Betty Wales, Sophomore: A Story for Girls

Betty Wales sat down on the one small bare spot on the floor of her new room at the Belden House, and looked about her with a sigh of mingled relief and weariness.

"Well," she remarked to the little green lizard, who was perched jauntily on a pile of pillows, "anyhow the things are all out of the trunks and boxes, and I suppose after a while they'll get into their right places."

She looked at her watch. Quarter to eight,--that left just about two hours before ten o'clock. Somebody rapped on the door.

"Come in," sang Betty.

It was Eleanor Watson. Betty leaped over a motley collection of cups and saucers, knocked down a Japanese screen--which fortunately landed against a bed, instead of on the cups and saucers--and caught Eleanor in her arms.

"Isn't it great to be back?" she said when she could speak, meanwhile setting up the screen again, and moving trunk-trays so they might sit down on the bed. "Are you settled, Eleanor?"

"A little," said Eleanor, surveying Betty's quarters with amusement. "Quite settled compared to this, I should say. Why do you take everything out at once, Betty?"

"Oh, then they're all right where I can get at them," returned Betty easily. "I hate to keep stopping to fish something out of the bottom of a box that I haven't unpacked."

"I see," laughed Eleanor. "Did you have a lovely summer?"

"Perfectly lovely. I can swim like a fish, Eleanor, and so can Emily Davis. You don't know her much, do you? But you must. She's lots of fun. Did you have a good time too?"

"Beautiful," said Eleanor, eagerly. "Father is coming east before long to see Jim and me, and he and Jim are coming on together from Cornell. You'll help me entertain them, won't you, Betty?"

"I should think I would," Betty was saying heartily, when there was another bang on the door and Rachel and Katherine appeared. Then there was more leaping over teacups, more ecstatic greetings, and more readjustment of Betty's belongings to make room for the newcomers.

"Where's Helen?" demanded Rachel, when everybody was seated.

"Coming the first thing to-morrow morning," explained Betty. "You see she lives so near that she can come down at the last minute."

"It's lucky she's not here now," laughed Katherine. "There's no room for her, to say nothing of her things."

"I should think not," agreed Betty, tragically. "Girls, these campus rooms are certainly the smallest places! This isn't half as big as ours at Mrs. Chapin's. And see the closet!" She picked her way across the room, and threw open a door, disclosing a five-by-three cupboard. "I ask you how we're going to get all our clothes into that."

"Helen hasn't many clothes," suggested Katherine, cheerfully.

"She has plenty to put on half those hooks," answered Betty, with finality, closing the door on the subject, and coming back to sit between Eleanor and Rachel.

"Isn't the Chapin house crowd scattered this year?" said Katherine. "Let me see. You and Helen and Mary Brooks are here. Has Mary come yet?"

Betty shook her head. "Her steamer isn't due till to-morrow morning. Didn't you know she'd been in Ireland all summer?"

"Won't it be fun to hear her tell about it?" put in Rachel.

"You three here," went on Katherine, intent on her census, "and you're at the Hilton, aren't you, Eleanor?"

"Yes," answered Eleanor with a grimace. "I wanted to be here, of course, but Miss Stuart wouldn't manage it. Which house are you in, Rachel?"

"I'm off the campus," answered Rachel, quietly, "at the little white house just outside the gate. It's a dear, quaint place, and delightfully quiet. Of course, I'd rather have been on the campus, but father couldn't afford it this year."

"Make way, make way for us!" sang a noisy chorus out in the hall. There were shouts and shrieks and bangs and more shrieks, and then the din died away suddenly into an ominous stillness that evidently heralded the approach of some dreaded power.

"It's lucky one of us lives in a quiet place, where the rest of us can take refuge occasionally," said Eleanor.

"Isn't it?" chimed in Katherine. "I'm at the Westcott myself, and I never heard anything like the racket there was, when the girls began to come in from the eight o'clock train."

"Our crowd seems to have been on hand early," said Rachel.

"You know Betty's father doesn't like her to travel alone," jeered Katherine, "especially after dark. Did he telegraph the registrar again this year, Betty?"

"Please don't," begged Betty, blushing prettily. "Weren't we green little freshmen though, at this time last fall?"

"And isn't it fun to be coming back as sophomores?" asked Rachel.

"We haven't quite finished with the residences of the Chapin house girls," said Eleanor. "How about Roberta?"

"She's going to stay on at Mrs. Chapin's, I think," answered Katherine. "She couldn't get in here at the Belden, and she and Mary want to be together."

"And the Riches aren't coming back, I believe," added Rachel. "And now I, for one, must go back and finish unpacking."

Katherine and Eleanor rose too, astonished to find how fast the evening had slipped away, and how little time there was left in which to get ready for the busy "first day" ahead of them. When they had all three gone, Betty lay back on the bed, her head pillowed on her arms, to rest for a moment longer. She was tired. The journey from Rockport had been hot and disagreeable, and some of her box covers had been nailed on with disheartening thoroughness. But besides being tired, she was also very happy--too happy to turn her attention again at once to the trying business of getting settled. In spite of the "perfectly lovely" summer at the seashore, she was glad to be back at Harding. She was passionately fond of the life there. There had been only one little blot to mar her perfect enjoyment of freshman year, and that was Eleanor's unexplainable defection. And now Eleanor had come back, fascinating as ever, but wonderfully softened and sweetened. The old hauteur had not left her face, but it was in the background, veiled, as it were, by a determination to be different,--to meet life in a more friendly spirit, and to make the most of it and of herself. Betty could have hugged her for her cordial greetings to Katherine and Rachel, and for the kindly little speech about Rachel's boarding-place. The other girls had been tactful too, ready to meet Eleanor half-way and to let bygones be bygones. It was all "just lovely."

Betty was picking herself up, intent upon clearing Helen's half of the room at least, before she went to bed, when another tap sounded on the door. "Come in," she called eagerly, expecting to see Roberta, or perhaps Alice Waite, or even Dorothy King. Instead, a tall, stately stranger opened the door, and entering, closed it again after her.

"May I come in and talk to you?" she asked. "I live next door--that is, my trunks aren't here, so I haven't begun living there to any great extent as yet. Don't stop working. I'll sit and watch; or I'll help, if I can. There seems to be plenty doing."

And she sat down calmly in the place that Betty had just vacated.

Betty was not easily embarrassed, but the strange girl's perfect composure and ease of manner disconcerted her. She did not know many upper classmen in the Belden House, and she could not remember ever having seen this one before. And yet she surely was not a freshman.

"Yes, I--I am busy," she stammered. "I mean, I ought to be. But I've had callers all the evening long. Oh, dear! I didn't mean that. I'm truly glad to have you come, and I will keep on working, if you don't mind."