least moderately wealthy. In fact, it was a very exclusive school, or “select” as Linda Riggs had called it during her brief hour of friendship with Bess Harley. Nan devoutly hoped that not many of the other girls would be as “select” as Linda Riggs.
Among the two hundred girls, surely not many could be so purse-proud and arrogant as the railroad magnate’s daughter. Nan had not been long enough removed from poverty to feel that she really was rich, nor was it, after all, an enormous fortune. Her mother’s money was altogether too new an acquisition to have made much of an impression upon Nan’s mind, save to stir her imagination.
She could, and did, imagine a sublimated “dwelling in amity” on the little by-street in Tillbury. She looked forward to the time when she and her parents would be together in their old home; but she could not imagine their style of living changed to any degree.
The life before Nan in the boarding school, however, she realized would be different from anything she had ever experienced. Later, as dusk began to shut down and the switch targets twinkled along the right of way, she peered ahead eagerly for the first sight of the school.
It appeared. Like an old, gray castle on the Rhine, such as she and Bess had read about, the sprawling, huge building was outlined against the sky on which the glories of the sunset were reflected. The little town in the valley was scarcely discernible save for its twinkling evening lamps; but the Hall stood out boldly on the headland—a silhouette cut out of black cardboard, for not a single lamp shone there.