"The girl next to me didn't appear at supper. I took her crackers and slipped them down my stocking. But Mrs. Cupp caught me before I got out of the room, took me to her den, and made me disgorge the booty----"
A mellow gong clanged through the building. Nan and Bess, who were now almost convulsed by their new friend's remarks, had managed to make some sort of a toilet.
"Come on!" whispered the red-haired girl, hoarsely. "Never mind your bags and wraps. _They_ will be perfectly safe on that settee. But hang onto the lunch box. If Mrs. Cupp finds _that_ she will confiscate its contents, I assure you."
She thrust the box into Bess' hands and drove both the new girls before her, like a fussy hen with two chickens.
The girls crowded into the dining hall from all directions. Nan and Bess were told that there were many who had not yet arrived; but to the two strangers from Tillbury it seemed as though there was a great throng.
The curious glances flung at Nan and her chum confused them, the buzz of conversation added to their embarrassment, and had it not been for the red-haired girl, Laura Polk, they would have been tempted to turn and flee. They were quickly shown to seats, however, at a table where every seat was filled with laughing, chattering girls. As the school was not yet fully organized for work, there was no person in authority to take the head of the table. Nan and Bess were glad to note that their acquaintance, the red-haired girl, was with them. Bess was under the embarrassing necessity of holding the lunch box in her lap.
"Hullo, Laura!" whispered one mischievous girl from across the table. "I thought you were going to have your hair dyed this vacation?"
"Well! I must say it didn't seem to do it any good," was the next observation.
"That's just it," said the serious, red-haired girl. "The dye didn't take."
"I really do wonder, Laura," said another of her schoolmates, "how your hair ever came to be such a very reddish red."
"I had scarlet fever when I was very young," said Miss Polk, promptly, "and it settled in my hair."
The smothered laughter over this had scarcely subsided when another girl asked: "Say, Polk! what's your new chum, there, got in her lap?"
This pointed question was aimed at Bess, who blushed furiously. Laura remained as grave as a judge, and explained: