CHAPTER XI.

AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE.

There were several cars, and a great many people got out of them, for this was a junction, and some who were not going to stop here got out that they might take a train that would carry them where they wanted to go.

"We must wait till I see about our trunks," said Aunt Emma; and leaving Ruby in a safe corner, she went to look after the baggage and give the checks to the expressman who was waiting to take the trunks up to the school.

Ruby stood very still looking about her. It was a very busy place, and there was a good deal to see. After the train upon which she had come had drawn out of the station and gone puffing and panting upon its way, so that she could not see her friend the kind old gentleman any more, another train came into the station that was going the other way, and a few people got off, while a great many of those who were waiting in the station got upon it.

A lady with a little girl and a great many bags and bundles got off this last train, and perhaps you can guess how surprised Ruby was when she found it was some one whom she knew.

I wonder if you could guess who it was. I do not believe you could, so I will tell you. It was Maude Birkenbaum and her mother who had come upon this other train.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RUBY MEETING MAUDE AT THE STATION (missing from book)]

"Oh, I so wonder if she is going to boarding-school too," thought Ruby.

"I never, never spected to see that girl again, but I don't know but what I am maybe a very little glad to see her, for I don't know one single other of the girls here, and it would be so lonesome for a while. She sha'n't make me do bad things now anyhow, for I am ever so much older than I was when she got me into so many troubles that summer."

Ruby had been told not to go away from the place where Aunt Emma had left her, so even to speak to Maude she would not leave it; but she did not need to, for in a few minutes Mrs. Birkenbaum went to the baggage-room, and Maude walked about looking around her.

In a little while her eyes fell upon Ruby, and she rushed forward with an exclamation of pleasure.

"Why, Ruby Harper!" she exclaimed, quite as much surprised at seeing Ruby as Ruby had been to see her. "I never thought of your being here.

What are you doing here anyway?"

"I am going to boarding-school," answered Ruby, "and that is my trunk;"

and she pointed to her pretty little black trunk, which the expressman was putting upon the wagon, that was getting quite a load of baggage by this time.

"I wonder if you are going to the same school that I am," said Maude.

"I do hope you are, for then we can have such good times together. I am going to Miss Chalmer's Home Boarding-School for Young Ladies.

Where are you going?"

"I don't know," admitted Ruby, unwillingly. It had never occurred to her to ask her Aunt Emma the name of the school; indeed I do not think that she knew that any school had a particular name any more than the school at home did. That was always called the school, and so Ruby had thought that this new school was simply a boarding-school. How dreadful it would be if Maude was going to a Boarding-School for Young Ladies, and she herself should be going to a school for children.

"You don't know," echoed Maude. "How funny. You are just as funny as ever, Ruby Harper. I never heard of any one starting out to go to boarding-school without knowing where they were going."

"Well, I did n't need to know, or I should have asked," said Ruby, with some dignity. "I came with my Aunt Emma, and she is a teacher in this school that I am going to, and so I did not have to know anything about it. She brought me with her."

"Oh," said Maude, in more respectful tones.

To have an aunt who taught in a boarding-school was a great thing in Maude's eyes, and it made her less inclined to patronize Ruby.

"I do hope it is the same school," she went on presently, really glad in the bottom of her selfish little heart to see some one whom she had known before, for this was her first time too of leaving home. "We will have such nice times together, and I have ever and ever so many things to show you. You just ought to see all the dresses I have brought with me."

"And so have I," Ruby answered. "My trunk is just full of them, and I had a dressmaker sewing them for a whole week before I came away from home."

"Did you?" asked Maude, and Ruby was pleased to notice that she spoke as if this fact made her have a higher opinion of Ruby. "I thought your mamma always made your dresses."

"She always used to, but she is sick now," said Ruby, and the lump rose in her throat again at the thought that she was miles away from her mother. "So we had Miss Abigail Hart come and stay a whole week and sew on them all the time."

"You must have a nice lot then," said Maude. "I am glad, for if we are going to be friends, I should not like to have the other girls think that you looked old-fashioned and as if you came from the country;" and foolish little Maude tossed her head, and looked complacently down upon her pretty travelling-dress.

Perhaps if Ruby had not been thinking about her mother just then, she would have been very angry at Maude's words, and the two children would have begun to quarrel at once; but thinking of her promise to her mother, the very last thing, that she would really try to be good, and do just what she knew was right, Ruby controlled the hasty words, and said pleasantly,--

"Well, even if my dresses are not as pretty as yours, Maude, the girls won't think that it is your fault. Here comes Aunt Emma. Won't she be surprised to find that I know somebody here in this strange place?"

Aunt Emma was quite as surprised as Ruby had supposed she would be, and presently Maude's mamma came up, and was very glad to find that Maude was going to have an old friend for a school-fellow.

"Ruby is a good little girl, and she will keep Maude straight, I hope,"

she said to Ruby's aunt; and it was all Ruby could do to keep from looking as proud as she felt, to think that Maude's mamma should say that she was a good little girl.

Ruby did not feel as if she quite deserved the praise, but it was very pleasant nevertheless. She made up her mind that she would really try to be good and keep from getting angry at Maude when she said provoking things, and if possible she would help Maude to be good instead of doing wrong things that she proposed.

By this time all the trunks were in the wagon and on their way to the school; and Ruby and Maude, with Aunt Emma and Mrs. Birkenbaum, set out to walk, for it was not a very great distance.

The two little girls walked together in front, and the ladies came after more slowly.

"I wonder what boarding-school will be like," said Ruby presently.

"I suppose it will be perfectly dreadful," said Maude. "I know some girls that went to boarding-school once, and they told me that it was awful. They never had enough to eat, and they had to study all the time, and they got so homesick that they tried to run away, but the teacher caught them and brought them back again."

Ruby looked horrified.

"Do you spose that was really true that they did not have enough to eat?" she asked.

"Of course it's true, for these girls told me so," Maude answered. "I have brought a whole lot of cake and candy in my trunk, and I will give you some when I eat it, Ruby. My mamma is going to send me a box every month, so they sha'n't starve me, anyway."

Ruby turned back and exclaimed,--

"Aunt Emma, do they give the girls enough to eat at this school?"

Aunt Emma laughed.

"Why, of course they do," she answered. "Whatever put that notion into your head, Ruby? The girls have all they can eat of good, wholesome food, and it is just as nice as it is at home."

Ruby looked contented, and went on again.

"I did n't spose you would go and ask your aunt about what I said,"

Maude remarked presently in rather annoyed tones. "Now don't tell her one single word about the cake and candy I have in my trunk, or she may tell the other teachers, and they will take it away from me. I know all about what things the teachers will do at boarding-school."

"I guess my auntie would n't do anything mean," Ruby answered rather hotly. "Anyway, Maude, perhaps this boarding-school is n't like the one that those girls went to. Aunt Emma said it would be ever so nice here, and she ought to know, for she has lived here ever since I was a little bit of a girl. I was only three years old when she began to teach here."

"Perhaps it is nice, and then perhaps again she has got used to it, and don't notice that it is n't pleasant," said Maude. "Anyway, I am ever so glad that you are here, Ruby, for it will be ever so much pleasanter having somebody I know."

"Turn the corner now, Ruby," called Aunt Emma, as the little girls came to the corner of a street, and going around the corner they found that they were close to the school.

Both the children were sure that it must be the school even before Aunt Emma said,--

"Here we are, girls. Does it not look like a pleasant place?"