candy.”

“It was mine, too,” said Henrietta. “I should have known better. I just didn’t think—I never do. I’m awfully sorry.”

“Well, well,” returned Mr. Black, “I’m certainly glad you were capable enough to get to the right station. Now take hold of hands, all of you, and Bettie, you hold on to my coat like grim death. We must buy our tickets, re-check our baggage and get aboard our train.”

CHAPTER IV—FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Even a very unobserving person would have been able to see at a glance that Highland Hall had begun life as a private residence. Originally a big square house built of cream colored brick and generously supplied with large windows and many balconies, it was perched in solitary grandeur at the top of a broad, grassy knoll; but when it became a school red brick additions, four stories high, extended toward the north and west. An enormous and very ugly veranda stretched along the entire length of one of these additions. From it a broad flight of twelve wide steps led to the ground.

Doctor Rhodes and his family lived in part of the old mansion. His office was there on the ground floor in a room that had once been the dining room. The original parlor, a huge oblong room with a very high ceiling, and the dark and rather dingy library back of it were still unchanged.

Most of the second, third and fourth floors of the large modern wings contained bedrooms. The school rooms, music rooms and studio occupied the ground floor. New pupils always complained that there were miles and miles of dark hallways and corridors in which to get lost.

The kitchen, dining hall and laundry were in the basement.

There were no houses visible from three sides of the school building. From the fourth side, however, one could see the dark roofs of other ancient houses falling into decay, each with its huge yard, its overgrown hedge, its unkempt shrubbery. Beyond that, nearly a mile distant, the red town of Hiltonburg glistened in the sunshine.

Somewhere between five and six o’clock that September afternoon, the station hack stopped on the curved driveway in front of Highland Hall. Mr. Black and his five charges alighted. This spectacle afforded much interest to some three dozen maidens clustered in pairs and groups on the front steps and on the wide veranda. To the embarrassed newcomers these girls seemed to be all eyes. Never had the children from Lakeville encountered so many curious eyes. There couldn’t have been more than seventy-two but it seemed more like seventy-two thousand, Bettie said afterwards.

Mr. Black addressed one of the nearest groups. “Can you direct me,” he asked, “to Doctor Rhodes?”

“Yes, Sir,” said a little girl with smooth, brown hair, rising promptly and leading the way inside. “He’s probably in the office, but if he isn’t I’ll find him for you.”

“Ah,” said Doctor Rhodes, who was in his office, rising from his chair, “the five young ladies from Lakeville, I take it?”

“Yes,” returned Mr. Black.

“Most of our flock arrived day before yesterday,” said Doctor Rhodes, shaking hands all around, “but you are still in very good season. And what is better, you are just in time for dinner. If Miss—Ah, I don’t remember your name—”

“Jane,” supplied the little girl.

“Ah, yes, Miss Jane. If you will inform Mrs. Rhodes she will show the young ladies their rooms so they can—er—wash up a little if necessary. You, Mr. Black, may come with me.”

Mrs. Rhodes appeared presently and the girls were introduced. They didn’t like Mrs. Rhodes. She was a tall, very slender, very upright old woman in an unnatural state of tidiness, with evenly-waved white hair parted exactly in the middle, a wrinkled white skin and glittering black eyes set in narrow slits. Her unsmiling mouth, too, was a narrow slit. Her expression was severe. She was really rather a frosty and blood-curdling old lady to look at but on this occasion she proved a good guide, surprisingly nimble for her years. She led them to the second floor, through a wide arch that led to a long corridor. There were doors down each side of this and a window at the end. Here she paused to consult a note book that she had taken from her pocket.

“Number twenty. Miss Vale, Miss Bedford in here. Miss Tucker, Miss Mapes in twenty-two. Miss Bennett in twenty-four with Miss Isabelle Carew.”

“Oh!” gasped Mabel, “couldn’t I stay with the others?”

“No,” returned Mrs. Rhodes. “I have arranged for you to room with Miss Carew of Kentucky. I’m quite sure you will like her.”

Half an hour later, the five girls were led to the dining room and seated at one of several long tables. Mr. Black they perceived at a distance—a tremendous distance it seemed—at Doctor Rhodes’s own table.

“There’s custard pie, tonight,” whispered the girl next to Henrietta. Not a pretty girl, but her face was alive with mischief and Henrietta liked her at once. “I saw pies and pies cooling in the basement window when I crawled under the veranda to see what they kept in there. Grand place to hide. What’s your name? Mine’s Maude Wilder and I live in Chicago. My room’s in the West Dormitory too, so you’ll see a lot of me.”

“I’m glad of that,” said Henrietta.

“The three girls over there with the fancy hair are Seniors. The other big girls at that table are Juniors. They don’t mix very much with the rest of us.”

“Won’t you have a biscuit?” asked a gentle voice at Bettie’s right. “I’m Sarah Dickinson—Sallie for short.”

Bettie looked at Sallie. She saw a slender girl of about fifteen, with dark blue, rather sad eyes, light brown hair and a pale skin. Her shoulders drooped a little and there was something rather pathetic about her smile. The blue collar of her middy blouse was very much faded. This was very noticeable because, just at the beginning of the term as it was, nearly all the garments in sight were brand new.

“Are you a new girl?” asked Bettie.

“I’m the oldest girl,” returned Sallie. “I’ve been here, vacations and all, for five years. I haven’t any home of my own.”

Later, Bettie learned more about Sallie. Her mother had died when Sallie was about nine years old. For a time she had lived alone with her father but he had decided that she would be better off in a girls’ school. An old man, her grandfather, perhaps, had brought her to Highland Hall, paying her tuition for one year in advance. Something had happened to her father. When the school year was finished it was discovered that Sallie had no home to go to, her relatives having somehow disappeared. Anne Blodgett, a last year’s girl who told Bettie about it, was not very sure of her facts. Anyway, the housekeeper had allowed her to stay because the little girl seemed likely to prove useful—there were many errands to do in a house like that.

She was still staying and still proving useful; but the kindly housekeeper had departed and stern Mrs. Rhodes had apparently taken the housekeeper’s place. Sallie was kept busier than ever. She sometimes seemed a bit dazed and bewildered and just a little bit down-hearted; but at first she had very little to say about herself.

Mr. Black departed very soon after dinner. The girls were permitted to walk to the last corner of the school premises with him. There they clung to him tearfully and begged him to make a great many business trips to Chicago in order to visit them at Highland Hall.

“I know,” sobbed Bettie, “that we’re going to be homesick. I’m homesick now. It’s so different. All those strange girls and that awful Mrs. Rhodes.”

“And me with a strange roommate,” wailed Mabel, also in tears. “And I