“How do you think you’re going to like Hope College?”
“All right,” Kit responded cheerfully. “I only hope it likes me. I’ve met a few of the boys and girls through Rex and Aunt Della, and I like them awfully well. At home they’re nice to you if they know who you are, and all about your family. But here it seems as if they either like you or not. Just when they first meet you, you’re taken right into the fold on the strength of what you are yourself.”
The door opened with a little, light, deprecating tap first from Della’s fingertips. She glanced around the side of it cautiously to be sure she was not disturbing the Dean, and smiled when she saw the two. The Dean’s pipe had gone out, and he was leaning over the desk listening as eagerly as though he had been a boy himself, while Kit, with her hands clasped behind her head and leaning against the window frame, chatted. Usually people conversed with the Dean, they never chatted, and Della realized that Kit had already passed the outposts of the Dean’s defenses.
9. Hope College
Hope College was built of gray fieldstone covered with climbing woodbine and Virginia creeper, and it dominated the little town. There were five buildings in the campus group, the main building, laboratory, library and gymnasium, boys’ dormitory, and chapel.
Kit never forgot the first morning when the classes met in Assembly Hall, and the Dean addressed them on the work and aims of the coming year. For the life of her, she could not keep her mind on all he was saying or the solemnity of the moment, because just at the very last minute when the chapel chimes stopped ringing, Jeannette Flambeau entered through the heavy doors at the back of the big, crowded hall. It seemed as though everyone’s eyes were watching the platform, but Kit saw the slender, silent figure standing there alone. She was dressed in black, a soft wool suit, and her brown hair, no longer in pigtails, hung loosely to her shoulders. She waited there, it seemed to Kit, expectant on the threshold of opportunity, not knowing which way to go, and without a friendly hand extended to her in welcome or guidance.
Georgia Riggs, who sat next to Kit, glanced back to see what had attracted her attention, and made a funny little sound with her mouth.
“I never thought she’d have the nerve to really do it,” she whispered. “Isn’t she odd?”
A quick impulsive wave of indignation swept over Kit and she rose from her seat, passing straight down the aisle without even being aware of the curious glances which followed her. She took Jeannette by storm.