don’t want to go all the way back to town now.”
CHAPTER III
“HILL TOP”
“I guess perhaps I can manage it, Miss Ford; since it’s you who asks it,” replied the man, smiling admiringly down at the pretty face upturned to his.
“Thanks, a heap! We’ll be waiting right here for it. Now,” turning to Patricia and leading her over to the three girls she had just left, “I want you to meet some of my friends. They’re all Arnold Hall girls. This is Lucile Evans,” stopping in front of a slight, pale-faced girl whose red lips protruded in a pout, which, Patricia later learned, was perpetual. Without a change of expression, she bowed rather indifferently at Patricia.
“I’m Jane Temple,” announced the second girl, advancing cordially as if to make up for Lucile’s rudeness.
As Patricia took Jane’s hand and looked into a pair of honest grey eyes, and at the good-humored smiling lips, she felt that here was a girl to whom one could always tie in any emergency.
“The last of this trio is Hazel Leland,” continued Anne; “our beauty.”
“Now, Anne, don’t embarrass me,” protested the girl, smiling gayly at Patricia.
She was a beauty; big, starry grey eyes; lovely, light brown hair which curled all over her head in little rings, like a baby’s; and a figure as slight and lithe as a boy’s.
“The newcomer in our midst,” concluded Anne, putting her arm around Patricia, “is Patricia Randall, formerly of Brentwood, now a member of the illustrious Sophomore class of Granard; and, what’s more, an inmate of Arnold Hall.”
“Good for you!” ejaculated Hazel, patting Patricia on the back, while the other two girls shot surprised, inquiring glances at Anne, who pretended not to see them.
“Why don’t we go on up?” drawled Lucile, opening her mouth for the first time.
“Going to wait for Patricia’s bag,” replied Anne quickly.
“Oh,” was Lucile’s brief response; but some way there was an unpleasant note in it, which made Patricia flush uncomfortably.
“There’s no need of my detaining you all,” she said. “I can wait by myself.”
“Now, darling,” protested Anne, “we’d never be so unhospitable to a new member of our household as that. You needn’t wait if you prefer not to, Lu.”
Without another word, Lucile picked up her bag and started haughtily up the steep hill.
“What’s the matter with her?” asked Anne, watching the blue-coated figure ascending the slope as rapidly as possible.
“Don’t know,” replied Jane. “She’s been out of sorts all day.”
“Oh, she met some youth last night who was coming down here on the two o’clock bus today,” said Hazel quickly; “and when he didn’t, show up, Lu got peeved.”
“She usually isn’t sufficiently interested in men to care whether or not one breaks a date,” said Jane.
“My dear,” replied Hazel, “she probably wants something of him. Lu’s the limit,” she continued, turning to Patricia, “for getting just what she wants without lifting a finger. Everybody waits on her, and she sits back and accepts service like a queen.”
“You mustn’t give Lu a bad reputation,” said Jane reprovingly. “She’s not a bad kid when you get to know her.”
“No, not bad,” agreed Hazel, “but—as selfish as they’re made.”
“Look!” cried Anne, pointing excitedly to the top of the hill.
There against the green background stood the blue-coated object of their discussion, and a grey-clad masculine figure with yellow hair.
“The boy friend at last!” exclaimed Hazel. “He must have been waiting for her at ‘Hill Top.’”
“Well, I only hope that he treats her to something real sweet,” laughed Jane. “‘Hill Top,’” she added, addressing herself to Patricia who was gazing apprehensively at the couple, “is a little tea room up there.”
The youth was the young man who was the object of her caresses on the train, and Patricia flushed hotly to think what a story he’d have to tell Lucile if he chose, and what fun they’d all make of her. She glanced at Anne, but that young lady displayed no signs of ever having seen the man before.
“Let’s go up and have a soda, or something,” proposed Hazel, looking at her watch. “Plenty of time before Mike gets back. Our stuff will be all right in the corner over there.”
Patricia opened her mouth to refuse, although she was hungry; but when the other girls hailed the suggestion with glee, she closed it again without voicing her objections, and followed them silently up the hill. Almost on the edge perched a small grey house with lavender shutters, and on its long, screened porch stood a grey, weather-beaten spinning wheel and a lavender table.
“Let’s eat out here,” proposed Anne, leading the way to the end of the porch.
Patricia could have hugged her; for she didn’t want to go in and meet her fellow traveler. He might even think she was following him up.
“O. K.,” agreed Hazel, slipping into a chair. “You go in and get a waitress, Nanny. I’m starved.”
“So am I,” replied Anne. “There was no diner on the train, and all Patricia and I had was some sweet chocolate.”
“I’m not so hungry—” began Jane.
“You are not hungry! Did I hear aright?” asked Hazel. “That girl can always eat,” she added, to Patricia.
“Well, you see I got pretty well fed up at home during the summer, but just wait until I’ve been here a couple of weeks, and I’ll get back to my old habits.”
“The meals at Horton Hall are the limit,” said Hazel, “as you’ll find to your sorrow, Patricia. We spend all our spare change, and some we can’t well spare, at the various tea rooms around College Hill.”
“What shall we have?” asked Anne, returning at that moment, followed by a waitress, and sitting down opposite Hazel. “This is on me, to celebrate Patricia’s coming.”
“Chicken patty, French pastry, and iced tea,” replied Hazel promptly.
“Waffles, maple syrup, and ice cream,” said Jane.
“How terrible! Think of your ‘figger,’ darling. You’ve put on about ten pounds this summer,” teased Hazel.
“I’ll take shrimp salad, Danish pastry, and pineapple sherbet,” said Patricia, when Anne looked at her.
“Chicken sandwiches, brownies, and ginger ale for me,” said Anne, completing the order. As the waitress disappeared, she leaned both elbows on the table and announced in low tones, “They’re not in the dining room, but Lu’s bag
