The library, gloriously sunlit on this golden morning, was empty. Miss Lee pulled two chairs toward a long table.

"Sit here, Jerauld. Now tell me all about your other school--so we can place you." And she patted Jerry's hand in a jolly encouraging way.

It was very easy for Jerry to talk to Miss Lee. She told of the work she had covered back at the Notch. Miss Lee listened with interest and, knowing nothing of Jerry's home life and Jerry's mother, some amazement.

"I believe you could go straight into the Junior class though you're----"

"Oh, _can't_ I be in Gyp's room?" cried Jerry in dismay. "Gyp Westley, I mean. You see she's the only girl I know real well."

Barbara Lee, for all that she was trying to look very grown-up and dignified, as a teacher should, could remember well how much it meant in school life to be near one's "chum." So she laughed, a laugh that warmed Jerry's heart.

"I think--perhaps--that can be arranged," she said in a tone that indicated that she would help. "We will go to see Dr. Caton."

Even after the long consultation with Dr. Caton, Miss Lee did not desert Jerry. As they walked away from the office, she whispered assuringly to Jerry: "Dr. Caton thinks you had better go into the Third Form room--for a term, at least." Accordingly she led her into one of the smaller study rooms. And there was Gyp smiling and beckoning her to an empty desk beside her. But Miss Lee took Jerry to her classrooms; she introduced her to Miss Briggs, the geometry teacher, then to Miss Gray of the English department, and on to the French room and to the Ancient History classroom. Bewildered, Jerry answered countless questions and registered her name over and over.

"There, my dear, you're settled for this term, at least," declared Miss Lee as they left the last classroom, "Now go back to your study-room and take that desk that Gyp Westley's saving for you."

Assigned to classes and with a desk of her own--and with Gyp close at hand--Jerry felt like a real Lincolnite and her unhappy shyness vanished as though by magic. During the long recess that followed, the bad half-hour forgotten, with a budding confidence born of her sense of "belonging," she sought the other "new" girls. Among them was Patricia Everett, who came directly to Jerry.

"I know you're Jerry Travis. I'm Aunt Pen Everett Allan's niece. I'm crazy to go and visit Cobble Mountain. That's very near your home, isn't it?" So sincere was her interest that Jerry felt as though she was suddenly surrounded by a wealth of friendship. Patricia seemed to know everyone else--they were nearly all Girl Scouts in her troop; she introduced Jerry to so many girls that poor Jerry could not remember a single name.

Ginny Cox, spying Jerry from across the room, bolted to her.

"You're going to sign up for basketball, aren't you? Of course you are.

Wait right here--I'll call Mary Starr." She rushed away and before Jerry could catch her breath she returned with a tall, pleasant-faced girl who carried a small leather-bound notebook in her hand.

She wrote Jerry's name in it and went away.

"Miss Travis, will you sign up for hockey?" Jerry, on familiar ground, eagerly assented to this. Her name went into another book. Another girl waylaid her. She signed for swimming. She noticed that the others around her were doing the same thing. Patricia brought a girl to her whom she introduced as Peggy Lee. Peggy carried a notebook, too.

"Will you sign up for the debating club, Miss Travis?" she asked with a dignity that was belied by her roguish eyes.

Jerry was quite breathless; she had never debated in her life--but then she had never played basketball either.

"Oh, do sign. We're all joining and it's awfully exciting," pleaded Patricia. So Jerry signed for the debates.

"When_ever_ will I find time to study Latin and geometry? I know I'm going to be dumb in that," cried Jerry, that evening, to the Westley family. She spoke with such real conviction that everyone laughed.

Uncle Johnny had "dropped in." He was as eager as though he was a schoolboy, himself, to hear the children's experiences of the day.

Though they all talked at once, he managed to understand nearly all that they were telling.

"And you, Jerry-girl, what did you think of it all?"

Because she had felt like one little drop in a very big puddle, Jerry simply couldn't tell. But her eyes were shining. Gyp broke in. "Jerry could be a Junior if she wanted to, but she's going to stay in my study-room for awhile. And they've signed her up for _every single thing_!"

Jerry, ignorant of Lincoln traditions, did not know that this was a tribute.

Then she had wondered when, with everything else, she would find time for her Cicero and geometry.

"Who you got? Speck-eyes?"

"Graham----" cried Mrs. Westley. "I will _not_ have you speaking in that way of your teachers!"

Graham colored; he knew that this was a point upon which his mother had always been very firm.

"Oh, Miss Briggs is all _right_--I like her, but all the fellows call her that."

"Do you suppose they'll nickname Miss Lee?"

To Jerry it seemed that _that_ would be sacrilege--she was too dear!

Uncle John had, then, to hear all about her. He was much interested, he had not realized that she was grown-up enough to teach.

"But she really doesn't seem a bit so," Gyp explained.

Then quite suddenly Graham asked Jerry: "Say, Jerry, who was your guardian?"

Jerry's face turned very red. She caught a defiant look from Isobel. She did not want to answer; even the ethics of the little school at Miller's Notch had had no tolerance for a telltale.

"A--a Senior. She couldn't find me."

Poor Jerry--Graham's careless inquiry had dimmed her enthusiasm. Why hadn't Isobel found her? With the friendliness of spirit that was such a part of the very atmosphere of Lincoln, why had Isobel, alone, stood aloof? She looked at Isobel--she was so pretty now as she talked, with animation, to Uncle Johnny. Jerry thought, as she watched her, that she'd rather have Isobel love her than any of those other nice girls she had met at Highacres--Patricia Everett, Ginny Cox, Peggy Lee, Keineth Randolph----

"I'll just _make_ her," she vowed, gathering up her shiny new school-books. And that solemn vow was to help Jerry over many a rough spot in the schooldays to come.

CHAPTER IX

THE SECRET DOOR

The routine of Jerry's new life shaped into pleasant ways. She felt more like Jerry Travis and less like a dream-creature living in a golden world she had brought around her by wishing on a wishing-rock. She could not have found a moment in which to be homesick; twice a week she wrote back to Sweetheart and Little-Dad long scrawly letters that would have disgraced her in the eyes of Miss Gray of the English department, but expressed such utter happiness and contentment that Mrs. Travis, with a little regret, dismissed the fear that Jerry would be lonely away from her and Sunnyside.

After the first week of school the girls and boys settled down to what Graham called "digging." Geometry looked less formidable to Jerry, Cicero was like a beautiful old friend, Gyp was with her in English and history, Ginny Cox was in one of her classes, too, and Jerry liked her better each day. Patricia Everett was teaching her to play tennis until basketball practice began.

There were the pleasant walks to and from school through the city streets, whose teeming life never failed to fascinate Jerry; the jolly recess, breaking the school session, when the girls gathered around the long tables and ate their lunch; and then the afternoon's play on the athletic field at Highacres.

Had old Peter Westley ever pictured, as he sat alone in his great empty house, how Highacres would look after scores of young feet had trampled over its velvety stretches? Perhaps he had liked that picture; perhaps, to him, his halls were echoing even then to the hum of young voices; perhaps he had felt that these young lives that would pass over the threshold of the house he had built out into the world of men and women would belong, in some way, to him who had never had a boy or girl.

One afternoon Gyp and Jerry lingered in the school building to prepare a history lesson from references they had to find in the library. Gyp hated to study; the drowsy stillness of the room was broken by the pleasant shouting from the playground outside. She threw down her pencil and stretched her long arms.

"Oh, goodness, Jerry--let's stop. We can ask mother all these things."

Jerry was quite willing to be tempted. She, too, had found it hard to hold her attention to the Thirty-one Dynasties.

Gyp leaned toward her. "I'll tell you--let's go exploring. There are all the rooms in the back we've never seen."

During the past six months workmen had been rebuilding the rear wing of Highacres into laboratories. The changes had not been completed. Gyp and Jerry climbed over materials and tools and little piles of rubbish, poking inquisitive noses into every corner. Now and then Gyp stopped to ask a workman a few questions. They stumbled around in the basement where in a few weeks there would be a very complete machine-shop and carpentry room. Then they found a stairway that led to the upper floors and scampered up it.