"Don't make us laugh, Judy, just as the poor soul arrives without enough breath to apologize," said Nance, and the next instant the embarrassed young man stood before them blushing and stammering as if he had been caught in the act of picking a pocket or committing some other slight crime which required explanation.
"I'm terribly sorry--have you waited long?--the schedule was changed--I didn't know--you should have come half an hour later--I don't mean that--I mean I wasn't ready--" he broke off in an agony of embarrassment and the girls burst out laughing.
"Don't you be caring," said Judy. "We're here and nothing else really matters."
"I shouldn't have thought the station of a man's college could be so deserted," observed Molly, looking about the empty place.
Dodo assured her that plenty of people would be there in half an hour, when the train arrived; just then everybody was either in the village on the other side of the buildings, or down on the football grounds watching the morning practice game. There was to be a real game that afternoon.
"You see, it's only a small college," he went on. "There are only two hundred and fifty in all. The standards are so high it's rather hard to get in, but we are heavily endowed and can afford to keep up the standards," he added proudly.
They climbed the road to the college almost in silence and in ten minutes emerged on a level elevation or table land which commanded a view of the entire countryside. Here stood the college buildings, built of red brick, seasoned and mellowed with time. They were a beautiful and dignified group of buildings, and there was a decidedly old world atmosphere about the place and the campus with splendid elm trees. Molly had once heard Judith Blount refer to Exmoor as that "one-horse, old-fashioned little college," and she was not prepared for anything so fine and impressive as this.
Nor was she prepared for the surprise of Miss Green, sister of Professor Edwin and Dodo. The girls had pictured her a middle-aged spinster, having heard she was older than the Professor himself, who seemed a thousand to them. And here, waiting for them, in the living room of the Chapter House, was a very charming and girlish young woman with Edwin's brown eyes and cleft chin and George's blonde hair; the ease and graciousness of one brother and the youthful fairness of the other. She had come down from New York the night before especially to meet them, she said.