“What! with the snow two feet deep?” laughed
the brown-eyed girl, tossing off her furs and smiling
at the group of her schoolmates with happy mien.
“Say not so!” begged Laura. “No
pony? What is the use of having a cow-girl fresh
from the wildest West come to Lakeview Hall unless
she comes in proper character?”
Nan Sherwood, having swept her old friends with her
quick glance, now looked back at the group that had
followed her into the hall. The bus had been
so crowded and so dark that she had not known half
of those who had been with her coming up from the Freeling
railroad station.
“How nice it is to get back, isn’t it?”
she murmured to her special chum, Bess Harley.
“I should say!” agreed Elizabeth, warmly
and emphatically.
Laura Polk, as an older girl and, after all, one of
the most thoughtful, suddenly noticed a stranger in
brown who still stood just inside the door that somebody
had thoughtfully closed.
She made quite a charming, not to say striking, figure,
as she stood there alone, just the faintest smile
upon her lips, yet looking quite as neglected and
lonely as any novice could possibly look.
This stranger wore brown furs and a brown coat, with
a hat to match on which was a really wonderful brown
plume. She wore bronze shoes and hose. Even
Linda Riggs was dressed no more richly than this girl;
only the latter was dressed in better taste than Linda.
Laura, leaving the gay company, went quickly toward
the girl in brown and held out her hand.
“I am sure you are a stranger here,” she
said. “And I am a member of the Welcoming
Committee. I am Laura Polk. And you—?”
“I am Rhoda Hammond,” said the demure
girl quietly.
“What!” almost shouted the startled Laura.
“You’re never! You can’t be!
Not Rollicking Rhoda from Rustlers’ Roost, the
wild Western adventuress we’ve heard so much
about?”
“No,” said the girl in brown, still placidly.
“I am Rhoda Hammond from Rose Ranch.”
INTRODUCTIONS
“Oh, my auntie!” murmured Amelia Boggs,
using most uncommendable slang. “Stung!”
But Laura Polk, if inclined to be boisterous and rather
rude in her jokes, was by no means petty. She
burst into such a good-natured and disarming laugh
that the girl in brown was forced to join her.
“There, Laura,” said Bess Harley, “the
biter for once is the bitten. I hope you are
properly overcome.”
Nan Sherwood likewise hastened to offer the new girl
her hand.
“I am glad to greet you, Rhoda Hammond,”
she said sympathetically. “You must not
mind our animal spirits. We just do slop over
at this time, my dear. Wait till you see how
gentle and decorous we have to be after the semester
really begins. This is only letting off steam,
you know.”
“Do you meet all newcomers with the same grade
of hospitality?” asked Rhoda Hammond, with more
than a little sarcasm in both her words and tone.
