GLORIA AT BOARDING SCHOOL

GLORIA AT BOARDING SCHOOL

By LILIAN GARIS

Author of “Gloria: A Girl and Her Dad,” etc.

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS

Made in the United States of America

Copyright, 1923, by GROSSET & DUNLAP

CHAPTER I MIXED BAGGAGE

The dark haired girl, sitting on the cretonne couch, chuckled.

“So this is boarding school!”

No one heard her, the little clock on the corner shelf ticked away and never “let on,” for new girls coming to that room were no novelty to the clock. They came and went yearly, sometimes oftener, and what difference did it make that this one chuckled? Those who sighed, or even those who wept, always got over it in time. No doubt the dark haired girl would get over her rather cynical defiance of Miss Alton’s rules for lady-like deportment. Also, she might in time learn to sit on a chair properly.

Gloria Doane really felt defiant. Boarding2 school always represented restrictions to her inexperienced reasoning, and restrictions were never a part of her chosen schedule. A sense of freedom was necessary to her happiness.

At her Barbend home she scarcely respected the wildest coast storm, and often thought it a lark to help life guards shoot out their boats or rig up a buoy. But last year Gloria was “due” to go to this exclusive school and she had not done so. In fact, circumstances wove such a net about her that the meshes represented a most unusual story, told in the first volume of this series called, “Gloria: A Girl and Her Dad.” But now the net was flattened out, stretched to dry on regulation lines, and Gloria had emerged like a fairy mermaid, changed back to an earth maiden, and was doing such ordinary things as going to boarding school.

All this she pondered as voices roused her and a step near her door threatened invasion.

“Trixy!” she called lightly. The step halted.

“Did you get your trunk? It’s downstairs and you will want to change your dress before dinner, or maybe it’s supper,” surmised Trixy Travers, the girl from Sandford, who decided to come to Altmount because Gloria begged her to3 do so. Trixy was quite as fond of freedom as was Gloria, so, ultimately, they both decided “it wouldn’t kill them to try it for a year.” And there they were, ready to put the test to their resolve.

“Trunks,” murmured Gloria, indifferently. “I saw one that looked like mine——”

“In the first hall? Get that bean pole they call Sam, to lug it up for you before the others come in. Then we can dress in our prettiest and flabbergast the crowd.” A pulled face, quite unlike Trixy’s usual countenance, put a period to this threat.

“Brilliant idea. I’ll go straight for the bean pole. Just hook up that gorgeous drapery and our rooms will constitute a suite. So glad we are together. If you were down the hall I’d surely sit on your door mat like a faithful poodle. I just couldn’t risk trying out this exciting life without the protection and guidance of your wisdom. I noticed Miss Alton herself paused in a speech as you towered over her.”

“Glo, get your duds; you’ll feel better when you are out of those dusty things,” interrupted Trixy. “I’ll go down to that cute little room where Miss Alton holds court, and see about a4 telephone to mother. She will want to know we got here safely.”

The next item of note was the entrance of the bean pole, Sam, bearing a shiny new trunk.

“Just here,” directed Gloria. “I suppose I can keep it in my room——”

“With a cover. Miss Alton she always likes pretty covers over trunks.” Sam shifted the little table to give more space. “There, I guess that’ll be all right——”

“Oh, yes; thanks.” A half dollar was pressed into his convenient hand, and Gloria did not hide her impatience to be rid of the voluble Sam. He went. Girls were calling for him and there might be more tips.

Quickly Gloria fell to her trunk task but it did not readily give in to her key.

“Queer, but I suppose it’s stiff, being new,” she reasoned.

The rose colored dress, that which Jane insisted was most becoming to Gloria’s dark hair and dark eyes, would be found in the top tray of the new trunk, and this was to be the “irresistible gown” Trixy suggested as a flabbergaster for the first evening’s appearance.

“There!” exclaimed Gloria, as a spring of the5 lock indicated surrender. “Now I’ve got it.”

But raising the cover did not disclose the expected rose voile dress.

“Of all things!” gasped Gloria. “Whatever is—this?”

She was staring at a mass of glittering beads, or spangles, that seemed to fill the trunk tray. Just a hint of some material very green showed beneath the glistening surface, but whatever the article might be, it never had belonged to the girl looking at it.

She picked up an end of the material and found it heavy with spangles. Then she noticed an envelope pinned to an edge. Scrutinizing this she found the word “Precious” written across it, also “with care,” was plainly inscribed upon the little square. Realizing now that the trunk was not hers, Gloria attempted to replace the glittering stuff, but as she did so something red and sparkling fell from the envelope into her hand.

“Gems!” she exclaimed, gazing spellbound at the deep red glow that seemed to absorb all the light about it. The stone was about the size of a small bean and was cut in facets.

Frightened lest she be found in possession of6 another’s valuables, Gloria quickly dropped the end of the spangled goods back into the trunk tray, then slipped the big, red gem into the envelope through the corner hole it had cut its way out of. She had forgotten all about the rose colored costume, and even that Trixy was due back to dress for the first meeting with the girls of Altmount.

“How ever could I have mistaken that trunk?” Gloria worried. “Of course, it’s exactly like mine, but where’s the tag?”

With the lid closed and the lock snapped back she looked closer but found no tag to identify the strange piece of baggage.

Then, shuffling in the hall and Sam’s characteristic groaning indicated the coming of more baggage, and quickly as the door was opened Gloria welcomed her own special new trunk, which had been purchased amid much discussion, for Jane, the faithful, was insistent that a new trunk be at once beautiful and useful, a combination seemingly realized in the black enamelled article, so easily mistaken for another. The “popular trunk for young ladies” was, apparently, very popular at Altmount.

“Made a mistake,” wheezed Sam. “T’other7 girl had yourn. Jest a mite more work, but that’s all right,” hinted the hopeful handy man.

“I’m in such a hurry,” retorted Gloria meaningly.

“Oh, yes, of course. But ’t warn’t my fault exactly.”

“That’s perfectly all right. See, here’s my name on this trunk. I hadn’t noticed the other.”

“They’re all the same to me,” chuckled Sam, shuffling off without further reward.

When Trixy returned, Gloria was already aglow in her rose colored gown.

“Lovely!” pronounced the admiring Trixy. “If we don’t make an impression to-night it won’t be the fault of clothes. Just look at this. Isn’t it stunning?”

“Perfectly. Trix, you have such a modish way about you——”

“Oh, I don’t know. You are no dowdy yourself. You always look to me like Molly Dawn, or Betty Bangle, or some other quaint character, bound to smile and look darling.” An affectionate little squeeze illustrated this compliment, and presently both girls were being introduced to their fellow students. Gloria in rose color that heightened her sparkling dark beauty, and Trixy8 in French blue that beckoned the glints of her eyes.

It was a small school and boasted of the fact. Also, that its clientele would stand the “Social test,” whatever that uncertain measure is supposed to be, was conspicuously stated in the prospectus.

Gloria was secretly happy to be sponsored by the impressive Trixy. As a matter of fact, no one could doubt the latter’s standing. She was tall, a mellow blonde, the type softened with a tawny brown glow, and her mannerisms! It must have taken generations, thought Gloria humbly, to develop that smooth, irresistible ease and languid indifference toward irritating trifles.

But as a type Gloria, herself, was decidedly more pronounced. She was dark, with eyes that seemed to shoot sparks, with one dimple that always apologized for any pout the rather boyish mouth might affect, and withal Gloria had an air of independence sometimes mistaken for defiance.

As various as the characters they represented were the forms of greetings offered the new girls by those familiar with Altmount. Some9 “gushed,” impulsively generous in their squeezing handshakes and ebullient chatter, others were “stand off,” formal and “frozen,” as Gloria secretly classed the most conservative.

Pat Halliday explained her name as coming from the same Greek word Harriet was taken from.

“Only Patricia is so much nicer and Pat is perfectly jolly,” declared the Grecian descendant. “I should abhor Harriet; though Harry isn’t so bad.”

Gloria quickly found interest in Pat. She was almost red headed and almost blue eyed, losing out by a mere shade in each instance. She talked a lot and laughed a lot, but plainly was no poser. Taking a place beside Gloria at table, Pat kept up a running fire of talk that saved the new girl from any possible self consciousness. At another table Trixy was trying to be pleasant with a girl of very different personality. She (the other girl) raised her eyebrows instead of uttering replies, she shrugged her shoulders haughtily and seemed insipidly affected.

“The girl without a smile,” Gloria was promptly dubbing the ashen blonde. Trixy, sitting near enough, was flashing secret messages10 back to Gloria agreeing with the above. She was not having a very good time with the smileless girl, that was obvious.

Miss Alton sat at the head of the table, radiating good will. It was so important that her girls all become acquainted auspiciously. Although a small school, Altmount claimed the distinction of “finishing,” so that a sprinkling of high school graduates, and a few who failed to win the honor, were to be found among those present.

Both Trixy and Gloria were covertly taking notice of as many girls as politeness afforded glances at. There was, of course, a bevy of “Gabbies” who scarcely paused to swallow, also, like the girl without a smile, there were those who held off, looked important and posed for impressions. This might have been their honest prerogative, but somehow it seemed to natural, naïve Gloria, a bit affected.

“I do hope you’ll like it,” bubbled Pat. “We need a few good sports and I’m sure you’re one. There’s room for more fun here if we only have the workers.”

“I like fun,” admitted Gloria. “And yes, I guess I am used to it.” Her brown eyes sent out a sparkling guarantee.

11 After tea the girls paired off and strolled about the grounds. Pat “grabbed” Gloria, and both being of the younger set their romping went unscrutinized. Trixy, the imperturbable, seemed determined to provoke something like a smile from the reserved Mary Mears, but her good natured and tactful attempts were far from being successful. Mary Mears was wise, any one could see that. Her experience stood out like a wall, neither to be climbed over nor broken through. She was pretty but her skin betrayed traces of the applied arts, while her really wonderful violet eyes worked like magnetos. All this attracted Trixy. Any one so totally different offered her a working problem, something to find out, to analyze and, mayhap, to conquer.

The September evening was quickening into shadows when the students turned back to the broad verandahs and cozy porch corners.

“Hear that?” Pat asked Gloria. “That’s Jack Corday. She never stops talking and never says a sensible thing. Flashy,” criticised the jolly one. “Just notice her get up. But she’s a dear.”

It was impossible not to notice it. The girl called Jack (Gloria later heard Miss Alton give12 her Jacquinot) did talk incessantly in a voice that intruded everywhere, and as she promenaded up and down, dragging along a timid new girl called Ethel, the “get up” Pat mentioned was equally intrusive. A glaring, tiger-lily red baronet skirt, a black silk sweater and colorful bobbed hair. Dangling from her neck was a string of varied colored wooden beads with which she toyed constantly.

The string of beads reminded Gloria of the mistaken trunk.

“Is she a—stranger?” she asked Pat.

“Somewhat. That is, she comes and goes. I wonder Miss Alton admits her. Jack never settles down to anything serious. She makes me think of a big butterfly.”

“The black and yellow kind.”

“Uh-huh!” conceded Pat.

A call to the opening chorus within the assembly room was reluctantly obeyed. “Hail, Altmount,” composed by a brilliant but unpopular girl of the graduating class two years back, was murmured, mumbled and otherwise abused. The faculty chimed in with more enthusiasm than voice, and eventually the wail ended.

13 “Oh, let’s sing the regular college songs,” proposed Jack, slamming a yellow book on the piano rack in front of demure Miss Taylor.

But the majority of the girls, the great majority, deserted, and left few with Jack and timid Ethel to “try” the regular college songs. No one seemed to have a voice or there was something seriously wrong with the tunes, for one after the other they were “tried,” until the long suffering Miss Taylor proposed a truce.

“Jack doesn’t seem to be very popular,” ventured Gloria to the giggling Pat, when the trials were all over.

“She isn’t exactly, but somehow she seems to love opposition. I don’t know her well. This is only my second term, I came last Spring, but Jack Corday could climb a flag pole if she wanted to. She’s a wiz at gym, but books! She has about as much use for a book as an Indian has,” declared the accommodating Pat. “Just the same I love her.”

“My friend Trixy seems to have struck an iceberg,” further commented Gloria. The “iceberg” being the ashen blonde called Mary Mears.

“Oh, I don’t know her, she’s new,” replied Pat.14 “But even icebergs melt finally. She’s rather pretty, isn’t she?”

“Rather,” agreed Gloria just as Trixy joined her group on the corner bench.

CHAPTER II TELLING TRIXY

By the merest chance Gloria did not tell Trixy of the trunk incident. Not that she had any intention of keeping from her friend such an interesting possibility, but because—well, each time she thought of it something intervened, until after days and then more than a week passed, the tale seemed too stale to be revived.

Pat proved delightfully amusing, Mary Mears was mysterious and Jacquinot Corday so spectacular that the first month at Altmount went by without a dull day or even a lonely night for Gloria.

Trixy Travers was at the finishing school chiefly because Gloria Doane had inveigled her into coming. As the fashionable and popular girl at Sandford, where her father was an important manufacturer, Trixy had enjoyed good times unlimited, but as Gloria was due to attend16 boarding school and she reasonably decided there would be much more security from either boredom or loneliness with Trixy to lean upon.

Few letters and fewer home visits were advised by this, as by most boarding schools, during the students’ first month or two, so that those away from home for the first time might more promptly become inured to their new surroundings; so it happened Gloria had only received and written two letters from and to Jane. Now, Jane, the faithful, had for years stood sponsor for Gloria, whose mother had died when Gloria was but a tiny child. Jane kept house at Barbend, the original home of Gloria and her father, and when the young girl came into Sandford to remain with her Aunt Harriet while her father took a foreign commission from his firm, Jane Morgan went to visit her own sister, she who had so many children that the snapshot pictures frequently sent Jane were apt to be misleading in personalities. They all looked alike and seemed too many for the camera.

Mr. Doane, Gloria’s father, had returned from abroad during the previous late winter, only to enter upon a longer trip to the Philippines. His homecoming the Christmas before added the17 final happy chapter to Gloria’s adventure as a real estate expert, for with Mr. Doane had come the young engineer, Sherry Graves, whose venture in Echo Park proved disastrous, ruined his hopes, and all but sent him adrift in despair. Then, the natural enemy of the pretty little park, an underground river vein, was accidentally discovered by Gloria and promptly turned into a harmless course by Sherry and his friend, Ben Hardy.

The result was a boomerang credited to Gloria. These home conditions explain the dearth of letters coming or not coming to her just now, at the new boarding school.

There had been one, however, from her father, remailed at San Francisco, and also a characteristic scrawl from Tommy Whitely, her childhood friend at Barbend. Aunt Harriet had written, of course, telling of her daughter Hazel’s wonderful progress in voice culture. Hazel had spent the previous year at Altmount, while Gloria submitted meekly to a confused, if not unjust plan, of giving this preference to the “artistic cousin.”

Trixy’s letters were not quite so restricted, as she was in the finishing class. Among the most18 interesting was one from Sherry, who told of a “perfectly thrilling plan” for the further development of Gloria’s Echo Park.

“You’ll be rich, Glo, if Sherry keeps on. He writes of perfectly fairy like castles on your property.”

“I don’t want to be rich,” replied Gloria evenly, “but I am glad that the poor mason and his family, the one who at first lost so much in the work there, are finally made happy and comfortable. Of course it was Ben’s genius in engineering that did it all.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” drawled Trixy. “It was rather queer the genius couldn’t find that sneaky little river vein, that almost turned the pretty park on end. A mere girl, one Gloria Doane, managed that.”

The two chums were spending the evening in their connecting rooms, discussing the home news. A letter to Trixy received on the late mail added zest to the discussion.

“Really, how do you like it here, Glo?” asked Trixy. She shot her feet out in front of her with the question, and kicked over a useless little stool in the process.

“Much better than I expected,” admitted19 Gloria. “Pat’s always so jolly, then there’s the haughty Mary Mears and the breezy Jack Corday for variety. Who could complain with all that?”

“Isn’t Pat a lark? She just bubbles over everything and, as the boys say, gets away with it,” replied Trixy. “But Mary really seems mysterious. I haven’t been able to pry open the reserve crust. Yet, it doesn’t seem at all natural to me.”

“How about Jack?”

“The human pinwheel?”

“Pat says she is just about that.”

“How?”

“A wiz at gym.”

“Oh. Perhaps that accounts for her circus clothes.”

“That reminds me, Trixy. I have been wanting to tell you so often——”

“Whew! Sounds guilty!”

“Not quite. But I really have wanted to tell you,” floundered Gloria.

“Go ahead!”

“Then please listen.”

“All ears.”

Gloria tossed her head up defiantly. “One20 doesn’t peg confidences at another’s head,” she pouted.

“Now, Glo, darling,” cooed Trixy. “I does truly want to hear. Be a lamb and tell me.”

Settling anew Gloria began:

“It’s about trunks——”

“The portable, or athletic?”

“Now, Trixy!”