"Ah! Miss Minturn. I have had quite a search for you," she said, reaching out a cordial hand to her; for, despite the girl's self- poise, she had caught a quiver of loneliness on the expressive face. "I am Miss Reynolds, the teacher of mathematics, and I have been commissioned by Prof. Seabrook to find and show you to his study. But first, let me present you to these chatterers."
She dropped the hand that was trembling in her clasp, and, slipping a reassuring arm about the girl's waist, continued:
"Young ladies, this is Miss Minturn, a new junior. I can't present each of you formally, for she is wanted immediately elsewhere; but I will see that she finds you all out later."
Katherine nodded a smiling acknowledgment to the vigorous clapping of hands and the hearty "Welcome, Miss Minturn, to Hilton." Then Miss Reynolds led her away, and the interrupted chatter of the magpies was resumed with redoubled animation, but now the new junior absorbed the attention of everyone.
"Say, girls, isn't she a dear?" "Came this morning, did she? where from, I wonder?" "My! but wasn't that a nobby traveling suit, and such a fit!" "Katherine Minturn—pretty name, isn't it?" "Does anybody know anything more about her?" were some of the comments and queries that slipped from those supple instruments with a tendency towards perpetual motion, which, sometimes, are described as organs that are hung in the middle and wag at both ends— school-girls' tongues.
"Hush!—sh!—sh! Oh, girls, do ring off, and perhaps I can give you a point or two," cried a high-pitched voice with an unmistakable Southern drawl, as a somewhat overdressed girl of nineteen or twenty years re-enforced her appeal by vigorous gestures to attract attention, whereupon the ever alert spirit of Curiosity silenced every loquacious chatterer, except one who solemnly announced, "Ladies, Miss Minot has the floor!"
"Yes," the speaker observed, "the new junior does strike one as being downright stunning. She came from New York City, and"—with a lugubrious sigh—"though I've never set eyes on her before, I was informed this morning that she is to be my roommate for the remainder of the year."
A burst of mirthful laughter rippled over a dozen pairs of rosy lips at this last mournfully conveyed information.
"Aha! at last Miss Sadie Minot has got to come down to the lot of common mortals and take in a chum!" cried a merry sprite, with a saucy chuckle. "Oh, how you have spread yourself and luxuriated in your solitary magnificence, and how every mother's daughter of us has envied you your spacious quarters! Well, you know what old Sol. said about 'pride' and a 'haughty spirit,' and the 'fall' always comes, first or last. But, Sadie, my love, be comforted," she continued, with mock sympathy, "and just try to realize what splendid discipline it will be for you; one cannot have everything one wants, you know, even if one is an heiress in one's own right- -eh, dearie?"
"But there's only one closet, and it is so full now," sighed Miss
Minot, ruefully.