“Do you know Aunt Betsy?” inquired Patricia, presently.
“Not personally,” replied Anne, smiling broadly; “but I’ve heard of her.”
“I’ll warrant you have,” giggled Patricia. “She’s as good as gold, but most awfully funny. You never know what she’s going to say or do next. We say she has only three interests: Ted, and Ted, and Ted. They used to live near us in Brentwood, but when my cousin won a scholarship at Granard, she rented her house and took an apartment down here so she could give Ted all the comforts of home during his course. She meant well, of course; but I feel sort of sorry for Ted. I fancy he’d rather be a bit freer. One night during his Freshman year he stayed out to dinner and for the evening without telling her; so she ran all over the campus looking for him, quite sure that the terrible Sophs had imprisoned him somewhere.”
“I have heard that story,” laughed Anne. “He was at the Zeta Omega House—that’s right next to Arnold Hall.”
“When Aunt Betsy heard that I was coming down, she wrote Dad that she could take me in just as well as not, and that I’d be far more comfortable with her than in any dorm—”
“But you preferred to be less comfortable,” interrupted Anne.
“I certainly did. I’ve wanted to live in a dorm ever since I knew what college was. Tell me something about Granard so I won’t be quite so ignorant.”
Anne began to talk animatedly of college affairs, and Patricia’s eyes got bigger and bigger and her cheeks redder and redder as she became more and more interested. Neither of the girls noticed that the blond youth had returned to his chair and was watching them intently.
“My goodness!” exclaimed Anne, glancing out of the window a couple of hours later, as the train began to slow down. “I didn’t realize that we were nearly in. We change to the bus here at Plainville. Come on! They make only a two-minute stop here.”
Grabbing their bags, the two girls hurried out of the train onto a long platform splashed with big drops of rain. At the end farthest from the train a bus was waiting for passengers; and just as they reached it, the rain, now driven by a brisk wind, began to fall in torrents. Laughing and breathless, they scrambled up the steps of the bus and sank into seats near the door.
“Here comes a friend of yours,” remarked Anne, peering out of the doorway at other travelers, scurrying across the glistening platform.
Thinking that perhaps Ted had come that far to meet her, Patricia leaned forward just as the young man with the light hair bounded up the steps and collided sharply with her outstretched head.
“Oh, say—I’m awfully sorry,” he cried, flushing brilliantly. “I hope I didn’t hurt you.”
“Not in the least!” lied Patricia curtly, trying desperately to fight back tears. Ever since she could remember, any sudden blow or fall had made her cry, whether she was really badly hurt or not. It was a most embarrassing habit, now that she was grown up. As she elaborately straightened her little brown hat which was over one ear, and tried to recover her poise, the youth passed on to the other end of the bus.
“Wonder when and where your next encounter will be,” observed Anne, as the driver closed the doors and started the big bus. “Three times—you know.”
“Never, I hope,” replied Patricia emphatically, little dreaming what the future held in store for her. “Does this bus take us right to college?”
“No, only to the foot of the hill about one-half mile from the campus. We’ll be there in an hour.”
“Have you a room mate?” inquired Patricia, a few minutes later.
“No, I have one of the three singles on the first floor. Where are you to be?”
“I don’t know, but I hope that it will be near you, and that I’ll have a room mate.”
“Why?” asked Anne, idly tracing designs on the steamed window beside her.
“Because I’ve always wanted one. It’s a bit lonesome, being an only child.”
“Sometimes you’d wish you were,” laughed Anne, “if your sister tried to boss you as mine frequently does. Joan and I are usually pretty good friends, but once in so often we have a flare-up.”
“Oh, I hope I’ll be able to get along peaceably with a room mate, if I have one,” said Patricia earnestly. “Maybe I wouldn’t though. I guess I must be pretty well spoiled.”
“Don’t look so worried!” ordered Anne. “And, by the way, don’t take to heart everything the girls may say. Living all together, as we do, we are pretty frank at times, but everybody takes it in good part.”
When the bus stopped, it was still raining, and the two girls ran hastily across the muddy road to a small rustic shelter.
“Well!” said Anne, shaking her wet umbrella. “Evidently none of the girls have come down to meet the bus. Don’t blame ’em much on such a ‘nausty’ day. So we’ll have to climb the hill by ourselves and take our own bags.”
“Bags!” exclaimed Patricia, clutching Anne’s arm, as she opened her green umbrella preparatory to starting up the hill.
“Yes, bags; what about them?”
“I—I haven’t mine! I must have left it on the bus.”
“Good night!” ejaculated Anne forcefully.
“What shall I do?”
“You can’t do a thing but wait and see if the driver finds it, and brings it back on his next trip. Is your name on it?”
“Yes.”
Anne closed her umbrella again, set her own bag in a corner, and loosened her jacket. “Might as well sit down, I suppose,” she commented, leading the way to a bench across the back of the shelter. “There won’t be another bus for an hour.”
“Oh, but you needn’t stay,” offered Patricia heroically. “I can wait alone.”
“Yes, if I’ll let you; but I won’t,” replied Anne, pushing back some little red curls which had escaped from under the brim of her smart green hat.
“It’s mighty good of you,” said Patricia gratefully; for she had hated to think of staying here all alone for a full hour.
“I never desert a friend in distress.”
“‘A friend in need,’” quoted Patricia.
“Speaking of friends,” interrupted Anne, “what became of the blond youth? I didn’t see him get off the bus; did you?”
“No, but he might have just the same. I was too excited over my bag to think of anything else.”
“He may have gone on to Mendon, but I doubt it. I’ve never seen him before, but he looked to me like a college fellow.”
“Just as I did,” began Patricia.
“You never looked like a college fellow in your life!” retorted Anne, laughing.
“Well, I mean,” said Patricia, flushing.
“I understand what you mean; but, just the same, I am curious to know what became of the boy.”
The time passed more quickly than they thought it would, and both were surprised when a grey bus loomed up in the distance. As soon as it came to a stop, Patricia ran out in the rain to question the driver.
“Did you find a bag?” she demanded eagerly.