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Page 13
She was not blue-eyed and appealing. She was large, she was
self-assured, and she took possession of the room in an expansive
all-pervading sort of way that made Mary feel very small and
insignificant. The room itself that heretofore had been so spacious
suddenly seemed to shrink, and when a huge trunk was brought in, it was
fairly crowded.
Mary drew her chair into the narrow space between the bed and the
window, but even there she felt in the way. "I don't see why I should,"
she thought with vague resentment. "It's as much my room as hers."
It was one of the requirements of the school that all trunks must be
emptied and sent to the store-room on arrival, and presently, as
Ethelinda seemed ignorant of the rule, Mary told her and offered to help
her unpack. The answer was excessively polite, so polite that it left
Mary at greater arm's length than before. Fanchon was to do the
unpacking. She had come on purpose for that. In a few moments Fanchon
came in, a middle-aged woman who had accompanied her from home, and who
was to return as soon as her charge was properly settled. The two
conversed in French, as Ethelinda, with her hands clasped behind her
head, tipped back in a rocking chair and lazily watched proceedings. She
was utterly regardless of Mary's presence.
"I might as well be the door-knob for all the notice she takes of me,"
thought Mary resentfully, "Well, she may prove to be as much as a tin
whistle, but she certainly isn't the prize I had hoped to find."
She cast another furtive glance at her over her lead-stringing, slowly
making up her estimate of her.
"She's what Joyce would call a drab blonde--washed out complexion and
sallow hair. She looks drab all the way through to me, but she may be
the kind that improves on acquaintance. She certainly has a good figure,
and looks as stylish as one of those fashion ladies in _Vogue_."
From time to time Mary proffered bits of information as occasion
offered, as to which of the drawers were empty and how to pull the
wardrobe door a certain way when it stuck, but her friendly advances
were so coldly received, that presently she slipped out of the room and
went over to the East wing to see what Elise Walton was doing.
Elise had already made friends with her room-mate, a little dumpling of
a girl by the name of Agnes Olive Miggs, and was calling her A.O. as
every one else did. In five minutes Mary was calling her A.O. too, and
wishing a little enviously that either one of these bright friendly
girls could have fallen to her lot instead of the polite iceberg she had
run away from.
"But I won't complain of her to them," she thought loyally. "Maybe
she'll improve on acquaintance and be so nice that I'd be sorry some day
that I said anything against her."
Several other girls came in while she sat there, and a box of candy was
passed around. Finding herself in the company of congenial young spirits
was a new experience for Mary.
"Now I know what it means to be 'in the swim,'" she thought exultantly.
"I feel like a duck who has found a whole lake to swim in, when it has
never had anything bigger than a puddle before."
The sensation was so exhilarating that it prompted her to exert herself
to keep on saying funny things and send her audience off into gales of
laughter. And all the time the consciousness deepened that they really
liked her, that she was really entertaining them.
After lunch the day went by in a rush. Each teacher met her classes,
programmes were arranged and lessons assigned. By night Mary had made
the acquaintance of every girl in the Freshman class and many of the
others. She started to her room all aglow with the new experiences,
thinking that if she could only find Ethelinda responsive it would put
the finishing touch to a perfect day. Betty was in the upper hall
surrounded by an admiring circle, for all the old girls who remembered
her as the star of her class, and all the new ones who had been
attracted to her from the moment they saw her were crowding around her
as if she were holding some kind of court. It was a moment of triumph
for Mary when Betty laughingly excused herself from them all and drew
her aside.
"Come into my room a few minutes," she said. "I've something to show
you," While she was looking through her desk to find it she asked,
"Well, how goes it, little girl? Is school all you dreamed it would be?"
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