“Naturally. But don’t you know, really?”
“No, I guess I missed some of you girls’ letters by not going home again before coming to school, so all I know is that Cathalina is coming and that we are all to be together in a suite. She wrote that early in the summer and said that Miss Randolph was going to arrange it. So I haven’t worried a bit, and, honestly, I’ve been too busy to write letters.”
“So have I. I was just going to apologize for not writing oftener, but if you are as bad as I am, I’ll not need to.”
“I guess this was a full summer for both of us. I love you just the same as ever, though. Did you get my cards from Boston?”
“Yes; did you get mine from Denver? O, now you must shut your eyes and I’ll lead you into our elegant retreat where we shall ‘woo the Muses,’ as Father says. Put down your bag; you can get it in a minute, it isn’t far.”
With red hands over her eyes, Hilary Lancaster, laughing and dancing along by Lilian, was led to a door which was thrown open dramatically before her.
“Lilian North! Our old room improved! Me thought my feet tread upon accustomed ground!”
“Boards, you mean. How touching.” The two excited and happy girls started a “Gym” dance, Hilary counting as they took so many steps to the right, so many to the left, with bows and curtseys, till Hilary suddenly ran over to the window.
“There it is, the same lovely bit of the lake and the lacing trees. O, I can scarcely wait to see the launch and the boats again, and even our nice kind old Mickey. Where’s my bag?—O, yes!” and Hilary went racing down the hall for her traveling bag.
The suite over which these two girls were having such raptures was nothing remarkable, but was the one which Hilary Lancaster and Cathalina Van Buskirk had occupied the year before, their first happy year at this girls’ school. By taking down a partition or two, three large rooms had been made, one sitting room or study in the middle, a good-sized bedroom, with its two comfortable cots, on each side of the sitting room.