“We really are,” insisted Kathryn. “I think your mother will want you to have some outdoors on Saturdays, and I know that you help some every day. So do you mind if I ask her about it, if we manage to have the mothers see each other down town?”
“I don’t mind a bit, and I think the G. A. A. hike will be great fun. Suppose Lucia Coletti will want to go?” Betty looked roguishly at Kathryn as she spoke.
“And if Lucia, then our friend Mathilde, to be sure. Well, anyhow we must be sure to ask Lucia. She’ll probably want to be a G. A. A. If she lives in Italy, she probably will know how to swim, and don’t they walk and hike a lot in Switzerland?”
Betty asked Kathryn why she was sure Lucia could swim if she lived in Italy and Kathryn replied that she might live on a hill-top for all she knew, but that rich foreigners always took trips to the water, “and isn’t the Mediterranean right there?”
Betty could not answer that it was not and so they dropped this subject, not forgetting the G. A. A. hike in prospect.
[CHAPTER VIII: THE G. A. A. BREAKFAST HIKE]
Dear me—the hosts of things to be decided during these first weeks of school! But wasn’t it interesting?
There was talk of a new sorority. There was the revelation of some that had existed before, sub rosa. Indeed everything was secret and the way the rules were substantially avoided without breaking the letter of the law was another astonishing feature. Betty Lee did not quite understand that yet. The sorority fever had not struck the little group of her especial friends in their freshman year. There had been some of the girls who were what the rest called “snooty” or “high hat,” the terms in common parlance for a species of snobbery. But as “little freshmen” their assumptions made small impression on their associates of the freshman class.
Prominent juniors had been paying some attention to Lucia Coletti and incidentally to Betty and Mathilde and Carolyn. Peggy and Kathryn seemed to be left out. Nothing had been said so far, but notice had been taken, no doubt. Betty was thoughtful. She had been thrown with Lucia first because she could be of service to her. Now no delicate withdrawal was possible because Lucia, naturally depending upon Betty for much information and liking Betty very much, a fact that Betty did not realize, turned to her for companionship whenever their work made it possible.
Betty saw that her first impression of Lucia had not been entirely correct. To be sure, Lucia had been spoiled, as an independent American girl would view her upon first acquaintance, adding the feeling of rank to that of the superiority of wealth and opportunity. But in some respects Lucia was timid, and Betty had some idea now of how she had dreaded the new environment. Any timidity was hidden, however, behind a reserve which had a little dignity and which Betty told herself was a bit of the Count Coletti.