It was a beautiful place. The hall itself was built of rough, greenish-gray stone, and over the whole front of it, twining round the windows, hanging over the doors, grew clinging, bright green ivy.
A smooth velvety lawn sloped down straight to the water, and the girls cried out at this, their first glimpse of Lake Molata. Through the trees, the water of the lake glistened and shimmered and danced while the soft rippling sound of tiny wavelets lapping at the bank seemed to call to them invitingly.
"Oh, g-girls, it's lovelier even than we pictured it!" cried Laura, stammering in her eagerness. "Aren't you just c-crazy to get out on that water?"
"Yes. But look!" cried Billie, grasping her arm and pointing to the front door of Three Towers Hall. "There's the president, I suppose, waiting to welcome us."
For in the doorway was standing a slender figure in white, evidently waiting, as Billie had said, to welcome the girls to Three Towers Hall.
Other girls had noticed her, too, and as the attendant came around and opened the door, they all scrambled down in a flurry of excitement.
"It's Miss Walters," the whisper went around, and Billie felt a thrill of excitement.
"Miss Walters!" Always she had seemed to Billie a person to be looked up to—a sort of goddess set apart from ordinary mortals. For Miss Sara Walters had been head of Three Towers Hall for a number of years—always, it seemed to Billie. And now Billie was actually going to see her, talk to her, perhaps even make her take notice of her, Billie, above the others!
As she rather breathlessly ascended the steps to the entrance of Three Towers with the other girls she studied this slim, straight woman who had been the heroine of so many of her day dreams.
And what she saw satisfied even Billie.