Carol and Evelyn followed Adele. “We’ll go if we’re in your way,” Carol said, but Adele assured them that they were welcome visitors.
“Oh, girls,” Betty Burd exclaimed as she looked about at the pretty bird’s-eye maple furniture, the twin beds, the muslin curtains fluttering in the breeze, and the window-seat heaped with pillows, “I just know that we are going to have the best times ever.”
“Of course we are,” Adele declared as she began to unpack her suit-case. “I’ll keep my pictures and books and things on one side of the room, Betty, and you keep yours on the other. Oh, how do you do, Miss Angel?” she added as Bertha appeared in the open doorway. “Haven’t we a pretty room?”
“Yes indeed!” Burdie replied. “I was just thinking about that fourth room. Wouldn’t it be nice if Evelyn and Carol could have that instead of strange girls?”
“Oh, how I wish we could!” Carol exclaimed. “Evelyn, would you like to move into this wing? I am sure that Madame Deriby would be willing.”
“Yes, I would like it and I know that you would enjoy being nearer your friends. I will go at once and ask Madame Deriby if she is willing that we make the change.”
The permission was readily granted and during the next hour the eight girls were happily busy making excursions to Evelyn’s old room in the west wing, helping those two girls to move.
When every one was settled Rosamond, the romantic, exclaimed, “I used to read ever so many boarding-school stories and the girls always had a name for their corridor. South Wing isn’t a bit pretty. Can’t we call it something else?”
Adele looked at the walls for inspiration and found it. “Suppose we call it Apple-Blossom Alley,” she suggested, and the others agreed.
“There’s the get-ready-for-supper bell,” Evelyn told them. “We have dinner at noon. Madame Deriby thinks it the wiser plan. You have half an hour to dress and then, when the next bell rings, we will start for the dining-room. We wear a plain blue uniform during the day, but in the evening we don any simple dress that we may have. That is, we are supposed to wear simple things, but Gladys Merle and her set prefer frills and ruffles, and though Madame Deriby disapproves, as yet she has said nothing.”