"Yes. But look!" cried Billie, grasping her arm and pointing to the front door of Three Towers Hall. "There's the president, I suppose, waiting to welcome us."
For in the doorway was standing a slender figure in white, evidently waiting, as Billie had said, to welcome the girls to Three Towers Hall.
Other girls had noticed her, too, and as the attendant came around and opened the door, they all scrambled down in a flurry of excitement.
"It's Miss Walters," the whisper went around, and Billie felt a thrill of excitement.
"Miss Walters!" Always she had seemed to Billie a person to be looked up to--a sort of goddess set apart from ordinary mortals. For Miss Sara Walters had been head of Three Towers Hall for a number of years--always, it seemed to Billie. And now Billie was actually going to see her, talk to her, perhaps even make her take notice of her, Billie, above the others!
As she rather breathlessly ascended the steps to the entrance of Three Towers with the other girls she studied this slim, straight woman who had been the heroine of so many of her day dreams.
Miss Walters was only thirty-five, but her hair was snow white and framed her face in thick wavy masses. Her complexion was pink and white, and her dark violet eyes looked almost black under their dark lashes. And her figure was that of a girl of twenty.
"Isn't she wonderful?" Vi whispered in her ear; but Billie squeezed her arm warningly.
"I wouldn't care if she did," said Violet with unusual spirit, and in her heart Billie could not blame her.
A moment more and Miss Walters was speaking to them, saying a few words to each of them, welcoming them to Three Towers Hall.
Then she turned and led the way into the building, the girls crowding after her eagerly.
"And her voice," said Billie, adoringly in Laura's ear, "is the very sweetest part of her!"
Miss Walters took the girls into her office, looked up the cards she had made out for them--for of course their names had been sent in some time before as prospective students at Three Towers Hall--and then called in another teacher, Miss Ada Dill, who had part charge of the dormitories.
Miss Dill was tall and thin with sharp black eyes and white hair drawn severely back from her forehead. She smiled when Miss Walters introduced her to the girls, but her smile reminded Billie of the smile on the face of a Chinese idol which she and her chums had come upon among the antiques of the old homestead at Cherry Corners. It was merely a crack in her face and the beady black eyes remained unsmiling.