There was a kind of ringing note to Molly Brown’s voice which made the other girls listen more closely.
“I wonder if she doesn’t sing,” thought Nance Oldham, giving her a quick, scrutinizing glance. “Yes, I am at Queen’s cottage,” she continued aloud, “but that’s about all I can tell you. I feel like a greeny, too. We’ll soon learn, I suppose. This is Miss Brinton, Miss Brown.”
Caroline Brinton was rather a nondescript young person with dreamy eyes and an absent-minded manner. She came from Philadelphia, and she greeted the new acquaintance rather coldly.
“Your trunk ain’t here, yet, Miss,” called the baggage master. “Like enough it’ll come on the 6.50.”
Molly looked disturbed, while the black-eyed Judith standing nearby flashed a triumphant smile, as much as to say:
“It only serves you right for pushing in out of turn.”
“What are we to do now?” she asked of her new friends, rather helplessly.
“Take the ’bus up to Wellington,” said brisk Nance Oldham. “I know that much. There’s one filling up now. We’d better hurry and get seats.”
The three girls crowded into the long, narrow side-seated vehicle already half filled with students. Even at this early stage in their acquaintance, the bonds of loneliness and sympathy had drawn them together.
“I’m a stranger in a strange land,” Molly Brown had confided to the listening ear of Nance Oldham. “I had made up my mind not to be homesick. I really didn’t know what the feeling was like, because I have never had a chance to learn. But I know now it’s a kind of an all-gone sensation. I suppose little orphans have it when they first go into an orphan asylum.”