CHAPTER I

SENIORS!

Polly Pendleton and Lois Farwell returned to Seddon Hall as seniors.

Up the long hill that led from the station their carriage crawled as it had done on every other opening day.

From the summit of the hill the low, red-roofed buildings of the school smiled a welcome from their setting of blazing Autumn leaves, and all around them girls were calling out greetings.

There was a marked change in the two girls' outward appearances—their hair was up and their skirts were longer, their whole bearing was older. They were different from the two youngsters whose Freshman year has already been recorded. That is, they looked different, and if you had asked them about it they would have assured you that they were indeed different.

But, the old-time twinkle in Polly's eyes and[Pg 10] Lois' sudden merry laugh gave you a comforting feeling that, after all, in spite of assurances and looks, they were still the same Polly and Lois.

Nothing very eventful had happened in either one of their lives, during the past years. They had spent their Winters at Seddon Hall and their vacations at Polly's old home in New England with Mrs. Farwell. Polly's uncle, Mr. Pendleton, and Dr. Farwell, had come up on visits when they could. Bob, Lois' big brother, had come, too, but less frequently of late. He was at college now and working very hard.

They had made new friends, but, what is more important, they had kept their old ones.

This well ordered way of living, however, had to change. Time had gone on slowly, but steadily and now, suddenly, they were Seniors. It was an exhilarating thought and Polly and Lois hugged each other whenever it struck them afresh.

Their carriage finally reached the door. In a second they were in the reception room, and, after they had greeted Mrs. Baird and the faculty, they dashed up the front stairs—a privilege only accorded the Seniors—and found their room, a big corner one, which they were to share in Senior Alley. Rooming together was another Senior privilege.[Pg 11]

"Poll, we're back." Lois threw her suitcase without regard to contents on one of the beds and looked around her.

"Yes, we're back, and we're Seniors and, what's more, we've the best room on the Alley," Polly answered, enthusiastically. "We'll put your window box there." She indicated a broad bow window, overlooking the campus and gym. "And we'll—"

"Oh! don't let's fuss about the decorations now," Lois interrupted. "Let's find Betty and the other girls. I'm dying to know who's back."

"I am too, sort of," Polly agreed reluctantly, as they left the room and started for the Assembly Hall. "Do you know, Lo, I always feel funny about the new girls."

"Why?"

"Oh, I can't exactly explain, but I don't like them; I wish they hadn't come. We were so all right last year. Why couldn't just the old girls come back and go on where we left off?"

"Why, you silly," Lois laughed. "Some of last year's girls were new and you liked them. Anyway, cheer up, and don't worry about it now. Listen to the racket they're making in the hall."

Polly gave herself a little shake, a trick she had when she wanted to dismiss a thought from her[Pg 12] mind, but her face failed to reflect Lois' smile of anticipation. She was a queer puzzle, was Polly. Uncle Roddy once described her as a tangle of deep thoughts, completely surrounded by a sense of humor. And Mrs. Farwell always insisted that she discussed the weightiest problems of life when she was running for a trolley. Lois was the exact opposite, an artist, a dreamer of dreams, who, when her mind was off on some airy flight, was maddeningly indifferent to everything else. They were ideal friends, for they acted as a balance, the one for the other. They were so much together that no one ever thought of them singly.

A shout of welcome from the old girls, and eager silence from the new ones, greeted their entrance into the Assembly Hall. There was a hubbub of hellos for a minute, and then Betty descended upon them.

Betty, the freckled face—she wasn't a bit changed. She still wore a ribbon on her hair, and her nose was as snubbed and impudent as ever. Of course, she was taller and her skirts were longer, but no one realized it. That was the difference. With Polly and Lois the years had really added themselves and marked a change, but Betty was still Betty and years mattered not at all.

"Jemima!" she exclaimed, joyfully, "but I'm[Pg 13] glad you've come. What under the sun did you wait until the late train for. I've been here all day and I've felt like a fish out of water. There's a raft of new girls, but no Senior specials, thank goodness. The two Dorothys are here,"—she paused and wrinkled her nose just the least little bit in disapproval, and then rushed on. "I'm rooming with Angela, you know. Isn't it mean Connie isn't back? Ange misses her already."

Constance Wentworth, of whom she spoke, was one of the old girls and Angela Hollywood's chosen companion. She had not returned this year because her music professor had insisted upon her starting in at the Conservatory of Music, for she was a remarkable pianist. The girls realized that no one would ever quite fill her place.

"Where is Ange?" Lois inquired, when Betty paused for breath.

"In her room, I mean our room; she's moping," Betty answered. "She said three distinct times that she wished Connie were back, and so I left. I'm not sensitive, but—" Betty left the rest unsaid, but her look expressed volumes.

"Poor Ange!" Polly said with exaggerated feeling. "I don't blame her; let's go find her; she must need cheering up; besides, I'm tired of meeting new girls."[Pg 14]

Angela answered their knock a few minutes later with a "Come in," uttered in her own particular drawl. She was sitting on her bed in the midst of clothes. Apparently, she had made little or no progress in unpacking her suitcase, for nothing was put away.

Angela had always been, and was still, the unrivaled beauty of Seddon Hall. Her complexion was as soft and pink as a rose petal, and her shimmering golden hair and big blue eyes made you think of gardens and Dresden china. She was never known to hurry, and she spoke with a soft lazy drawl, which, curiously enough, never irritated any one. She had won quite a renown as a poet, but was too quiet to be generally popular.

"Hello, you three!" she greeted, as the girls entered. "I'm awfully glad you're back. Isn't this a mess?" She included the room with a wave of her arm. "I don't know where to begin."

"It's exactly the way it was when I left you," Betty exclaimed with pretended wrath.

"I know it; but you've been so piggy with the dresser drawers and the wardrobe that there's no room for my things," Angela teased back.

She was apparently willing to leave the argument so, for as the girls dropped into comfortable positions on the floor and window seat, she discarded[Pg 15] the shoe she was holding, stuffed a pillow behind her and folded her hands. Her guests stayed until dinner time and talked. It was almost a class meeting; for it was a well established fact that when these four girls decided anything the rest of the class agreed with an alacrity that was very flattering to their good judgment.

It was not until Mrs. Baird, who sat at the Senior table the first night as a special favor, asked them if they had discovered any homesick new girls, that they realized that as Seniors, holding responsible positions in the school, they had failed already.

After dinner they stopped to consult on the Bridge of Sighs—the covered way that connected the two main buildings of the school.

"Well, what's to be done?" inquired Lois. "Instead of deciding what color shoes we'd wear at commencement we should have been drying somebody's eyes."

"Quite right," Betty mimicked Lois' righteous tones. "We were very selfish; in fact, I'm ashamed of us. Let's go to Assembly Hall and be giddy little cheerers up."

Polly laughed.

"Oh, Bet, be sensible! Hasn't your observation in the past taught you that homesick girls[Pg 16] don't go to Assembly Hall to cry? They tuck their silly heads under their protecting pillows in their own room. Let's go to Freshman Lane."

"Why Freshman?" Angela inquired softly. "Freshmen are too young and excited to be homesick so soon. Let's go to the Sophs quarters."

They went, tapping gently at every door all the way down the corridor, but received no response.

"They're a heartless lot," Betty declared at the last door. "Not one of them in tears. It's not right, they're entirely too cheerful for so young a class." And she scowled wrathfully as an indication of her displeasure.

"Never mind, Bet," Lois laughed, "maybe we'll have better luck with the Juniors."

Betty took heart and led the way.

Lois was right, though the doleful sobs that met their ears at the door of Junior Mansions—nicknamed the year before because the present Seniors had been so very elegant—could hardly be called luck.

"Jemima!" Betty exclaimed. "A deluge, our search proves fruitful at last."

Polly went to the door through which the sounds came and pushed it open.

The room was dark. The light from the hall cast a streak over the bare floor and discovered a[Pg 17] heap of something half on, and half off the bed. At one side of the room a wicker suitcase stood beside the dresser, its swelling sides proclaimed it still unpacked. A hat and coat were flung on the chair—but these were minor details. The heart-breaking sobs filled every corner of the room, and the figure on the bed heaved convulsively with each one.

Polly was the first to speak.

"What's the matter, homesick?" she asked cheerfully as she pressed the electric button and flooded the room with light.

On closer inspection they saw that the girl had heaps of black hair that had become unfastened and lay in a heavy coil on the bed. Also, she had on a crumpled silk waist and a dark green skirt.

Lois and Betty helped her on to the bed and Polly bathed her face with cold water. Angela was tongue-tied, but she patted her hand and murmured incoherent things. Finally the sobs stopped.

"We've got to get her out of here," Lois whispered. "Don't you want to do up your hair and come down to the Assembly Hall?" she said aloud. "Everybody's dancing."

The new girl—she was still just the new girl,[Pg 18] for she had refused to tell her name, or say one word—sat up and smoothed her waist.

Betty sighed with relief.

"Come on, that's right," she said encouragingly. "Don't mind about your eyes, all the other new girls will have red ones too. Why when I was a new girl," she said grandly, "I cried for weeks."

Polly and Lois and Angela gasped. Betty had never been known to shed a tear. As for weeks of them, that was a bit extravagant. But the fib had the desired effect. The new girl turned her large, drenched gray eyes on Betty and studied her carefully.

"I reckon you looked something like a picked buzzard when you got through," she said with a broad Southern accent.

There was an astonished silence for a second, then the girls burst into peals of laughter. It was contagious, happy laughter, and the new girl, after a hesitating minute, joined in. After that, it was an easy matter to make conversation and to persuade her to leave her room.

The girls found out that she was Fanny Gerard, and had come straight from South Carolina. Her father—she had no mother—had brought her to school and then returned to the city by the next train. Unfortunately, it had been Miss Hale, the[Pg 19] Latin teacher—nicknamed the Spartan years before by Betty, the only unpopular teacher in Seddon Hall—who had shown Fanny to her room.

"She just opened the do' and pointed at that little old plain room with her bony finger and said: 'This is you alls room, Miss Gerard,' and left me. I tell you I like to died."

The tears threatened to burst forth again. Betty and Polly hastened to explain that the Spartan was not even to be considered as part of Seddon Hall. And they brought back the smiles when they explained that the Bridge of Sighs was so named because the Spartan's room was at the end of it.

All together, they made a very satisfactory cure and when they left Fanny for the night, after having unpacked her suitcase for her, she was quite bright and contented.

"What do you think of her?" Polly demanded, when she and Lois were alone, after the good night bell.

Lois considered a minute.

"She's rare, and I think she's going to be worth cultivating. Certainly she's funny," she said.

"Seddon Hallish, you mean?" Polly inquired.

"No, not exactly."[Pg 20]

"She couldn't take Connie's place for instance?"

"Never in a thousand years!"

"Lois."

"Yes."

"You're thinking about the same thing I am."

"What are you thinking of?"

"The five boy's pictures she brought in her suitcase."

"Yes, I was. Sort of silly of her. Maybe they are her brothers."

"They're not, she's an only child."

"Well, all Southern girls are sentimental." Polly was almost asleep.

"Maybe we can cure her," she said.

"Maybe," Lois answered drowsily.

"We're Seniors, Lo."

"Yes. This is the first night of our last year."

"I know, pretty much all right rooming together, isn't it?"

"You bet."

"Goodnight."

"Goodnight."[Pg 21]

CHAPTER II

A CLASS MEETING

"Really Lo, I think its downright inconsiderate of you to be for Princeton." Polly was standing on a chair which threatened every minute to topple from its precarious position on her bed and she was struggling with a huge Harvard banner. She made the above statement with spirit.

Lois, on the other side of the room, was in nearly the same position, only she was struggling with a Princeton banner.

"I don't see why," she answered Polly's remark casually, and went on tacking.

"Because that awful orange color simply fights with my crimson. We can't have them in the same room."

Lois descended to the floor and surveyed the two banners.

"No, we can't," she said decidedly. "Mine goes better with the room than yours, don't you think?" she asked, after a pause, with just a little too much show at indifference.[Pg 22]

"No, I don't." Polly's reply was prompt. "Color scheme doesn't matter to me anyway, but Bob's flag is going up somewhere."

Fortunately, at this moment Betty burst into the room.

"News, good news," she exclaimed. "The Art teacher has just arrived and I've met her. She's a duck. Hello, what's the matter?" she inquired, suddenly interrupting herself. "Is this flag day, and do you really mean you are going to hang both those banners?"

"No, we're not," Lois answered, and Polly laughed.

"The trouble is, Bet, we can't decide which one we will hang. Lo, of course, with her artistic ideas, thinks the orange would go better with the browns of the rug and screen, and I want my Harvard banner up through sentiment. Bob gave it to me and he'll probably make the track this year and anyway, he's Lois' brother and she's always been for Harvard until Frank decided on Princeton and gave her that." Polly gazed with resentment on the banner and Lois both.

"Did Frank give Lo that? Jemima! I didn't know they were such good friends."

Frank Preston was a cousin of Louise Preston, an old Seddon Hall girl Lois and Polly had met[Pg 23] him three summers before, while they were visiting Louise, and Lois and he had kept up the friendship ever since.

"Of course he gave it to me, and Polly you know he had a thousand and one good reasons for going to Princeton. Harvard is not the only college."

"Only one I'd go to if I were a boy," Polly answered airily. "But what will we do? I can't hold this up all day."

Betty had a sudden inspiration.

"I'll tell you," she announced. "Take turns, Poll, you put yours up this week and Lo can have hers next, and there you are." She looked proud at having solved the difficulty.

"Bet, you're a genius!" Polly exclaimed, and Lois added her quota of praise.

"Put yours up first, Poll," she said.

But Polly protested.

"No, yours is up already; leave it, and mine can go up next week." So it was decided.

"Now, stop work and let's talk," Betty suggested. "Haven't you anything to eat?"

"Jam, crackers and peanut butter in the window box," Lois told her. "Get them out and tell us about the Art teacher; I'm going to go on hanging pictures."[Pg 24]

"Well, she's a duck, I told you that, and an old friend of Mrs. Baird; her first name is Janet. I was standing in the hall when she arrived and I carried her bag to her room. She has the one next to the Spartan's, poor soul!"

"Well how do you know she's nice?" Polly insisted.

"Because she's something like Mrs. Baird."

"Oh, well, of course that's enough; she couldn't be just as nice."

"No, naturally not. There's only one Mrs. Baird, which reminds me—there's a young child"—Betty said the words with emphasis—"A Freshman, I think, who needs serious attention. I heard her fussing to-day; something was wrong and she said 'Mrs. Baird made her sick.'"

Lois looked horrified, but Polly only shrugged her shoulders.

"She won't last long," she said indifferently, and Betty felt ashamed of having bothered to give the child a lecture.

"When do we have a Class meeting?" she asked, to change the subject. "We've got to do something about the welcome dance."

"Why not now?" Lois stopped hammering. "Let's get the Seniors all in here."

It was only a matter of a few minutes before[Pg 25] this was accomplished, for Betty went to rout them out.

Angela came first to be followed by the two Dorothys, then Mildred Weeks and Evelin Hatfield, two girls who had come to Seddon Hall the year before. Betty followed them.

"Everybody here?" she asked. "Don't you think we'd better elect officers first off? Then some one will be able to start things. Here's some paper," she added, tearing off sheets and passing them around.

But things were not to run so smoothly. One of the Dorothys rose to protest.

"Don't you think it would be more formal if we held a real meeting in one of the classrooms with Mrs. Baird there," she said. "Then we could have a ballot box and do the thing properly."

Polly and Lois exchanged glances. The Dorothys had always been dissenting voices ever since Freshman days.

Betty tore her hair in secret behind the wardrobe.

It was Angela's slow drawl that settled the question.

"It would be more formal," she agreed, "but what would be the use? Mrs. Baird is much too busy to come, the classrooms are always stuffy[Pg 26] after school and besides, we couldn't take the jam along, it's against the rules."

Mildred and Evelin, who had been rather inclined to favor the Dorothys, were won over by this and the point was carried.

The meeting stayed where it was and the vote was cast. Lois was elected President; Angela, Treasurer; Betty, Editor of the school paper; and Polly, Secretary. When the congratulations were over they started with their plans for the welcome dance.

"Do let's have it different," beseeched Betty. "Last year it was awful. All the new girls cried and there wasn't enough ice cream."

"How can we make it different? There's nothing to do but dance." Dot Mead protested. She was not altogether happy over the election.

"Let's make more of a feature of the new girls," Mildred said shyly. "Last year I know Evelin and I felt awfully out of it. Couldn't we—"

"You've hit the nail on the head," Polly exclaimed. "We'll find some new idea of doing things so that the new girls will really feel it's their dance. Everybody think."

While these preparations were going on in the Senior Alley—another meeting, less important in[Pg 27] character, but equally heated as to discussion, was raging in Freshman Lane.

Jane Ramsey, who had been at Seddon Hall for three years in the lower school and had at last reached the dignity of Freshman, was giving an admiring group of new girls some advice.