“Perhaps.”
“Wait till I fix up a little. We have lots to learn, I guess.”
“My, I think so! There are loads of things that I ought to have brought to make the room look nice, and then I’m going to find a chest something like yours if I can, or maybe Mother will send me one,” continued Cathalina who remembered that she was not to have or appear to have much money.
“Mm-hm,” came Hilary’s muffled assent as she slipped into a fresh cool dress.
The girls explored the front hall downstairs, glancing from side to side and peeping into the two large reception rooms which occupied the entire front. At the end of the long corridor, a wide window looked out upon Greycliff Wood, into which a pretty path opened and disappeared, lost to view among the trees and bushes. The lake was dimly seen at the right, and at their left the rising ground and wooded hills which extended back of Greycliff Hall. A door was near this window, and a short flight of steps to the ground. As the girls started down the steps, two attractive girls stood up politely to let them pass. One, looking a second time at Hilary, exclaimed, “Why, isn’t this Hilary Lancaster?”
“Indeed it is.”
“Don’t you remember me—Grace Barnard? At your aunt’s not long ago.”
“O, yes!—at that picnic! How funny! Did you know you were coming here then?”
“Yes, this is my third year here, but I did not dream of your coming!”
“The funny thing is that I did not mention Greycliff. I was so full of it that I thought I was never with anybody five minutes without speaking of it. But did Aunt Hilary know that you are a Greycliff girl?”