k and mother taught school and
met dad, who was a medical student. And they were married when he
graduated, and grandma came to live with 'em."
Betty crept away to her own bed when the story was finished. Bobby was
asleep, for which her chum was thankful. Betty wanted to think. Surely
there must be a way to recover the Macklin fortune, if it was still down
in the big chasm.
"I'll tell Bob and we'll go and find that place. Perhaps he can think of
a plan," was Betty's last thought before she went to sleep.
The next few days were very busy ones for every pupil. Ada and Ruth, in
tears, submitted to having their wardrobes censored, and thereafter
appeared in clothes that were not too striking.
The appointments with Mrs. Eustice materialized, and Betty, after her
interview, was conscious of a sincere affection for the woman who seemed
to understand girls so thoroughly.
Bobby was "crazy," to quote her own expression, about the gymnasium
classes, and Miss Anderson beamed approvingly upon her. Betty, too, was
often to be found in the gymnasium after school hours, but Libbie had to
be driven to regular exercise. She liked to dance, but unless some one
was made responsible for her, she was prone to cut her regular gymnasium
period and devote the time to some thrilling novel. When the other girls
discovered this they good-naturedly made up a schedule for the week,
assigning a different day to every girl whose duty it should be to "seal,
sign and deliver" the reluctant Libbie at the gymnasium door at the
appointed time.
Mrs. Eustice, rather peculiarly some people thought--Ada Nansen's mother
among them--held the theory that school girls should spend a fair
proportion of their time in study. She had small patience with the
faddist type of school that abhorred "night work" and whose students
specialized on "manners" to the neglect of spelling.
"I dislike the term 'finishing school,'" she had once said. "I try
to teach my girls that what they learn in school fits them for
beginning life."
So from seven to half-past eight every night, except Friday, the pupils
at Shadyside were busy with their books. They might study in their rooms,
provided their marks for the preceding week were satisfactory, but those
who fell below a certain percentage were sentenced to prepare their
lessons in the study hall under the eye of a teacher.
The second Friday night of the term the new students were warned by
little pink cocked notes t
|