“Well, cheer up!” said the other, encouragingly. “Marjorie can probably tell you the name of every girl in the school—for I believe it isn’t a very large one. And then surely you will know.”
Dorothy’s eyes gleamed with excitement.
“I believe I’ll stay home from work, and go to meet Miss Wilkinson, if you will let me,” she said.
“Of course, dear,” replied Mrs. Hadley, kindly.
It would indeed have been hard to tell which was more eager to have that train reach its destination—Marjorie or Dorothy. Both girls felt that so much depended upon the meeting; both girls so dreaded the possibility of a disappointment.
Marjorie sat in the first car, and was the first person to get out of the train. Spying Mrs. Hadley almost immediately, she rushed excitedly forward. To her joy, the girl was with her; a girl who, though without the high color Daisy had described, fitted well to the description of Olive. Mrs. Hadley introduced the girls, and they began to walk towards the cottage.
“I was awfully glad you could come,” remarked Mrs. Hadley, just as if she, instead of Marjorie, had done the inviting. “Can you stay until the house party?”
“Oh, thanks, but I’m afraid not. I’m having the dressmaker, but I was so bored and tired that I longed for a breath of sea air. Mother wouldn’t let me go alone to a hotel, so I just begged to descend on you. Mother thought it was an awful imposition.”
Thus she explained her visit.
“Not at all,” said Mrs. Hadley. “I am only too delighted to have you. It’s so quiet here now, that if it weren’t for Dorothy, I simply couldn’t stay.”