“It’s true I don’t know your name or where you come from,” said Billie. “But I am sure I shall like you just as much and be just as grateful to you for having saved my life, whoever you are.”
“Well, then, my name is Edina Tooker,” the girl threw out the information like a challenge. “And I’m livin’, just at present, at Three Towers Hall!”
The girls merely stared at her, doubting if they had heard aright. The self-styled Edina Tooker laughed harshly.
“You see! A crazy lookin’ jay like me couldn’t be goin’ to your select boarding school, could she? That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it? Oh, you don’t need to answer me! I can see it in your faces!”
There was a world of bitterness behind the girl’s harsh tone.
“She has been hurt,” thought Billie. “Pretty badly hurt and her pride is up in arms.”
Before she could speak Laura said impulsively:
“Why, you can’t be a student at Three Towers Hall. I’ve never even seen you there!”
“I only come a few days ago,” the girl explained. “And after the first day I—I kep’ close to my own room.”
That explained it, thought Billie. She had heard of the new girl from the wild open spaces who dressed like a freak, talked worse, and kept to her dormitory as though it were a burrow from which she seldom emerged except to attend classes. Characteristically, these uncomplimentary rumors had come to her through Amanda Peabody. Billie had intended vaguely to look up the new girl to see if she could be of any help. Instead, the new girl had looked her up—and in a most dramatic fashion!