It was lovely to look upon, and compelled one’s admiration, though it left some indefinable longing unsatisfied. It was so orderly it almost made one ache.
Perhaps something of this ache unconsciously obsessed Beverly Ashby as she sat upon one of the immaculate garden seats, placed at the side of an immaculate gravel walk, and looked through a vista of immaculately trimmed trees at the dozens of girls boiling out of the door of the wing in which most of the undergraduate’s rooms were situated, for all members of the under classes were housed in the south wing, the seniors rooming in the more luxurious quarters of the main building. Not that the seniors were the happier for their exaltation. They had enjoyed some pretty merry hours in that old south wing, but with the advent of the senior year were forced to live up to the dignity of the main building. The faculty occupied the north end of it.
Beverly had arrived the previous afternoon and, owing to the fact that she had never been at school before in all her fifteen years, nor journeyed very far afield from dear old Woodbine, she did not know a soul at Leslie Manor so far as she now knew.
The parting of the ways when Athol and Archie bade her good-by at Front Royal and, accompanied by Admiral Seldon, went on to Kilton Hall gave Beverly an entirely new sensation. She then fully realized that she was growing up and that the old happy-go-lucky days of boy and girl frolicking were slipping into the background. That from that very spot where the roads branched she must begin her journey toward young-ladyhood, as the boys must begin theirs toward manhood, and the thought hurt like a physical pain. She didn’t want to grow up and leave those happy days behind.
She had been met at Front Royal by one of the teachers who was returning to the school. Beverly had tried to talk to her as she would have talked with any one at home. But Miss Baylis did not encourage familiarity upon the part of the pupils, and promptly decided that Beverly was one of those irresponsible, impulsive Southern girls who always proved such trials to her and Miss Woodhull before they could be brought to understand strict conventions. Consequently, she had met Beverly’s warm-hearted, spontaneous manner with frigid politeness and had relieved herself of the young girl’s society the moment the school was reached.
Luckily, Beverly had fallen into Mrs. Bonnell’s hands directly she reached Leslie Manor, so some of the ice coating in which she had made the five-mile drive from the railway station had been thawed by that lovable lady. But she had passed a desperately lonely evening in her room unpacking and getting settled, and had gone to bed in a frame of mind rarely experienced by Beverly Ashby.
Her room-mate, like many other tardy ones, would not arrive until the next day, and the whole atmosphere of the place spelled desolation for Beverly.
Her first Waterloo had been encountered early that morning when, feeling lonelier than she ever had felt in all her life, she dressed early and ran out to the stable to visit Apache. He seemed as lonely and forlorn as his little mistress and thinking to cheer him as well as herself, she had led him forth by his halter and together they had enjoyed one grand prance down the driveway. Unluckily, Miss Baylis had seen this harmless little performance, and not being able to appreciate perfect human and equine grace, had been promptly scandalized. It was at once reported to Miss Woodhull and Beverly was informed that “such hoydenish actions should be relegated to the uncultured herd.”
Beverly did not ask whether she must number herself among that herd but the fact had been implied nevertheless, and she smarted under what she felt to be an unmerited and unduly severe rebuke, if not an open insult.
She was still smarting as she sat hidden in her nook, and sorely in need of an antidote for the smart.