CHAPTER III

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

“Overton!  Overton!” was the call that echoed through the car.  After handing down the hats of her friends, Grace reached to the rack above her head for her broad brimmed panama hat.  Obeying a sudden kindly impulse, she carefully deposited J. Elfreda’s hat in the sleeping girl’s lap, touched her on the shoulder and said, “Wake up, Miss Briggs.  We are nearing Overton.”

J. Elfreda sleepily opened her eyes at the gentle touch, saying drowsily, “Let me know when the train stops.”  Then closed her eyes again.

Miriam shrugged her shoulders with a gesture that signified, “Let her alone.  Don’t bother with her.”

At that moment the train stopped with a jolt that caused the sleeper to awake in earnest.  She looked stupidly about, yawned repeatedly, then catching a glimpse of a number of girls on the station platform, clad in white and light colored gowns, she became galvanized into action, and pinning on her hat began quickly to gather up her luggage.  “Good-bye,” she said indifferently.  “I’ll probably see you later.”  Then, rapidly elbowing her way down the aisle she disappeared through the open door, leaving the chums to make their way more slowly out of the car.  As they stepped from the car to the station platform Grace caught sight of her at the far end of the station in conversation with a tall auburn-haired girl and a short dark one.  A moment later she saw the three walk off together.

“J.  Elfreda found friends quickly,” remarked Anne, who had also noticed the stout girl’s warm reception by the two girls.  “I wonder what we had better do first.  What is the name of the hotel where we are to stop?”

“The Tourraine,” replied Miriam.

The newcomers looked eagerly about them at the groups of daintily gowned girls who were joyously greeting their friends as they stepped from the train.

“I had no idea there were so many Overton girls on the train,” remarked Grace in surprise.  “The majority of them seem to have friends here, too.  I wonder which way we’d better go.”

“By the nods and becks and wreathed smiles with which those girls over there are favoring us, I imagine that we have been discovered,” announced Miriam, rather sarcastically.

Grace and Anne glanced quickly toward the girls indicated by Miriam.  A tall, thin, fair-haired girl with cold gray-blue eyes and a generally supercilious air occupied the center of the group.  She was talking rapidly and her remarks were eliciting considerable laughter.  Amused glances, half friendly, half critical, were being leveled at the Oakdale trio of chums.

Grace flushed in half angry embarrassment, Anne merely smiled to herself, while Miriam’s most forbidding scowl wrinkled her smooth forehead.

“I think we had better inquire the way to our hotel and leave here as soon as possible,” Grace said slowly.  A sudden feeling of disappointment had suddenly taken possession of her.  She had always supposed that in every college new girls were met and welcomed by the upper classes of students.  Yet now that they had actually arrived no one had come forward to exchange even a friendly greeting with them.