“I have heard that story,” laughed Anne. “He was at the Zeta Omega House—that’s right next to Arnold Hall.”
“When Aunt Betsy heard that I was coming down, she wrote Dad that she could take me in just as well as not, and that I’d be far more comfortable with her than in any dorm—”
“But you preferred to be less comfortable,” interrupted Anne.
“I certainly did. I’ve wanted to live in a dorm ever since I knew what college was. Tell me something about Granard so I won’t be quite so ignorant.”
Anne began to talk animatedly of college affairs, and Patricia’s eyes got bigger and bigger and her cheeks redder and redder as she became more and more interested. Neither of the girls noticed that the blond youth had returned to his chair and was watching them intently.
“My goodness!” exclaimed Anne, glancing out of the window a couple of hours later, as the train began to slow down. “I didn’t realize that we were nearly in. We change to the bus here at Plainville. Come on! They make only a two-minute stop here.”
Grabbing their bags, the two girls hurried out of the train onto a long platform splashed with big drops of rain. At the end farthest from the train a bus was waiting for passengers; and just as they reached it, the rain, now driven by a brisk wind, began to fall in torrents. Laughing and breathless, they scrambled up the steps of the bus and sank into seats near the door.
“Here comes a friend of yours,” remarked Anne, peering out of the doorway at other travelers, scurrying across the glistening platform.
Thinking that perhaps Ted had come that far to meet her, Patricia leaned forward just as the young man with the light hair bounded up the steps and collided sharply with her outstretched head.
“Oh, say—I’m awfully sorry,” he cried, flushing brilliantly. “I hope I didn’t hurt you.”