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Betty Wales, Freshman
Betty Wales, Freshman
CHAPTER I
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
“Oh, dear, what if she shouldn’t meet me!” sighed Betty Wales for the hundredth time at least, as she gathered up her bags and umbrella, and followed the crowd of noisy, chattering girls off the train.
“So long, Mary. See you to-morrow.”
“Get a carriage, Nellie, that’s a dear. You’re so little you can always break through the crowd.”
“Hello, Susanna! Did you get on the campus too?”
“Thanks awfully, but I can’t to-night. My freshman cousin’s up, you know, and homesick and – ”
“Oh, girls, isn’t it fun to be back?”
It all sounded so jolly and familiar. Weren’t any of them freshmen? Did they guess that she was a freshman “and homesick”? Betty straightened proudly and resolved that they should not. If only the registrar had got father’s telegram. As she stood hesitating on the station platform, amazed at the wilderness of trunks and certain that no one could possibly find her until that shouting, rushing mob in front of her had dispersed, a pretty girl in immaculate white duck hurried up to her.
“Pardon me,” she said, reaching out a hand for Betty’s golf clubs, “but aren’t you a stranger here? Could I help you, perhaps, about getting your luggage up?”
Betty looked at her doubtfully. “I don’t know,” she said. “Yes, I’m going to enter college, and my elder sister couldn’t get here until a later train. But father telegraphed the registrar to meet me. Do you know her? Could you point her out?”
The pretty girl’s lips curved into the faint suggestion of a smile. “Yes,” she said, “I know her–only too well for my peace of mind occasionally. But I’m afraid she hasn’t come to meet you. You see she’s very busy these first days–there are a great many of you freshman, all wanting different things. So she sends us down instead.”