CHAPTER IX

THE RED-HAIRED GIRL

"Well! I must say it's a good joke on you, Linda," said the tall girl, called Cora Courtney, in response to Miss Riggs' observation.

"What do you mean?" snapped the railroad magnate's daughter.

"Why, they came up from the station in the auto we girls sent after you. You know it's against the rules for us to go down into the town so late, so we couldn't send a delegation for you; but that little Grace Mason said her brother would bring you up."

"Walter Mason!" exclaimed Linda, hopping out of the old 'bus. "Is that who was driving that car?"

"Yes. That was Walter. And Walter is as big a dunce as his sister," declared Cora, crossly. "He went right by you and brought up these two girls."

Linda's face was very much flushed. That she had overreached herself in this matter, taught the obstinate girl nothing. She had deliberately misinformed the 'bus driver, when she told him there were no other girls on the train, and had hurried him away from the station.

So she had overlooked Walter Mason and his car, and the boy had not seen her. Her scowl as she looked upon the now calm Nan and the almost petrified Bess, did not improve Linda's personal appearance.

"Oh! I am not surprised at anything _those_ two do," scoffed the rich girl, loftily.

"Hullo!" exclaimed Cora. "They don't seem to have done anything except to get a free ride."

"Indeed, that is just it!" cried Linda, with a toss of her head. "Anything _free_ is just what they are looking for. One of them let me pay for her lunch on the train. And the other----"

"Girls!"

The voice, very mellow and sweet (it reminded Nan Sherwood of her mother's own in its soft cadence) seemed to quell all harsher sounds instantly--the sharp voice of Linda, even the querulous notes of the katydids in the grove before the Hall, and the strident tones of the crickets.

"Girls!"

Nan flashed a glance up the steps. There had softly swept to the break of the short flight, a lovely lady in trailing robes, gray bands of hair smoothed over her ears, gray eyes as luminous as stars; and only the soft lace at the low-cut neck of her gown to divide its gray shade from the softly pink complexion of Dr. Beulah Prescott.

"She's beautiful," breathed Nan in her chum's ear.

"Girls!" then said the preceptress of Lakeview Hall again. "The supper gong is sounding. Bring the new arrivals in. They may have ten minutes in the lavatory on this floor before appearing at table."

"How do you do, Linda? I hope you are quite well. And these are two of our new girls?"

Nan and Bess had picked up their possessions and now mounted the steps hesitatingly.

"Come right here, my dears," said Dr. Prescott, holding out a slim, beautifully white hand on which there was no jewel. "It must be that you are the two friends from Tillbury, who were to arrive by this train."

"Yes, Ma'am," Nan said.

"You are Nancy Sherwood?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"And this other is Elizabeth Harley?" pursued Dr. Prescott, shaking hands with them both.

Bess began to breathe more freely. It was one thing to face Linda Riggs down in the train; but in the presence of all these girls who knew her and did not know the newcomers--bold Elizabeth found her pluck oozing rapidly away.

Dr. Prescott beckoned to one girl of the group, and said: "Play hostess in my stead, Laura, please. This is Laura Polk, Nancy and Elizabeth. She will show you where to freshen up a bit before supper, and lead you to the dining hall, as well. Owing to the delay of the workmen in making some repairs, we are still in some confusion, but you will be assigned to your rooms before supper is over. I hope you will be very happy with us."

She patted Nan's shoulder, put her arm for a moment around Bess, and then floated--rather than walked--away. Nan had never seen anybody so graceful of carriage as this lady. Even "Momsey," whom she worshipped, could not cross a room as did the preceptress of Lakeview Hall.

The girl whom she had introduced to the two friends, Laura Polk, was a smiling, freckled girl, with a fiery thatch of hair. It was not bronze, or red-gold, or any other fashionable color. It was just plain, unmistakable red--nothing else.

She seemed to be a very pleasant girl. What Linda Riggs had said about Nan and Bess in her hearing made no impression on Laura.

"Come on, lambkins," she said. "I wager you feel all cinders and smutch after such a long ride in the cars."

"We do," Nan agreed fervently.

"'Way from Chicago?"

"Yes," said Bess, finding her voice.

"I came up myself day-before-yesterday," said Laura. "I know what it is."

She led the way through the great entrance hall and down a side passage to the tiled and enameled lavatory. Even Bess was impressed by the elegance of the furnishings. The rugs were handsome, the carpets soft, thick pile, the hangings richly decorative. Nan, of course, had never seen anything like it.

"What a delightful place," Bess said to her chum. "And such good taste in the decorating."

"Hope the supper will taste just as good," Nan returned grimly. "I'm hungry in spite of the lunch I ate. You spoiled your appetite with tea and candy."

"I didn't suppose there was anything left for me in that old box when you got through," sniffed Bess.

"Oh, yes there was--and is," laughed Nan. "It's good, too."

"Oh, girls!" broke in their red-headed guide. "Have you really part of your train lunch left?"

"Yes," said Nan, shyly.

"Is it in that box?" asked Laura Polk, quickly.

"Yes."

"Then hang onto it, do!" begged Laura.

Nan and Bess looked at each other wonderingly, and then both of them questioningly at Laura.

"Oh, you'll be glad of my advice--probably this very night. Dr. Beulah doesn't approve of us girls eating between meals, and the girl that manages to sneak a bite up to her room to eat at bedtime is lucky, indeed," Laura declared, quite seriously. "I tell you, I have sometimes lain for hours in the throes of starvation because I didn't have even a cracker."

"Goodness!" gasped Bess. "I should think you would take up something from the supper table."

"Ha! ha!" laughed Laura, hollowly. "Wait till you have seen the supper table."

"What do you mean?" queried Nan, curiously.

"You see all this luxury about you," proclaimed the red-haired girl, solemnly. "You beheld the magnificence of the main hall as you came in. And it extends to Dr. Beulah's apartments, which are downstairs here, on the right of the main door.

"But when you turn the other way," continued Laura, "and approach the chaste and nunnery-like rooms devoted to the uses of 'us young ladies,' as Mrs. Cupp calls us, you will at once and immediately be struck, stroke, and stricken with the vast and monstrous difference between our part of the castle and Dr. Beulah's.

"Oh!" cried this extravagantly speaking girl, "Dr. Beulah has her course dinner at night, carried in by black Susan on a mighty tray. I have often thought that it would be a great lark to catch Susan in the back hall, blindfold her, threaten her with the boathouse ghost if she squealed, and bear off the doctor's dinner as the spoils of the campaign."

"But goodness me!" cried Nan, when she could speak for laughter. "Don't they really give you enough supper?"

"Wait! Only wait!" repeated Laura, warmly. "You'll soon see. Dr. Beulah believes most thoroughly in 'the simple life'--for us girls. Oh, she do--believe me! And I think Mrs. Cupp even counts the crackers that go on each dish that is set on the table at supper time.

"Sometimes we have crackers and milk for supper," added Laura, dropping her voice to the tone of one telling a ghost story at midnight. Then in a still more ghost-like voice she repeated: "Sometimes we have crackers and milk. The lacteal fluid is usually twice skimmed, first for the teachers' table (they have cream in their coffee in the morning), secondly for the thin, anaemic fluid we get on our oatmeal. But, anyhow, it is milk.

"There are never more than seven crackers on a plate--just seven, the perfect number," sighed this hyperbolical girl. "I've counted them again and again. Why seven, and not six, or eight, deponent knoweth not. I think Mrs. Cupp counts them out that way for some fell purpose of her own," went on Laura, reflectively. "She must have the crackers all numbered and she deals 'em around as in a game at cards. Anyhow, I tried a trick once and it didn't work, so I believe she has them numbered."

"What did you do?" asked wide-eyed Bess.

"The girl next to me didn't appear at supper. I took her crackers and slipped them down my stocking. But Mrs. Cupp caught me before I got out of the room, took me to her den, and made me disgorge the booty----"

A mellow gong clanged through the building. Nan and Bess, who were now almost convulsed by their new friend's remarks, had managed to make some sort of a toilet.

"Come on!" whispered the red-haired girl, hoarsely. "Never mind your bags and wraps. _They_ will be perfectly safe on that settee. But hang onto the lunch box. If Mrs. Cupp finds _that_ she will confiscate its contents, I assure you."

She thrust the box into Bess' hands and drove both the new girls before her, like a fussy hen with two chickens.