“Go ahead, Clint, old chap, and find what is needed for the little girls, if you can. Cicely will never go back to the Carter school, and I should be glad to have the girls keep together. They seem fond of each other. How would you like to run out to Montcliff to look up that school? I’ve had fine reports of it from Fred Hubbard, whose daughter is a pupil there?”
And so it came to pass that directly after vacation the two girls were escorted to Sunny Bank, as the school was called, and, after a very satisfactory talk with its sensible principal, Mr. Reeve left them to her care, feeling sure that this time he had not made any mistake.
Toinette and Cicely had adjoining rooms, and nothing could have been daintier than the room appointments. From their windows they could look out over a wide sweep of the western valley, where the sun was just sinking behind the hills, and leaving upon the sky a glorious promise of the day to follow.
They were still busy arranging their pretty trifles about the rooms when the soft chime of the Chinese gong in the wide hall below announced dinner. Thus far they had not seen any of the other girls, but as they stepped from their rooms they were met by Miss Preston, who said, as she slipped an arm about each waist:
“I do not forget how lonely I felt when I first entered a strange school, so let me try to make it easier for my new girls by introducing some of my old ones; real old,” she added, laughingly, as she called to two girls who were curled up on one corner of the big divan at the lower end of the hall.
“Come here, chicks, and let me make you acquainted with Miss Reeve and Miss Powell. These are Miss Gordon and Miss Osgood, my dears, but as we are all sort of ‘sisters, cousins and aunts’ in this big home, I’ll just hint right off that their home names are Ruth and Edith, who will be glad to welcome my Toinette and Cicely.”
By this time they had reached the cheerful dining-room, and with a very significant exchange of glances Toinette and Cicely took their seats, the latter whispering under cover of the bustle caused by the entrance of the other pupils: “My goodness, if Miss Carter had ever spoken like that to us, we should have fallen flat, shouldn’t we?”
Ruth sat upon one side, and Edith upon the other, and it did not take the new girls long to discover that the dinner hour must be one of the pleasantest of the day, for all talked and chatted in the liveliest manner, discussing various happenings, and again and again appealing to Miss Preston, who was not one whit behind in the spirit of good-fellowship which prevailed.
There were six tables, each accommodating ten people, and a teacher sat at the head of each. In every instance a teacher who was wise enough not to observe too much, but who in reality saw everything, although she could laugh and joke with the girls, put them at their ease, and at the same time set them so perfect an example that few girls would have cared to fail in following it. Far from exercising a restraining influence, they proved the jolliest of companions, as the repeated appeals to their opinions, or the requests for some anecdote or amusing story, evidently old favorites, amply testified.
When the pleasant dinner was ended the girls gathered in the big hall, where Toinette and Cicely were introduced to many of the others.