“Isn’t she wonderful?” breathed Virginia, as they went down the steps together.
“Yes, she is,” Mary said thoughtfully. “And after I’ve been with her I wonder what it is about her that helps one so. She doesn’t say very much—she always makes you talk; but there’s just something beautiful about her that you always feel. I guess that’s why St. Helen’s is such a fine school.”
They took the long way around the campus so that Virginia might see the buildings. In addition to the large main one, there were two others, also of gray stone—one for recitations and the other containing the laboratories and Domestic Science rooms. There was also, Mary told her, in the pine woods below the hill, a little gray stone chapel, called St. Helen’s Retreat, where they held their vesper services, and where the girls were free to go when they wished. It was the quietest, dearest place, Mary said. She did not see how she had happened to forget to show Virginia the woodsy path that led to it, as they came up the driveway. The cottages for the girls were scattered about the campus. There were six of them,—King Cottage, West, Overlook, Hathaway, Willow, and The Hermitage. Each accommodated fifteen girls, with the exception of The Hermitage, which was smaller than the others and held but nine. Miss King did not like dormitories, Mary explained, as they went along. She thought they lacked a home feeling, and so St. Helen’s had never built dormitories for its girls. Moreover, in spite of many requests, Miss King limited her number of girls to eighty-five—a large enough family, she said, since she wished to know each member of it. The cottages did look homelike certainly, Virginia thought, with their wide porches, well-kept lawns, shrubs, and garden flowers. The Hermitage was the tiniest of them all, and stood quite apart from the others behind a clump of fir trees, through which a gravel path led to the cottage itself.
“Really, The Hermitage isn’t a very appropriate name for a house full of girls,” Mary said, as they drew nearer the little cottage; “but one of the older graduates gave the money for it and asked the privilege of naming it herself. So she selected that name on account of the location, forgetting that girls aren’t a bit like hermits.”
Virginia thought the name and location alike lovely; and as they passed through the fir trees and reached the porch which surrounded the house, her satisfaction was complete. Inside, The Hermitage was quite as attractive as its brown-shingled exterior. On the first floor were the living-room, with a wide stone fire-place and book-lined walls, the sunny, homelike dining-room, and the rooms of the two teachers. Up-stairs were the four rooms of the girls, each large and sunny, and opening upon a porch, and away up on the third floor was one large room, which was this year to be occupied by the mysterious Katrina Van Rensaelar.
All was hurry and bustle on the second floor of The Hermitage as Mary and Virginia went up the stairs. Five girls were frantically and unsystematically unpacking—pausing every other minute to go the rounds for the sake of exhibiting some new possession acquired during the summer. Two of the girls Virginia had not seen, and her new room-mate promptly introduced them.
“These are our next door neighbors, Virginia,” she said, “Imogene Meredith and Vivian Winters. And this is Virginia Hunter from the Big Horn Mountains in Wyoming.”
“Indeed?” remarked the one called Imogene, raising her eyebrows and extending a rather languid hand. “Quite off the map, n’est-ce pas?” and she laughed.
She was tall with dark, extremely-dressed hair, and eyes that did not meet your own. Her dress was of the latest fashion, and she wore several pieces of expensive jewelry. Virginia was embarrassed by her easy, uninterested manner, and her strange laugh. Vivian Winters she liked better. Vivian was short with a sweet, childish face, and wistful blue eyes. She, too, was dressed far too lavishly for school, Virginia felt, but she liked her all the same, and did not feel at all embarrassed in replying to her pleasant little welcome. As she looked at them, she recalled the conversation she had heard between Priscilla and Dorothy in the train, and she thought she understood Priscilla’s feeling toward Imogene. But, perhaps, they were both mistaken, and she wouldn’t begin by being prejudiced. Just then Dorothy called Imogene to her room at the other end of the hall, and Priscilla took Virginia to their own room.
“There’s a huge box here for you,” she said, as they went down the hall. “It nearly fills the room.”