She hadn’t felt shy with the older girls in the train, not after Sybil had smiled at her. She had imagined then that everything would be plain-sailing. When the train had slowed down, too, at Woodhurst Station, the two girls had helped Betty out with her luggage, and she--who had been Dad’s right-hand man during the journey to the sea with the twins and baby last summer--had wondered if they remembered that she had told them she was aged thirteen! But after that--well, Sybil with her companion had seemed to melt suddenly into space after telling the new girl kindly to “wait there for Miss Drury,” and Betty had unexpectedly found herself alone again, feeling rather less than thirteen in courage as she seemed suddenly to become encircled by a perfect whirlpool of white panama hats, long brown legs, and dark blue suits. They were Benedick girls, of course, for they all carried suit-cases with labels. They wore the Benedick hat-band, too, on their hats, and at first each one of them, to Betty’s uninitiated eye, looked identically the same as every other. She noticed presently, however, that although they all seemed garbed exactly alike, some of them wore pigtails and some of them had bobbed heads; that a few of them seemed to glance at her in a friendly fashion too, while others were too busy to notice her at all. And she was beginning, rather despairingly, to try to notice any other distinguishing features there might be, when suddenly, from among the chattering multitude, there emerged “one of the bobbed heads,” as Betty called the individual to herself, and came across. “How awfully clever of you,” said the newcomer, who seemed about Betty’s own age, with a smile that showed a dimple, “to stand here under the clock straight away. Miss Drury’s down the train looking for new girls. They never guess, of course, where to go. But perhaps you’ve had a sister, or an aunt, or a mother?” The whole sentence was rather of a mystifying order, but Betty didn’t care for that. She pinned all her hopes on the smile that showed the dimple, and smiled back. “I didn’t know I _was_ under the clock,” she said, glancing up at the station clock above her head. “But a girl--Sybil was her name--told me to stand here, and then she went. Is Miss Drury one of the teachers?” “A _mistress_. Yes, rather,” the friendly girl nodded. “If you know Sybil, of course you’re all right. I only thought you might be shy and that I’d speak to you before Miss Drury came. Here she is.” Betty’s new acquaintance turned. “I always walk up with Phyllis,” she remarked; “we’ve booked the walk every term from the station. But I’m sure to see you later. I’m Gerry. Hope you’re a Daisy!” she added, calling over her shoulder in a jolly voice as she was lost in the crowd.