Part 1 (1/2)
Betty Wales Senior.
by Margaret Warde.
INTRODUCTION
For the information of those readers who have not followed Betty Wales through the first three years of her college career, as described in ”Betty Wales, Freshman,” ”Betty Wales, Soph.o.m.ore,” and ”Betty Wales, Junior,” it should be explained that most of Betty's little circle began to be friends in their freshman year, when they lived off the campus at Mrs. Chapin's, and Mary Brooks, the only soph.o.m.ore in the house, ruled them with an autocratic hand. Betty found Helen Adams a comical and sometimes a trying roommate. Rachel Morrison and Katherine Kittredge were also at Mrs. Chapin's, and Roberta Lewis, who adored Mary Brooks and was desperately afraid of every one else in the house, though Betty Wales guessed that shyness was at the bottom of Roberta's haughty manner. Eleanor Watson was the most prominent member of the group that year and part of the next. Betty admired her greatly but found her a very difficult person to win as a friend, though in the end she proved worthy of all the trouble she had cost.
At the beginning of soph.o.m.ore year the Chapin House girls moved to the campus, and ”the B's” and Madeline Ayres, who explained that she lived in ”Bohemia, New York,” joined the circle. In their junior year Betty and her friends organized the ”Merry Hearts” society, and Georgia Ames, a freshman friend of Madeline's, amused and mystified the whole college until she was finally discovered to be merely one of Madeline's many delightful inventions. But the joke was on the ”Merry Hearts” when a real Georgia Ames entered college. It was when they were juniors, too, that the ”Merry Hearts” took a vacation trip to the Bahamas and incidentally manoeuvred a romance for two of their faculty friends--which caused Mary Brooks to rename their society the Merry Match-makers.
And now if any one wishes to know what Betty Wales and her friends did after they left college, well--there's something about it in ”Betty Wales, B.A.,” ”Betty Wales & Co.,” ”Betty Wales on the Campus,” and ”Betty Wales Decides.”
BETTY WALES, SENIOR
CHAPTER I
”BACK TO THE COLLEGE AGAIN”
”Oh, Rachel Morrison, am I too late for the four-ten train?”
Betty Wales, pink-cheeked and breathless, her yellow curls flying under her dainty lingerie hat, and her crisp white skirts held high to escape the dust of the station platform, sank down beside Rachel on a steamer trunk that the Harding baggage-men had been too busy or too accommodating to move away, and began to fan herself vigorously with a very small and filmy handkerchief.
”No, you're not late, dearie,” laughed Rachel, pulling Betty's hat straight, ”or rather the train is late, too. Where have you been?”
Betty smiled reminiscently. ”Everywhere, pretty nearly. You know that cunning little freshman that had lost her trunks----”
”All those that I've interviewed have lost their trunks,” interpolated Rachel.
Betty waved a deprecating hand toward the mountain of baggage that was piled up further down the platform.
”Oh, of course, in that lovely mess. Who wouldn't? But this girl lost hers before she got here--in Chicago or Albany, or maybe it was Omaha.
She lives in Los Angeles, so she might have lost them almost anywhere, you see.”
”And of course she expected Prexy or the registrar to go back and look for them,” added Rachel.
Betty laughed. ”Not she. Besides she doesn't seem to care a bit. She seems to think it's a splendid chance to go to New York next week and buy new clothes. But what she wanted of me was to tell her where she could get some s.h.i.+rt waists--just enough to last until she's perfectly sure that the trunks are gone for good. I didn't want to stick around here from three to four, so I said I'd go and show her Evans's and that little new s.h.i.+rt waist place. Of course I pointed out all the objects of interest along the way, and when I mentioned Cuyler's, she insisted upon going in to have ices.”
”And how many does that make for you to-day?” demanded Rachel severely.
”Well,” Betty defended herself, ”I treated you once, and you treated me once, and then we met Christy Mason, and as you couldn't go back with her I had to. But I only had lemonade that time. And this child was so comical, and it was such a good idea.”
”What was such a good idea?” inquired Rachel.
”Oh, didn't I tell you? Why, after we'd finished at Cuyler's, she asked me if there weren't any other places something like it, and she said she thought if we tried them all in a row we could tell which was best. But we couldn't,” sighed Betty regretfully, ”because of course things taste better when you're hungriest. But anyhow she wanted to keep on, because now she can give pointers to other freshmen, and make them think she is a soph.o.m.ore.”
”How about the s.h.i.+rt waists?”
”Oh, she had just got to that when I had to leave her.” Betty rose, sighing, as a train whistled somewhere down the track. ”Do you suppose Georgia Ames will be on this one?”
”Who can tell?” said Rachel. ”There'll be somebody that we know anyway.
Wasn't that first day queer and creepy?”