"Why on earth didn"t you introduce them, then? I declare that was just like you, Lilly Page," put in Rose Red, indignantly. "They looked so lonesome that I wanted to pat and stroke both of "em. That little one has the sweetest eyes!"
Meantime Katy and Clover entered the hotel, very glad of the reprieve, and of one more quiet evening alone with papa. They needed to get their ideas straightened out and put to rights, after the confusions of the day and Lilly"s extraordinary talk. It was very evident that the Nunnery was to be quite different from their expectations; but another thing was equally evident,--it would not be dull! Rose Red by herself, and without any one to help her, would be enough to prevent that!
CHAPTER IV. THE NUNNERY.
The night seemed short; for the girls, tired by their journey, slept like dormice. About seven o"clock, Katy was roused by the click of a blind, and, opening her eyes, saw Clover standing in the window, and peeping out through the half-opened shutters. When she heard Katy move, she cried out,--
"Oh, do come! It"s so interesting! I can see the colleges and the church, and, I guess, the Nunnery; only I am not quite sure, because the houses are all so much alike."
Katy jumped up and hurried to the window. The hotel stood on one side of a green common, planted with trees. The common had a lead-colored fence, and gravel paths, which ran across it from corner to corner.
Opposite the hotel was a long row of red buildings, broken by one or two brown ones, with cupolas. These were evidently the colleges, and a large gray building with a spire was as evidently the church; but which one of the many white, green-blinded house which filled the other sides of the common, was the Nunnery, the girls could not tell.
Clover thought it was one with a garden at the side; but Katy thought not, because Lilly had said nothing of a garden. They discussed the point so long that the breakfast bell took them by surprise, and they were forced to rush through their dressing as fast as possible, so as not to keep papa waiting.
When breakfast was over, Dr. Carr told them to put on their hats, and get ready to walk with him to the school. Clover took one arm, and Katy the other, and the three pa.s.sed between some lead-colored posts, and took one of the diagonal paths which led across the common.
"That"s the house," said Dr. Carr, pointing.
"It isn"t the one you picked out, Clover," said Katy.
"No," replied Clover, a little disappointed. The house papa indicated was by no means so pleasant as the one she had chosen.
It was a tall, narrow building, with dormer windows in the roof, and a square porch supported by whitewashed pillars. A pile of trunks stood in the porch. From above came sounds of voices. Girls" heads were popped out of upper widows at the swinging of the gate, and, as the door opened, more heads appeared looking over the bal.u.s.ters from the hall above.
The parlor into which they were taken was full of heavy, old-fashioned furniture, stiffly arranged. The sofa and chairs were covered with black haircloth, and stood closely against the wall. Some books lay upon the table, arranged two by two; each upper book being exactly at a right angle with each lower book. A bunch of dried gra.s.ses stood in the fire-place. There were no pictures, except one portrait in oils, of a forbidding old gentleman in a wig and gla.s.ses, sitting with his finger majestically inserted in a half-open Bible. Altogether, it was not a cheerful room, nor one calculated to raise the spirits of new-comers; and Katy, whose long seclusion had made her sensitive on the subject of rooms, shrank instinctively nearer papa as they went in.
Two ladies rose to receive them. One, a tall dignified person, was Mrs. Florence. The other she introduced as "my a.s.sistant princ.i.p.al, Mrs. Nipson." Mrs. Nipson was not tall. She had a round face, pinched lips, and half-shut gray eyes.
"This lady is fully a.s.sociated with me in the management of the school,"
explained Mrs. Florence. "When I go, she will a.s.sume entire control."
"Is that likely to be soon?" inquired Dr. Carr, surprised, and not well pleased that the teacher of whom he had heard, and with whom he had proposed to leave his children, was planning to yield her place to a stranger.
"The time is not yet determined," replied Mrs. Florence. Then she changed the subject, gracefully, but so decidedly that Dr. Carr had no chance for further question. She spoke of cla.s.ses, and discussed what Katy and Clover were to study. Finally, she proposed to take them upstairs to see their room. Papa might come too, she said.
"I dare say that Lilly Page, who tells me that she is a cousin of yours, has described the arrangements of the house," she remarked to Katy. "The room I have a.s.signed to you is in the back building.
"Quaker Row," the girls call it." She smiled as she spoke; and Katy, meeting her eyes for the fist time, felt that there was something in what Lilly had said. Mrs. Florence _was_ a sort of queen.
They went upstairs. Some girls who were peeping over the bal.u.s.ter hurried away at their approach. Mrs. Florence shook her head at them.
"The first day is always one of license," she said, leading the way along an uncarpeted entry to a door at the end, from which, by a couple of steps, they went down into a square room; round three sides of which, ran a shelf, on which stood rows of wash-bowls and pitchers.
Above were hooks for towels. Katy perceived that this was the much- dreaded wash-room.
"Our lavatory," remarked Mrs. Florence blandly.
Opening from the wash-room was a very long hall, lighted at each end by a window. The doors on either side were numbered "one, two, three,"
and so on. Some of them were half open; as they went by, Katy and Clover caught glimpses of girls and trunks, and beds strewed with things. At No. 6 Mrs. Florence paused.
"Here is the room which I propose to give you," she said.
Katy and Clover looked eagerly about. It was a small room, but the sun shone in cheerfully at the window. There was a maple bedstead and table, a couple of chairs, and a row of hooks; that was all, except that in the wall was set a case of black-handled drawers, with cupboard-doors above them.
"These take the place of a bureau, and hold your clothes," explained Mrs. Florence, pulling out one of the drawers. "I hope, when once you are settled, you will find yourselves comfortable. The rooms are small; but young people do not require so much s.p.a.ce as older ones. Though, indeed, your elder daughter, Dr. Carr, looks more advanced and grown-up that I was prepared to find her. What did you say was her age?"
"She is past sixteen; but she has been so long confined to her room by the illness of which I wrote, that you may probably find her behind in some respects, which reminds me" (this was very adroit of papa!) "I am anxious that she should keep up the system to which she has been accustomed at home,--among other things, sponge-baths of cold water every morning; and, as I see that the bedrooms are not furnished with wash-stands, I will ask your permission to provide one for the use of my little girls. Perhaps you will kindly tell me where I would look for it?"
Mrs. Florence was not pleased, but she could not object; so she mentioned a shop. Katy"s heart gave a bound of relief. She thought No. 6, with a wash-stand, might be very comfortable. Its bareness and simplicity had the charm of novelty. Then there was something very interesting to her in the idea of a whole house full of girls.
They did not stay long, after seeing the room, but went off on a shopping excursion. Shops were few and far between at Hillsover; but they found a neat little maple wash-stand and rocking-chair, and papa also bought a comfortable low chair, with a slatted back and a cushion.
This was for Katy.
"Never study till your back aches," he told her: "when you are tired, lie flat on the bed for half an hour, and tell Mrs. Florence that it was by my direction."
"Or Mrs. Nipson," said Katy, laughing rather ruefully. She had taken no fancy to Mrs. Nipson, and did not enjoy the idea of a divided authority.
A hurried lunch at the hotel followed, and then it was time for Dr.
Carr to go away. They all walked to the school together, and said good-by upon the steps. The girls would not cry, but they clung very tightly to papa, and put as much feeling into their last kisses as would have furnished forth half a dozen fits of tears. Lilly might have thought them cold-hearted, but papa did not; he knew better.
"That"s my brave girls!" he said. Then he kissed them once more, and hurried away. Perhaps he did not wish them to see that his eyes too were a little misty.
As the door closed behind them, Katy and Clover realized that they were alone among strangers. The sensation was not pleasant; and they felt forlorn, as they went upstairs, and down Quaker Row, toward No. 6.
"Aha! so you"re going to be next door," said a gay voice, as they pa.s.sed No. 5, and Rose Red popped her head into the hall. "Well, I"m glad," she went on, shaking hands cordially; "I sort of thought you would, and yet I didn"t know; and there are some awful stiffies among the new girls. How do you both do?"
"Oh! are we next door to you?" cried Clover, brightening.
"Yes. It"s rather good of me not to hate you; for I wanted the end room myself, and Mrs. Florence wouldn"t give it to me. Come in, and let me introduce you to my room-mate. It"s against the rules, but that"s no matter: n.o.body pretends to keep rules the first day."
They went in. No.5 was precisely like No. 6, in shape, size and furniture; but Rose had unpacked her trunk, and decorated the room with odds and ends of all sorts. The table was covered with books and boxes; colored lithographs were pinned on the walls; a huge blue rosette ornamented the head-board of the bed; the blinds were tied together with pink ribbon; over the top of the window was a festoon of hemlock boughs, fresh and spicy. The effect was fantastic, but cheery; and Katy and Clover exclaimed, with one voice, "How pretty!"
The room-mate was a pale, shy girl, with a half-scared look in her eyes, and small hands which twisted uneasily together when she moved and spoke. Her name was Mary Silver. She and Rose were so utterly unlike, that Katy thought it odd they should have chosen to be together. Afterward she understood it better. Rose liked to protect, and Mary to be protected; Rose to talk, and Mary to listen. Mary evidently considered Rose the most entertaining creature in the world; she giggled violently at all her jokes, and then stopped short and covered her mouth with her fingers, in a frightened way, as if giggling were wrong.
"Only think, Mary," began Rose, after introducing Katy and Clover, "these young ladies have got the end room. What do you suppose was the reason that Mrs. Florence did not give it to us? It"s very peculiar."
Mary laughed her uneasy laugh. She looked as if she could tell the reason, but did not dare.
"Never mind," continued Rose. "Trials are good for one, they say.
It"s something to have nice people in the room, if we can"t be there ourselves. You are nice, aren"t you?" turning to Clover.
"Very," replied Clover, laughing.
"I thought so. I can almost always tell without asking; still, it is something to have it on the best authority. We"ll be good neighbors, won"t we? Look here!" and she pulled one of the black-handled drawers completely out and laid it on the bed. "Do you see? your drawers are exactly behind ours. At any time in silent study hour, if I have something I want to say, I"ll rap and pop a note into your drawer, and you can do the same to me. Isn"t it fun?"
Clover said, "Yes;" but Katy, though she laughed, shook her head.
"Don"t entice us into mischief," she said.