"Really, Sadie, that would help you out, wouldn't it? and save me
a lot of trotting back and forth," she demurely responded, though
the dimples played a lively game of hide-and-seek in her plump
cheeks. "There's such a love of a lace jacket in her second
drawer, girls; my eyes water with envy every time I get a glimpse
of it; and a few of those ravishing stocks that you've been laying
in of late wouldn't come amiss. There's that lavender satin waist,
too, you bought at Jerome's the other day. I know I should look
perfectly killing in it; and--oh! ye Hiltonites!--she has just
bought six of the sweetest corset covers you ever laid eyes on;
think of it!--six! She could spare three just as well as not, and
I'm sure she has at least a dozen pairs of silk stockings, while"-
-with a doleful sigh--"I don't own a blessed one. Then there are
ribbons and laces, fans and handkerchiefs galore. Don't you think
it would be an act of mercy if I would agree to take some of these
superfluities off her hands, rather than have them ruthlessly
crushed into half their allotted space? And--"
"Ollie! Ollie!--what an incorrigible little tease you are!"
laughingly interposed Miss Minot, as she playfully tweaked the
girl's ear. "I wonder how long the things would last you if you
had them all!"
"Oh, probably two or three times wearing around, providing they
didn't come to mending before that," mused the "Pet," with a
speculative look in her blue eyes, but with a quiver of the
dimples that evoked another paroxysm of laughter from her
audience. "But I say, Sadie," she went on with the next breath,
"Miss Minturn is a downright sweet-looking girl, and I'll wager a-
-a darning needle against a pair of those silk stockings you'll
find her O. K. Maybe she'll let you have an extra drawer and a
hook or two in the closet."
"I don't feel very hopeful, so I won't take you up," sighed Sadie;
"for when I came in from my walk I saw a big trunk, with 'K. M.'
on it, in the hall, and it looks to me as if I--I'm destined to go
through a different kind of 'cramming' process this year, in
addition to the usual one."
This self-inflicted shot now turned the laugh again upon the
speaker, for it was an open secret that the Southern heiress
dearly loved her ease and took it, up to the last moment, then had
to "cram for all she was worth" to get ready for "exams."
While this chatter and fun were going on in the recreation room,
Katherine Minturn had been conducted to the study of Prof.
Seabrook, by whom she was received with his customary courtesy.
The principal of Hilton Seminary was a distinguished-appearing
gentleman of fifty years, possessing a strong, intellectual, yet
refined face, whose chief charm was a pair of large, expressive
blue-gray eyes that could be most winningly kind, or most coldly
and blightingly stern, as the case might be.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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