A rush of more than half the girls gathered about the open hearth
for the great main entrance door of Lakeview Hall followed the
announcement. This hall was almost like a castle set upon a high
cliff overlooking Lake Huron on one side and the straggling town of
Freeling, and Freeling Inlet, on the other.

The girls flung open the door. The school bus had just stopped
before the wide veranda. Girls were fairly "boiling out of it," as
Laura declared. Short, tall, thin, stout girls and girls of all
ages between ten and seventeen tramped merrily up the steps with
their handbags. Such a hullabaloo of greeting as there was!

"Come on, Cora," said Linda, haughtily. "Let us go up to our room.
They are positively vulgar."

"Oh, no, Linda!" Cora cried. "I want to stay and see the fun."

"Fun!" gasped the disdainful Linda.

"Yes," said Cora, who was a terrible toady, but who showed some
spirit on this occasion. "I want to have fun with the other girls.
I don't want to be left out of everything just because of you. Even
if you are going to flock by yourself this term, as you did most of
last, because you are all the time quarreling with the girls that
have the nicest times, I'm going to get into the fun."

This, according to Linda Riggs' opinion, was crass ingratitude and
treachery. Besides, she and Cora had the nicest room in the Hall,
for it had been fixed up especially for his daughter by Mr. Riggs;
and Cora, who was poor, was allowed to be Linda's roommate without