“I like that, Margaret,” said Isabel pleasantly. “No telling how she will describe us, under cover of the conversation.”
“I don’t believe you need worry,” replied Margaret, feeling very shy and awkward in their midst.
“She has recognized your optimism already Lilian,” said Helen, while Margaret thought, “What big words that Southern girl uses.” She had heard the conversation which took place earlier, and recognized Helen. Lilian went on chatting to her for a little while, telling her about Hilary Lancaster, who was the daughter of a minister and her closest friend; of Evelyn, who was Southern, too, and wonderful in dialect stories; of several of the other girls, till Isabel took a hand in entertaining, and drew her into conversation with Avalon. That these girls should take pains to keep her from being unhappy had a great effect upon the girl from the far West, who had at first felt that companionship with these fortunate girls would be an impossibility. Had she only known that intimacy with this charming circle of girls depended entirely upon herself, she might have been discouraged. But in spite of her unprepossessing appearance now, Margaret had resources within, which school was to develop.
What a reunion was there after dinner again, when in groups large or small the girls wandered about the grounds or took a turn down at the beach. Betty’s heart had a wrench when the taxi took away her mother, but it helped much to have a jolly circle of girls with ever so much news to exchange, or plans to make for the new year at school. Rules were “off,” or at least not “on,” except to require safe bounds after dark. It was moonlight and starlight, clear, bright and warm, yet with that cool lake breeze lifting the stray locks about girlish heads. Pretty, light summer dresses moved about on the lawn in front of Greycliff Hall. The spray from the fountain blew in the faces of those who wandered too near. Within the building, the piano of the reception halls or parlors furnished gay music, and the colors of the rainbow showed in the pendants of the old glass chandeliers.
“Just think,” said Lilian to the girls as they gathered in their half straightened suite, “another year, and we are senior academy girls now! We must make all sorts of plans tomorrow for our work and the societies and everything.”
CHAPTER II.
BEGINNINGS.
The next day was full of all sorts of things. With the same general program, it is astonishing how different the school years are. There are new teachers, a new angle from which everything is viewed. There is a new course to be adjusted and there are the new books with their fresh covers and crisp pages of knowledge not yet understood. Lilian was stacking hers on a corner of the table. She was still full of that tensity and suppressed excitement which the busy day and many interests, with the companionship of other girls, had giver her.
“All that and more inside my brain this year, girls. And, O, my violin teacher is so funny. He looks as if he were just caught. He is imported, I guess.”
“Why, Lilian, this from you?” said Hilary.
“Never mind, he thinks I’m just as funny. He has a real mop of black hair, and closes his eyes and sways when he plays himself,—and glares fiercely when your bow scrapes or you get ever so little off the tone. He tried me out this morning. I played scales for him. I know how to torture him if he gets too cross,—just miss getting it right. Really, though, I’m just dying to go in for nothing but music, but Father won’t hear to it. I want voice and piano, violin, harmony, counterpoint, everything. They are going to let me take one stingy little lesson a week in voice and one in violin.”