Page:Betty Gordon at Boarding School.djvu/84

74 "Good-bye, Betty. See you soon," whispered Bob, giving Betty^s hand a hurried squeeze. "We're only across the lake, you know."

"You chaps, move!" directed the voice snappily.

With one accord the group dissolved, the boys hastening to the stage marked "Salsette" and the girls following Miss Anderson.

There were two stages for the Academy and two for Shadyside, and a smaller bus which, they afterward learned, followed the route to the town, which was not on the railroad.

"Betty, darling!"

A pretty girl tumbled down the stage steps and nearly choked Betty with the fervency of her embrace.

It was Norma Guerin, and Alice was waiting, smiling. Betty was delighted to meet these old friends, and she introduced them to the Littell girls and Libbie and Frances in the happy, tangled fashion that such introductions usually are performed. Names and faces get straightened out more gradually.

The stage in which they found themselves, for the seven girls insisted on sitting near each other, was well-filled. They had started and were lurching along the rather uneven road when Betty found herself staring at a girl on the other side of the bus.