INTRODUCTION

Readers who did not make the acquaintance of Betty Wales and her friends while they were freshmen may like to know that there were nine girls in all who spent their first year together at Mrs. Chapin's.  Two of them, however, took very little part in the life of the house and left college at the end of the year.  Katherine Kittredge, "of Kankakee," was the fly-away of the group, Rachel Morrison its steadiest, strongest member.  Shy, sensitive Roberta Lewis found her complement in a volatile little sophomore, the only one in the house, named Mary Brooks.  Mary had a talent for practical jokes and original methods of entertainment, and supplied much of the fun and frolic at the Chapin house.  It was she who put Betty's picture into the sophomore "grind book," who let out the secret of the Mountain Day mishap, and who frightened not only the Chapin house freshmen but the whole class with an absurd "rumor" of her own invention.  Helen Adams, Betty's roommate, was a forlorn, awkward little body, who came to college expecting to study all the time, and was amazed and disappointed at what she considered the frivolity of her companions.  Betty Wales, in particular, with her fascinating, merry ways, her love of fun, and her easygoing fashion of getting through her work, was a revelation to Helen.  She began by placing her roommate rather scornfully in the category of pretty girls, who, being pretty, can afford to be stupid, and ended by loving her dearly, and fully appreciating what Betty had done to make her more like other girls and so happier in her environment.

Download