"Perhaps," observed Miss Pomeroy sarcastically, "it would be advisable to mark your chairs with strings or ribbons, or something so there will be no possibility of a recurrence of this dispute. Come now to the dining hall and have your tea. I won't punish you this time, but if such a disgraceful scene occurs again, I shall not be lenient with either one."
"I don't care where my things are put," said irrepressible Tabitha, "and I'm not trying to be a pig, either, even if I was here first; but I do want what belongs to me by rights!"
Miss Pomeroy smiled in the dimness of the stairway, as she replied with emphasis, "I expect all my girls to obey the rules laid down for them, and if they won't do that, then they can't stay here."
Tabitha's indignation subsided suddenly. What a dreadful thing it would be if she should be sent home! She ought to have thought of that possibility before. Now Miss Pomeroy was angry with her and she had made a miserable beginning of the delightful boarding school life she had dreamed so much about. Two hot tears gathered in her eyes again, but just at that minute she heard Chrystobel mutter between her teeth so the principal could not hear, "I hate you!"
"It's mutual!" was Tabitha's vindictive reply, and with head up, she stalked stiffly down the stairs behind Miss Pomeroy.
CHAPTER XV
THE FIRST NIGHT AT IVY HALL
That first night at Ivy Hall—for this was the name of the boarding school—was long remembered by Tabitha. Fifty bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked girls gathered with the little staff of instructors around the long tables in the breezy dining hall, laughing and chattering merrily about their happy vacations, greeting friends of the previous year with girlish enthusiasm, and welcoming the strangers among their number with a cordiality that made them feel as if they had always belonged there. It was such a wonderful experience to our little maid from the desert that she could scarcely touch the tempting meal spread before her, but sat like a statue, drinking in the happy scene with a hungry heart.
"See that little dark-eyed lady at the end of our table?" said a winsome-faced girl at Tabitha's right, who answered to the name of Jessie Wayne. "She is Madame DuBois, the French teacher, who is in charge of our floor. Your room is across from Carrie's, isn't it?"