“So have I,” said Sallie. “Isn’t it great!”
“And the way those two Seniors scrapped over Marjory at the spell down today!” exclaimed Maude. “They both called at once and she was the very first one called. The rest of us were green with envy.”
“We’ve all been more popular lately,” said Bettie. “I’m afraid Laura did us more harm than we realized.”
“I think so, too,” said Jean. “I’ve felt all this week as if large black clouds had rolled away and let a great big chunk of sunshine drop right down into Highland Hall.”
“There’s one cloud left,” mourned Henrietta. “I don’t get a single scrap of encouraging news about my father; and now, every time I look at poor old Abbie, I say: ‘Just suppose anything happens to my grandmother and the family money. Where will I be? Right here washing windows like Abbie and looking for seven years’ bad luck because I’ve smashed a looking glass.’”
“Poor Abbie has enough foolish superstitions to keep her in bad luck for ninety years,” laughed Jean. “You and Sallie seem to be haunted by the same nightmare. I’ll promise you both this; on the day that you and Sallie get to looking just like Abbie, I’ll start for Europe on foot.”
With Laura gone, Highland Hall seemed really a different place. Now, except for occasional scraps among some of the older pupils, one realized that there was a wonderful spirit of friendliness among the girls. Even the once frosty Seniors had thawed to an unusual degree.
“They’ve gotten used to themselves,” explained Sallie, who had had almost six years’ experience with Seniors of assorted kinds. “At first they are always so set up over all their privileges that they just can’t associate with ordinary girls; but after a few months of solitary grandeur they are glad to climb down off their perches and associate with the rest of us. Now that they’re asking us to their spreads and coming to ours they’re having much better times than they did earlier in the year.”
“Of course,” said Maude, with one of her funny grimaces, “you can’t ‘spread’ so very much on thirty cents a week; but our popcorn party was all right and when we all chipped in and bought a barrel of apples—that was great. The Seniors’ heels looked just like anybody else’s when they dove to the bottom of the barrel for the last ones. And our molasses candy pull in the laundry—”
“Ugh!” groaned Mabel, “I was just like a web-footed duck—my hands, I mean. Cora had to scrape me all over with a knife and she didn’t care how much skin she got. It was even on my shoes—”