Katherines Sheaves | Page 2

the expressive face. "I am Miss Reynolds, the teacher of mathematics, and I have been commissioned by Prof. Seabrook to find and show you to his study. But first, let me present you to these chatterers."
She dropped the hand that was trembling in her clasp, and, slipping a reassuring arm about the girl's waist, continued:
"Young ladies, this is Miss Minturn, a new junior. I can't present each of you formally, for she is wanted immediately elsewhere; but I will see that she finds you all out later."
Katherine nodded a smiling acknowledgment to the vigorous clapping of hands and the hearty "Welcome, Miss Minturn, to Hilton." Then Miss Reynolds led her away, and the interrupted chatter of the magpies was resumed with redoubled animation, but now the new junior absorbed the attention of everyone.
"Say, girls, isn't she a dear?" "Came this morning, did she? where from, I wonder?" "My! but wasn't that a nobby traveling suit, and such a fit!" "Katherine Minturn--pretty name, isn't it?" "Does anybody know anything more about her?" were some of the comments and queries that slipped from those supple instruments with a tendency towards perpetual motion, which, sometimes, are described as organs that are hung in the middle and wag at both ends-- school-girls' tongues.
"Hush!--sh!--sh! Oh, girls, do ring off, and perhaps I can give you a point or two," cried a high-pitched voice with an unmistakable Southern drawl, as a somewhat overdressed girl of nineteen or twenty years re-enforced her appeal by vigorous gestures to attract attention, whereupon the ever alert spirit of Curiosity silenced every loquacious chatterer, except one who solemnly announced, "Ladies, Miss Minot has the floor!"
"Yes," the speaker observed, "the new junior does strike one as being downright stunning. She came from New York City, and"--with a lugubrious sigh--"though I've never set eyes on her before, I was informed this morning that she is to be my roommate for the remainder of the year."
A burst of mirthful laughter rippled over a dozen pairs of rosy lips at this last mournfully conveyed information.
"Aha! at last Miss Sadie Minot has got to come down to the lot of common mortals and take in a chum!" cried a merry sprite, with a saucy chuckle. "Oh, how you have spread yourself and luxuriated in your solitary magnificence, and how every mother's daughter of us has envied you your spacious quarters! Well, you know what old Sol. said about 'pride' and a 'haughty spirit,' and the 'fall' always comes, first or last. But, Sadie, my love, be comforted," she continued, with mock sympathy, "and just try to realize what splendid discipline it will be for you; one cannot have everything one wants, you know, even if one is an heiress in one's own right- -eh, dearie?"
"But there's only one closet, and it is so full now," sighed Miss Minot, ruefully.
"Hear! hear!" retorted the same mischievous maiden, whose name was Clara Follet. "After having had undisturbed possession of a whole room and closet for six long months she ungratefully bemoans----"
"And only one chest of drawers," pursued Sadie, in the same strain, but with a comical quirk of an eye.
A chorus of mocking groans and derisive laughter greeted this wail.
"And all four crammed full with her superfluous finery," cried another of the merry group. "Whatever will you do with it now, Sadie?"
"I'm sure I don't know, Ollie," retorted the pretty "heiress," with a quizzical uplifting of her brows, "unless you take half of it off my hands altogether, instead of coming to borrow so often."
Shrieks of appreciative mirth followed this deftly shot arrow, for it was a well-known fact that Ollie Grant, the pet of the school, was an easy-going little body, very prone to allow her wardrobe to get in a sad plight and then throw herself upon the mercy of others, to patch her up, in the event of an emergency.
But Miss Ollie was equal to the occasion.
"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