Their conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the bus. Then, when they were seated within, Jenny continued, almost with bitterness: “Rich girls are haughty and horrid, that is, if they are all like Gwynette Poindexter-Jones.”
“But they aren’t, dear. Don’t judge the many by the few. I had many wealthy classmates and they were as simple and sweetly sincere as any poor girl could be.”
Miss Dearborn purposely kept Jenny’s thoughts occupied with her friend Lenora. Then she asked if Etta Heldt had been heard from. Jenny shook her head. “We should have heard, at least two weeks ago. Grandpa Si thinks we never will hear. He said the best way to lose a friend is to loan him money, but I have faith in Etta Heldt. I just know she will write some day soon if she reached Belgium alive.” Miss Dearborn had visited Belgium and she described that interesting little country, and at last the bus reached the high school in Santa Barbara. Jenny, with a glance of terror at her teacher, took one of her hands and held it hard.
Throngs of bright-eyed girls, many of them in short sport skirts and prettily colored sweater coats, trooped past the two who were strange. Some few glanced at Jenny casually as though wondering who she might be, but no one spoke.
Fragments of conversation drifted to her. “Gee-whiliker!” a boyish-looking girl exclaimed. “I’d rather have the world come to an end than take the geom exam from Seer Simp.”
Professor Simpson, as Jenny knew, was the instructor in charge of that morning’s exams.
“Say! Wouldn’t I, though?” her companion replied with a mock shudder. Then these two passed and another group hurried by. The leader turned to fling over her shoulder: “O-o-h!! My hands are so cold now I won’t be able to hold a pen, but if Monsieur Simpson so much as looks at me with his steely blue eyes, I’ll change to an icicle.”
A moment later Jenny found herself confronted by that same dreaded professor. Miss Dearborn was introducing her and a kindly voice was saying: “Miss Warner, we are expecting much of you since you have had the advantage of so much personal instruction.”
The eyes of the small elderly gentleman were, it is true, a keen grey-blue, but there was friendliness in their expression.
Then it was that Jenny realized that since her tutor had done so much for her, she, in turn, must do her best, and be, if only she could, a credit to her beloved friend.