That Saturday afternoon Carol Lorens and Evelyn Dartmoor were sauntering arm in arm through the garden paths on the south side of the Linden Hall boarding-school, little dreaming of the delightful something which was just about to happen.

Soon a small girl appeared running toward them, calling, “Carol Lorens, here is a letter for you. Madame Deriby asked me to give it to you at once because there is something interesting in it.”

At Linden Hall, as at many other boarding-schools, the matron glanced over each letter which the girls received.

“Oh, I wonder what the exciting news can be,” Carol said as she went forward to take the letter from the wee lassie. “Thank you, little Anne,” she added. Then, when the small girl had skipped away to rejoin her playmates, Carol exclaimed, “Evelyn, there is just one thing that I wish this letter might contain.”

The older girl smiled. Since Carol’s coming to the school, Evelyn had learned to smile again. “Suppose you read it,” she wisely suggested, “and then you will know what it is about.”

“Let’s sit here on this bench and I’ll read it to you,” Carol declared. When they were seated, she opened the missive and turned at once to the end to see who it was from.

“Oh, good!” she said. “Just as I wished, it is from Adele Doring. Now I’ll begin at the beginning:

Carol sprang to her feet as she exclaimed excitedly, “Why, to-day is Saturday, and it is half-past four now.”

“And if I am not mistaken, here come your friends this very moment,” Evelyn declared as she pointed down the hill road. Carol looking, saw the school bus turning into the drive, and then, as it drew near, six merry faces beamed out of the windows and a moment later Carol and Evelyn were surrounded. No one was properly introduced, but no one seemed to care.

“First of all you must come right in and meet our wonderful Madame Deriby,” Carol said, as she slipped her arm about Adele’s waist, and led the flock of laughing girls into the school, where they were to have many happy times in the months to come.

Madame Deriby, the matron of Linden Hall, was delighted with the group of young girls. She looked into one eager face after another with her welcoming smile and then bade Carol and Evelyn show them the way to the south wing, where they would find their rooms in readiness.

Up the broad, softly-carpeted front stairs they trooped. In the upper corridor, they saw uniformed girls in twos and threes who glanced at them curiously and the more friendly smiled upon them.

“There were forty pupils at Linden Hall before you came,” Evelyn told them, “and now there are forty-six.”

Carol, in the lead, opened a door and stepping back with a wave of her hand, she exclaimed, “Enter, young ladies! This is your future home.”

“Oh, how pretty!” Adele declared, as they entered the corridor, the walls of which were a warm, creamy tint, bordered with apple-blossoms.

There were four large, sunny rooms opening from this hall. Each had a bow-window, two of them looked out over the gardens and orchard toward a rolling hill country, the other two had a view of the valley and the blue water of the lake not far away.

“Girls,” Adele exclaimed, “the rooms are each just as lovely as another, and I know that Betty and I shall be content to live in any one of them.”

Rosamond Wright and Bertha Angel, who were to be roommates, entered the door nearest and said that they would take possession of that room. Peggy Pierce and Doris Drexel, who were called the “Inseparables,” chose the corner overlooking the gardens; and Adele happily drew her little roommate into the sunny corner room which looked out toward the lake.

Carol and Evelyn followed Adele. “We’ll go if we’re in your way,” Carol said, but Adele assured them that they were welcome visitors.

“Oh, girls,” Betty Burd exclaimed as she looked about at the pretty bird’s-eye maple furniture, the twin beds, the muslin curtains fluttering in the breeze, and the window-seat heaped with pillows, “I just know that we are going to have the best times ever.”

“Of course we are,” Adele declared as she began to unpack her suit-case. “I’ll keep my pictures and books and things on one side of the room, Betty, and you keep yours on the other. Oh, how do you do, Miss Angel?” she added as Bertha appeared in the open doorway. “Haven’t we a pretty room?”

“Yes indeed!” Burdie replied. “I was just thinking about that fourth room. Wouldn’t it be nice if Evelyn and Carol could have that instead of strange girls?”

“Oh, how I wish we could!” Carol exclaimed. “Evelyn, would you like to move into this wing? I am sure that Madame Deriby would be willing.”

“Yes, I would like it and I know that you would enjoy being nearer your friends. I will go at once and ask Madame Deriby if she is willing that we make the change.”

The permission was readily granted and during the next hour the eight girls were happily busy making excursions to Evelyn’s old room in the west wing, helping those two girls to move.

When every one was settled Rosamond, the romantic, exclaimed, “I used to read ever so many boarding-school stories and the girls always had a name for their corridor. South Wing isn’t a bit pretty. Can’t we call it something else?”

Adele looked at the walls for inspiration and found it. “Suppose we call it Apple-Blossom Alley,” she suggested, and the others agreed.

“There’s the get-ready-for-supper bell,” Evelyn told them. “We have dinner at noon. Madame Deriby thinks it the wiser plan. You have half an hour to dress and then, when the next bell rings, we will start for the dining-room. We wear a plain blue uniform during the day, but in the evening we don any simple dress that we may have. That is, we are supposed to wear simple things, but Gladys Merle and her set prefer frills and ruffles, and though Madame Deriby disapproves, as yet she has said nothing.”

“Who is Gladys Merle?” Adele asked.

Evelyn arose to go as she replied, “Her father is an immensely wealthy man living in Chicago. He is called a Beef King and Gladys Merle seems to think that in some way entitles her to the distinction of royalty. She puts on a great many foolish airs and affectations. Of course it is easy for any one used to good breeding to tell that Gladys Merle has recently risen from the ranks of the uncultured. Not that that would matter in the least if she were a sweet sensible girl, but she isn’t. She leads a clique of her own and they try to cultivate only the very rich and they snub each newcomer until they find out her social standing.”

“Up to the present moment I have been completely and entirely snubbed,” Carol exclaimed brightly. “Come, Evelyn, we must hasten, for the half-hour will soon be over.”

When the second bell rang, the girls met in their Apple-Blossom Alley and Evelyn led them down the front stairs and into the dining-room where there were several long tables.

Miss Sharpleigh, the teacher in attendance, welcomed the new pupils and told them that Madame Deriby had granted them the privilege of having one table just by themselves.

“Oh, isn’t this jolly?” Betty Burd exclaimed when they were seated, as she looked about the dining-room with her friendliest smile.

“Evelyn,” Bertha Angel said softly, “who is the girl across the room? The one with the fluffy blonde hair and the china-blue eyes?”

“Why, that is Gladys Merle Jones. The girl I was telling you about,” Evelyn replied.

“I thought so,” Bertha declared with twinkling eyes. “Well, she will surely snub me because my father is a grocer.”

“And me because my dad owns a dry-goods store,” Peggy Pierce chimed in.

“Well, if she snubs any one of us, she may snub us all,” Doris Drexel declared, and then they talked of other things.

That very evening the cattle king’s daughter held a secret meeting of her clique to decide the fate of the newcomers. Strangely, however, the result of that meeting turned out disastrously for the one who least expected it, and that one was Gladys Merle Jones.