“Right at home, helping in an office during the day and tutoring evenings. And I’ve saved enough so that I shan’t have to worry one single bit about money this year,” announced Rachel triumphantly.
“Good for old Rachel!” cried Madeline Ayres, who had spent the summer nursing her mother through a severe illness and looked worn and thin in consequence. “Then you’re as glad to get back to the grind as I am. Betty here, with her summer on an island in Lake Michigan, and Eleanor, and these lucky B’s with their childless farms, and their Parisian raiment, don’t know what it’s like to be back in the arms of one’s friends.”
“Don’t we!” cried a protesting chorus.
“Don’t you what?” called a voice out of the darkness, and the real Georgia Ames, cheerful and sunburned and self-possessed shook hands all around, and found a seat behind Madeline on the piazza railing.
“You were all so busy talking that you didn’t see me at the train,” she explained coolly. “A tall girl with glasses asked if there was anything she could do for me, and I said oh, no, that I’d been here before. Then she asked me my name, and when I said Georgia Ames, I thought she was going to faint.”
“She took you for a ghost, my dear,” said Madeline, patting her double’s shoulder affectionately. “You must get used to being treated that way, you know. You’re billed to make a sensation in spite of yourself.”
“But we’re going to make it up to you all we can,” chirped Babbie.
“And you bet we can,” added Bob decisively.
“Let’s begin by escorting her home,” suggested Babe. “There’s just about time before ten.”
“I saw Miss Stuart yesterday about her coming into the Belden,” explained Betty, after they had left Georgia at her temporary off-campus boarding place. “She was awfully nice and amused about it all, and she thinks she can get her in right away, in Natalie Smith’s place. Natalie’s father has been elected senator, you know, and she’s going to come out this winter in Washington.”