"Yes; they'll both be here to-morrow without fail," her mother assured her. "And Bob will come to-day, if he possibly can."
But there was no sign of him when Polly glanced up at the visitors' gallery, as the Seddon Hall team marched into the gym at two o'clock.
"There's a train due now; maybe he's on that," Lois whispered under cover of the singing.
"What a bunch of people," Betty exclaimed, looking around the room.
Every seat in the gallery was filled with friends and relatives, and the girls had been forced to find places on the floor downstairs.
The teams stopped and faced each other in the center of the floor. Polly's heart sank; somehow the Fenwick team looked more imposing in gym suits than she had expected, and she remembered that one of the guards had told her they had won every game they had played that year.
"Perhaps," she thought, "it's just as well Bob isn't here."
They took their places on the floor, and Miss Stewart blew the whistle. In a game that really counts, there is no sound so exciting as that first whistle. It means so much. Betty rose to her toes at the sound of it, and faced the opposing jumping center.
"I think I'd like the first ball," the Fenwick girl said, laughing.
"Sorry, but you can't have it," Betty replied, bounding into the air; "it's mine!" She batted it back towards Fanny.