They discussed the point so long that the breakfast bell took them by surprise, and they were forced to rush through their dressing as fast as possible, so as not to keep papa waiting.
When breakfast was over, Dr. Carr told them to put on their hats, and get ready to walk with him to the school.
Clover took one arm, and Katy the other, and the three passed between some lead-colored posts, and took one of the diagonal paths which led across the common.
"That's the house," said Dr. Carr, pointing.
"It isn't the one you picked out, Clover," said Katy.
"No," replied Clover, a little disappointed.
The house papa indicated was by no means so pleasant as the one she had chosen.
It was a tall, narrow building, with dormer windows in the roof, and a square porch supported by whitewashed pillars.
A pile of trunks stood in the porch. From above came sounds of voices.
Girls' heads were popped out of upper widows at the swinging of the gate, and, as the door opened, more heads appeared looking over the balusters from the hall above.
The parlor into which they were taken was full of heavy, old-fashioned furniture, stiffly arranged.
The sofa and chairs were covered with black haircloth, and stood closely against the wall.
Some books lay upon the table, arranged two by two; each upper book being exactly at a right angle with each lower book.
A bunch of dried grasses stood in the fire-place.
There were no pictures, except one portrait in oils, of a forbidding old gentleman in a wig and glasses, sitting with his finger majestically inserted in a half-open Bible.
Altogether, it was not a cheerful room, nor one calculated to raise the spirits of new-comers; and Katy, whose long seclusion had made her sensitive on the subject of rooms, shrank instinctively nearer papa as they went in.
Two ladies rose to receive them.
One, a tall dignified person, was Mrs. Florence.
The other she introduced as "my assistant principal, Mrs. Nipson."
Mrs. Nipson was not tall.
She had a round face, pinched lips, and half-shut gray eyes.
"This lady is fully associated with me in the management of the school," explained Mrs. Florence.
"When I go, she will assume entire control."
"Is that likely to be soon?" inquired Dr. Carr, surprised, and not well pleased that the teacher of whom he had heard, and with whom he had proposed to leave his children, was planning to yield her place to a stranger.
"The time is not yet determined," replied Mrs. Florence.
Then she changed the subject, gracefully, but so decidedly that Dr. Carr had no chance for further question.
She spoke of classes, and discussed what Katy and Clover were to study.
Finally, she proposed to take them upstairs to see their room.
Papa might come too, she said.
"I dare say that Lilly Page, who tells me that she is a cousin of yours, has described the arrangements of the house," she remarked to Katy.
"The room I have assigned to you is in the back building.
'Quaker Row,' the girls call it."
She smiled as she spoke; and Katy, meeting her eyes for the fist time, felt that there was something in what Lilly had said. Mrs. Florence was a sort of queen.
They went upstairs.
Some girls who were peeping over the baluster hurried away at their approach.
Mrs. Florence shook her head at them.
"The first day is always one of license," she said, leading the way along an uncarpeted entry to a door at the end, from which, by a couple of steps, they went down into a square room; round three sides of which, ran a shelf, on which stood rows of wash-bowls and pitchers.
Above were hooks for towels.
Katy perceived that this was the much- dreaded wash-room.
"Our lavatory," remarked Mrs. Florence blandly.
Opening from the wash-room was a very long hall, lighted at each end by a window.
The doors on either side were numbered "one, two, three," and so on.
Some of them were half open; as they went by, Katy and Clover caught glimpses of girls and trunks, and beds strewed with things.
At No. 6 Mrs. Florence paused.
"Here is the room which I propose to give you," she said.
Katy and Clover looked eagerly about.
It was a small room, but the sun shone in cheerfully at the window.
There was a maple bedstead and table, a couple of chairs, and a row of hooks; that was all, except that in the wall was set a case of black-handled drawers, with cupboard-doors above them.
"These take the place of a bureau, and hold your clothes," explained Mrs. Florence, pulling out one of the drawers.
"I hope, when once you are settled, you will find yourselves comfortable.