Mr. Morley gave a wry smile and patted her hand.
"Let's hope I shall!" he said. Then he had to jump to reach the platform as the train moved off.
The girls peered through the windows and waved hands and handkerchiefs until the familiar faces were blurred by distance.
"Well, we're off!" said Nan, turning her head and regarding her chums with dancing eyes. "I've had a horrible feeling we'd never get to Laurel Hall ever since Jo scared us to death by saying she couldn't go."
"We're not there yet," Sadie reminded her, with a grin. "There's always the chance of a train wreck, you know."
"How cheerful! Sadie has such a lovely way of looking on the sunny side of things!" Jo was about to make further remarks in the same strain when her words were arrested by the inquiring glance of a girl in the next seat.
She was an expensively dressed girl—almost flashily dressed—and as Jo's eyes met hers she smiled and came over to the double seat in which the three girl chums were comfortably settled.
"I couldn't help overhearing what you said," she began in a high, mincing voice. "Is it possible that you are going to Laurel Hall, too?"
"Too," thought the girls. Was this flashily dressed, affected young person by any chance a fellow student?
"That's certainly the place we're bound for," returned Jo, as the questioner's eyes remained fixed on her.