"But the color of your head?"
"That's why I had the hair clipped."
"What did you do to it?"
"It was an accident, sir," said Neale. "But I can study just as well."
"We will hope so," said the principal, his eyes twinkling. "But green is not a promising color."
Ruth had taken Dot to the teacher of the first grade, primary, and Dot was made welcome by several little girls whom she had met at Sunday school during the summer. Then Ruth hurried to report to the principal of the Milton High School, with whom she had already had an interview.
Tess found her grade herself. It was the largest room in the whole building and was presided over by Miss Andrews—a lady of most uncertain age and temper, and without a single twinkle in her grey-green eyes.
But with Tess were several girls she knew—Mable Creamer; Margaret and Holly Pease; Maria Maroni, whose father kept the vegetable and fruit stand in the cellar of one of the Stower houses on Meadow Street; Uncle Rufus' granddaughter, Alfredia (with the big red ribbon bow); and a little Yiddish girl named Sadie Goronofsky, who lived with her step-mother and a lot of step-brothers and sisters in another of the tenements on Meadow Street which had been owned so many years by Uncle Peter Stower.
Agnes and Neale O 'Neil met in the same grade, but they did not have a chance to speak, for the boys sat on one side of the room, and the girls on the other.
The second Kenway girl had her own troubles. During the weeks she lived at the old Corner House, she had been looking forward to entering school in the fall, so she had met all the girls possible who were to be in her grade.