Boarding school students -- Juvenile fiction; Boarding schools -- Juvenile fiction; Teenage girls -- Fiction
Meanwhile, the two girls, in their neat school dresses, made ready for
their first class. Hilary, capable and serious, took notebook and
pencil. Cathalina, who hardly knew how to prepare, followed her example.
“I’m a great hand,” said Hilary, “to jot everything down and then I know
just what to do.” They had consulted the schedule of hours and rooms the
night before and had made out their lists with the name of each teacher.
“Number seventeen, Randolph,” mused Cathalina, “for Latin, and number
fifteen for algebra. How shall I ever find out about everything. I envy
the old girls. They needn’t waste so much time asking questions and
wandering around.”
“O, we’ll be old girls next year,” said Hilary. “Let’s take the elevator
down. It’s on the side next Randolph and near the covered way.”
Cathalina soon found herself, with about twenty other girls, entering a
pleasant recitation room, at whose desk sat an intellectual looking
woman of early middle age.
“My, she looks awful,” thought Cathalina, and glanced at her schedule
again. “Prof. Emmeline Carver, M.A., Ph.D!”
In hushed silence the class sat waiting, most of them new, first year
girls, scared and awed. To everybody’s relief, Dr. Carver spoke
pleasantly, if a bit stiffly, gave the name of the text book and
directed the class to the front hall where a supply of the books was on
sale. With the assignment of a lesson and a few general remarks on the
importance of their Latin course, she then dismissed them.
As the girls escaped, for that seemed to be the general feeling, one of
them near Cathalina drew a long breath and said, “_Doctor_ Carver. I
don’t like her looks. I bet she carves _us_ up, all rightee. They say
what she doesn’t know about Latin and Greek and German isn’t worth
knowing, but O my! Let me get my book and get to work!”
“Nonsense!” thought Cathalina. “I don’t believe she is so bad. She looks
intelligent and interesting, as Mother would say. If she is too awful
I’ll talk it over with Miss Randolph. She wont let me be actually
slaughtered!” Cathalina almost giggled aloud at the application of Dr.
Carver’s name. “‘Old Carver,’ Diane called her this morning, and I
thought her so disrespectful and not at all refined. I wonder what
Hilary will think of her in Cicero.”
At the algebra class Cathalina met Professor Goodman and liked him at
once. He was a scholarly, kind-looking man, with a keen eye and a brisk
manner. With his family he lived at Greycliff Heights.
“No real recitations today,” reported Cathalina to Hilary.
“Same here. Pretty nice place so far, isn’t it?”
Cathalina laughed. “Yes, but I feel the sword hanging over me.”
“Nonsense! Honestly you won’t mind it.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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