“We might as well go in, too,” said Bobby disconsolately.  “She’s used up so much time we couldn’t do the gym justice.”

Promptly at two o’clock, white-haired Mrs. Eustice mounted the platform and tapped a little bell for silence.

The principal was a gracious woman of perhaps fifty.  Her snow-white hair was piled high on her head and her dark eyes were bright and keen.  Wonderful eyes they were, seeming to gaze straight into the youthful eyes that stared back affectionately or curiously as the case might be.  Mrs. Eustice’s gown was of black or very dark blue silk, made simply and fitting exquisitely.  Straight, soft collar and cuffs of dotted net outlined the neck and wrists, and her single ornament was a tiny watch worn on a black ribbon.

“I wish Ada Nansen would take a good look at her,” muttered Bobby.

“I am so glad to welcome you, my girls,” began Mrs. Eustice.

Betty thrilled to the magic of that modulated voice, low and yet clear enough to be heard in every corner of the large room.  Surely this lovely woman could teach them the secret of cultivated, dignified and happy young womanhood.

The principal spoke to them briefly of her ideals for them, explained the few rigid rules of the school, and asked that all exercise tact and patience for the first week during which the rough edges of new schedules might reasonably be expected to wear off.

“I want to have a little personal talk with each one of you,” she concluded.  “Your corridor teachers will consult with me and will tell you when you are to come to me.  And I hope you are to be very, very happy here with us at Shadyside.”

A soft clapping of hands followed this speech, and Mrs. Eustice stepped down from the platform to be instantly surrounded by the girls who had spent other terms at the school.

After the older girls had spoken to the principal, the newcomers began to move forward.  They were presented by their corridor teachers, who seemed to possess a special faculty to remember names, and here and there Mrs. Eustice recognized a girl through the association of ideas.

As Miss Lacey swept her girls forward, Ada Nansen and Ruth Gladys Royal happened to head the ranks.  Mrs. Eustice put out her hand to Ada, then gazed down at her in evident astonishment.

CHAPTER XII

THE LOST TREASURE

“Diamonds,” whispered Betty to Norma Guerin, who seemed depressed.  “She wears three diamond rings and one sapphire and a square-cut emerald.  And her wrist-watch is platinum set with diamonds.”

Mrs. Eustice gazed at the soft little hand she held for a few moments, then released it.  She said nothing.

“Ah, your mother wrote me of you,” was the principal’s greeting to the Littell girls.  “You look like her, Louise.  And Bobby is much like her father as I remember him.”

“This is Betty Gordon,” said the loyal Bobby, indicating her chum.  “Mother wrote about her, too, didn’t she?”