She began to rummage through her trunk. Betty sat looking at the
ceiling, trying to decide the momentous question of dress for herself.
Finally she announced: "I'll just wear white, then I'll harmonize with
everybody, and can run up to the first one of you I happen to see when I
need a spark of courage. I know I'll be terribly embarrassed. It makes
me cold right now to think of meeting so many strangers."
But Betty's courage needed no reinforcing next evening, when Maria
Overlin, one of the seniors, took her in charge. The reception took
place in what had been the ballroom, in the days when Warwick Hall was
noted for its brilliant entertainments. Even its first hostess could not
have received her distinguished guests with courtlier grace than Madam
Chartley received her pupils, when, to the music of a stately minuet,
they filed past her down the long line of teachers.
For once, each of the new girls, no matter how timid or inexperienced in
social ways, tasted the sweets of popularity, and the four whom Juliet
Lynn had dubbed the Kentucky quartette were overwhelmed with attentions.
Juliet, who had hoped to escort Betty, was glad that Lloyd had fallen to
her lot when she saw what an admiring little court flocked around her
wherever she turned. In the pale green dress, with its clasps of pink
coral carved in the shape of tiny butterflies, she looked more
princess-like than ever. She wore a bracelet of the coral butterflies
also, and a slender circlet of them about her throat. They gave a soft
pink flush to her cheeks.
No sooner had she passed the receiving line than she was surrounded by a
group of white-gowned girls clamouring for an introduction and a place
on her programme.
"Whose initials are these?" she whispered to Juliet presently when the
card was all filled and there were still several girls asking to be
allowed to write their names on it.
"Couldn't I give Miss Bartlett this line where there's nothing but G. M.
scrawled on it?"
"Mercy, no!" exclaimed Juliet. "That's for Gabrielle Melville. It would
never do for you two to miss each other to-night. I put them down for
her, as she's to play later in the evening on the violin, you know, and
I knew she'd never get here in time to do it herself. She always has
such frantic times dressing. Just struggles into her things, never can
find half her clothes, and what she does manage to fall into catches and
rips in the struggle. Her hat is always over one ear, and her belts
never make connection in the back, but she's so adorable that nobody
minds her wild toilets. They laugh and say, 'Oh, it's just Gay.' That's
her nickname, you know. Here's Emily Chapman coming to claim you. Emily,
you can tell Lloyd some things about Gay, can't you?"
"I rather think so," laughed Emily. "We roomed together last year, and I
got her again this term. It took a fight, though, for she's the most
popular girl in school."
"Is she pretty?" asked Lloyd.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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