“Which is the biggest, most comfy chair you’ve got, Nora?” demanded Mary. “Bring us tea and the best little cakes you have for seven.”
“Better make it for fourteen, Nora,” amended Georgia. “I’m fairly hungry.”
And while the seven ate for fourteen, they all talked at once of “wonderful” vacations, “dandy” trips, “thrilling” summer adventures, each story ending with a rapturous, “And now aren’t we having a grand time here?”
“I must go and find that freshman,” Betty declared at last. She had said the same thing before, but this time she meant it.
“No, you mustn’t,” Georgia told her firmly, tumbling little Eugenia into her lap as a precaution against sudden flight. “You must tell me where she boards, and I’ll go and dry her tears, help her to unpack, explain about morning chapel and freshman class assembly, and tell her to meet you in—let me see—oh, the note-room in the basement of College Hall, at eleven o’clock sharp. She’s sure to be through by that time, and if you’re busy then, why, she can just wait for you.”
Betty listened to Georgia’s program in obvious relief. “Oh, Georgia, would you really do all that? You’re an angel! With so many other things on my mind, having to hunt her up seems like the very last straw. But Georgia—she’s—rather queer—not like other girls, I mean. She’s lived abroad a lot and her mother is—peculiar.” Betty tried to forewarn Georgia without prejudicing the company against the absent Marie.
“Don’t you worry, dear,” Mary Brooks Hinsdale reassured her. “Georgia will manage your freshman. Miss Ames, I hereby rechristen you Georgia-to-the-Rescue, and elect you to take extra-special care of our precious Betty Wales.”
Georgia blushed very red at being praised and “elected” to a mission by the charming Mrs. Hinsdale. “I don’t care how queer Miss O’Toole is,” she declared stoutly. “I guess I can make her understand a few simple messages. I’ve wanted to see the inside of that elegant new freshman hotel-affair where she’s staying. Go to bed early, and get rested, Betty dear.”
When the college clock began to strike eleven the next morning Betty reached for her rain-coat—the freshman downpour had duly arrived—to run over to College Hall and keep her appointment with Marie. But she had pulled on one sleeve, when Miss Ferris appeared to say that she had interviewed Mary Jones, who lived at the other end of High Street, and had persuaded her—it took fifteen minutes to tell what. Just outside Betty’s door Miss Ferris encountered Georgia Ames, red and panting. Georgia skilfully avoided a collision, slipped inside Betty’s office before the door had fairly closed upon the departing Miss Ferris, and dropped, breathless, into a chair.
“I thought maybe you’d forgotten your freshman,” she panted. “So I came to remind you. Don’t know why I hurried so. Only—she is entertaining the whole note-room, and it’s full of girls, and she is just screamingly funny, Betty, though I shouldn’t say so to any one else. But some of the other girls will pass on her choice remarks—the grind book will be full of her. And I couldn’t help liking her last night, so I thought I’d better come and remind you.” Georgia paused awkwardly.