Nancy, however, saw several of the girls who had ridden in the 'bus with her from the station the night before. Last to arrive in the soph. group was the fat girl--Belle Macdonald. She was a pretty girl, but she was yawning still and her hair had been given only "a lick and a promise," while her frock was not neat.
In the middle of breakfast Carrie Littlefield, the captain of the East Side, walked slowly along the soph. tables and stopped behind Belle. Some of the girls began to giggle; the fat one looked a little scared, and for the moment seemed to lose a very hearty appetite.
Carrie wrote something on a pad, tore off the paper, and thrust it into Belle's hand. Then she went along the row gravely, plainly eyeing those girls who belonged to her own half of the school.
"Nasty thing!" Nancy heard somebody whispering shrilly. "I bet she gave Belle all morning in her room--and lessons don't begin until to-morrow."
This was Cora Rathmore. Nancy's roommate had come in at the very last minute and taken a seat not far from her. Cora, having been a month and a half at Pinewood in the spring, knew about the running of the school.
The two captains--"monitors" they might be called--made it one of their duties to see that the girls came to table in the morning in neat array. Later they took a trip through the rooms to see that beds were properly stripped, windows open for airing, nightclothes hung away, and everything neat and tidy.
Of course, the maids made beds, swept and dusted dormitories, and all that; but each girl was supposed to attend to her own personal belongings; slovenliness was frowned upon throughout the school.
Nancy learned much that first forenoon at Pinewood. She did not talk much with any of the girls--either of her own class or older. But she heard a good deal, and kept her eyes and ears open.
She remembered what the lodgekeeper's wife had told her, and she found her way to Jessie Pease's room in the basement. There was a crowd of girls there already. They were laughing, and joking, and teasing the good woman, who seemed, as she said, to be a "big sister" to them all. Nobody called her "Mrs. Pease;" she insisted upon their treating her as though she really were their older sister.