“She would stand a very good chance if only she would work,” said Margaret quietly. “Rhoda is really clever, and she has such a good memory too.”
“It is like you to say a good word for her, Meg, but she has snubbed you most awfully in her time.” The red-haired reached out a friendly hand to pat Margaret on the shoulder, but Dorothy noticed that Margaret winced, turning a distressful red.
“I don’t mind who snubs me, provided Hazel does not,” she said with a rather forced laugh.
“There is not much danger of my doing that, kid.” Hazel nodded her head from the other end of the carriage, and looked her affection for her chum.
Dorothy thrilled. How beautiful it must be to have a girl chum, and to love her like that. She and Tom had always been great pals, but she had never had a chum among girls. Her own two sisters, Gussie and Tilda, otherwise Augusta and Matilda, were four years younger than herself, and being twins, were in consequence all in all to each other.
Just then the train ran out of tunnel number three, Dorothy caught sight of two flags fluttering amid groups of trees on the landward side of the railway track, and at that moment a great roar of cheering broke out along the train. The girls in the carriage yelled with all their might, handkerchiefs fluttered, and Dorothy wondered what was happening.
“See those flags?” cried Margaret, seizing her arm and shaking it violently. “They are the school flags, and we are saluting them. Now, then, yell for all you are worth!”
And Dorothy yelled, putting her back into it too, for was she not also a Compton girl?