Miss Stuart shook her head. “I couldn’t come to meet you, but I didn’t forget. I’ve kept an eye on you.”
“I hope you haven’t seen anything very dreadful,” laughed Betty.
“I’ll let you know when I do,” said Miss Stuart. “Good-bye.”
Betty went out on to the campus, where the shadows were beginning to grow long on the freshly mown turf, and took her favorite path back to the edge of the hill, where she sat down on her favorite seat to consider this new problem. On the slope below her a bed of rhododendrons that had been quite hidden under the snow in winter, and inconspicuous through the spring, had burst into a sudden glory of rainbow blossoms–pink and white and purple and flaming orange.
“Every day is different here,” thought Betty, “and the horrid things and the lovely ones always come together.”
Helen would be pleased, of course; as she had hinted to the registrar, there was really no need of consulting Helen; the only person to be considered was Betty Wales. If only Miss Stuart had assigned her to the Hilton house and said nothing!
From her seat Betty could look over to Dorothy King’s windows. It would have been such fun to be in the house with Dorothy. Clara Madison was going to leave the campus and go to a place where they would make her bed and bring her hot water in the morning. Alice’s room was a lovely big one on the same floor as Dorothy’s, and she had delayed making arrangements to share it with a freshman who was already in the house, until she was sure that Betty did not get her assignment. Eleanor had applied for an extra-priced single there, too, to be near Betty.
Helen was a dear little thing and a very considerate roommate, but she was “different.” She didn’t fit in somehow, and it was a bother always to be planning to have her have a good time. She would be lonely in the Belden; she loved college and was very happy now, but she needed to have somebody who understood her and could appreciate her efforts, to encourage her and keep her in touch with the lighter side of college life. She didn’t know a soul in the Belden–but then neither did lots of other freshmen when they moved on to the campus. She need never hear anything about the registrar’s plan, and she could come over to the Hilton as much as she liked.
Nita Reese would be at the Belden, and Marion Lawrence; and Mary Brooks was going there if she could get an assignment. It was a splendid house, the next best to the Hilton. But those girls were not Dorothy King, and Miss Andrews was not Miss Ferris. It would have been lovely to be in the house with Miss Ferris.
Would have been! Betty caught herself suddenly. It wasn’t settled yet. Then she got up from her seat with quick determination. “I’ll stop in and see Miss Ferris for just a minute, and then I shall go back and tell Miss Stuart right off, for I must finish packing to-night, whatever happens.”