And Miss Ellingwood shifted to a more comfortable position, and while Laura unpacked and Sarah put away, the old friends chattered until dinner-time.
The great dining-room, with all the confusion of the first day of school, was an awesome place to country-bred Sarah. She was sure that she should never know one face from another. She should never learn to find her place.
"You must sit at my table," said Miss Ellingwood. "There will be plenty of room there to-day, and this afternoon I shall have you assigned there permanently. This way"; and Miss Ellingwood put out a guiding hand. Sarah began to take courage.
The afternoon seemed as long as the morning had been short. Directly after dinner, Sarah went with Laura to the train. She did not see the rushing engine so clearly now, nor watch the streaming white smoke; her eyes, fixed firmly upon a slender figure in a brown suit, were dimmed, and the strange lump of yesterday had come back into her throat. Now, at last, the moment of separation had come.
She walked slowly back to school, and about the grounds. Laura would be getting home now, and William would have driven to the station to meet her. Had the twins done just as they were told all day? Had they remembered the deserted kittens in the barn? Would Laura be able to fix the fire for the night?
Sarah ate her supper with difficulty. Miss Ellingwood did not appear, the other students said little, Sarah could not see her room-mates, or the Ethel and Gertrude who seemed a little less strange than the other students, or the girl who had packed the ink in her trunk. At the recollection of her woe-begone face, Sarah smiled and felt better.
"She is dumber yet than I," she said to herself.
At seven o'clock there was a chapel service. The gongs rang in the halls, and there was a general opening of doors, and passing of footsteps. Sarah followed her neighbors down the hall. At the entrance to the chapel stood Miss Ellingwood, a book in her hand. She was assigning seats which the students were to keep for the year.
"Wenner, Row B, left, seat 32. Down there to the left, Sarah, near the girl in the white dress."
Sarah made her way down the sloping aisle. She had never been in any room larger than the little country church, and this chapel with its high ceiling, its fine chandeliers, seemed marvelous. In the chandeliers, strange to say, candles were burning instead of lamps.