Betty Wales Senior | Page 2

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 shirt 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 shirt 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 sophomore."
"How about the shirt 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?"
"Yes," agreed Betty, "when nobody got off but freshmen frightened to
pieces about their exams. And that was only two days ago! It seems
two weeks. I've always rather envied the Students' Aid Society seniors,
because they have such a good chance to pick out the interesting
freshmen, but I shan't any more."
"Not even after to-day?"
Betty frowned reflectively. "Well, of course to-day has been pretty
grand--with all those ices, and Christy, and the freshmen all so cheerful
and amusing. And then there's the eight-fifteen. Won't it be fun--to see
the Clan get off that? Yes, I think I do envy myself. Can a person envy
herself, Rachel?" She gave Rachel's arm a sudden squeeze. "Rachel,"
she went on very solemnly, "do you realize that we can't ever again in
all our lives be Students' Aid Seniors, meeting poor little Harding

freshmen?"
Rachel hugged Betty sympathetically. "Yes, I do," she said. "Why at
this time next year I shall be earning my own living 'out in the wide,
wide world,' as the song says, miles from any of the Clan."
Betty looked across the net-work of tracks, to the hills that make a
circle about Harding. "And miles from this dear old town," she added.
"But we can write to each other, and make visits, and we can come
back to class reunions. But that won't be the same."
Rachel looked at the pretty, yellow-haired child, and wondered if she
realized how different her "wide, wide world" was likely to be from
Katherine's or Helen Chase Adams's--or Rachel Morrison's. To some of
the Clan Harding meant everything they had ever known in the way of
culture and scholarly refinement, of happy leisure and congenial
friendship. It was comforting somehow to find that girls like Betty and
the B's, who had everything else, were just as fond of Harding and were
going to be just as sorry to leave it. Rachel never envied anybody, but
she liked to think that this life that was so precious to her meant much
to all her friends. It made one feel surer that pretty clothes and plenty of
spending-money and delightful summers at the seashore or in the
mountains did not matter much, so long as the one big, beautiful fact of
being a Harding