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CHAPTER IV

AYE, THERE'S THE RUB!"

TRUE to the course she had laid out for herself, Mary was as dumb next morning as if she had really lost the power of speech. Judging from her manner one would have thought that she was alone in the room, and that she was having a beautiful time all by herself. She was waiting for Ethelinda to make the advances this time, and as she did not see fit even to say good-morning, the dressing proceeded in a silence so profound that it could almost be felt.

There was a broad smile on Mary's face most of the time. She was ready to laugh outright over the absurd situation, and from time to time she cast an amused glance at Lloyd's picture, as if her amusement were understood and shared. It was wonderful how that life-like picture seemed to bring Lloyd before her and give her a delightful sense of companionship, and she fell into the way of thinking to it," as she expressed it. The things

she would have said aloud had Lloyd been with her, she said mentally, finding a satisfaction in this silent communion that a less imaginative person could not have experienced.

"I wish you could go down to breakfast with me, Princess," she thought, turning for a last glance when she was dressed, and pausing with her hand on the door-knob. "I dread to go down alone before all those strangers.'

Dinner, the night before, had been a very stately affair, with Madam at the head of the table in the long banquet hall, and Hawkins in solemn charge of his corps of waiters. But breakfasts were to be delightfully informal, Mary found a few minutes later, when she paused at the dining room door and saw many small round tables, each cozily set for six: five pupils and a teacher. Betty, presiding at one, looked up and beckoned to her.

"You're a trifle early, but come on in. You're to have a seat here by me, with Elise and A.O. just around the corner. Now tell me what has happened to give you that 'glorious morning face,' as Stevenson puts it. You look as if you had found some rare good fortune."

"I have, but I didn't know I showed it." Mary's hands went up to her face as if she expected to feel

the expression that Betty saw. "I am so happy to think that I'm to be at your table. And I'm glad that I can stop playing dumb for awhile. Oh, but it has been funny up in our room this morning. I took your advice, and I want to tell you about it before the other girls come down."

Betty laughed heartily as Mary pictured herself in bed under the umbrella, and smiled understandingly when she told about finding a make-believe chum in Lloyd's picture.

"I know, dear," she answered. "I used to do that way with godmother's picture when I was a lonely little thing at the Cuckoo's nest. I'd whisper my troubles and show her my treasures, and feel that she kept watch over me while I slept. It comforted me many a time, when there was no one else to go to, and is one of my dearest recollections now of those days when I felt so little and lonesome and uncared for."

"How Jack would laugh at me," exclaimed Mary, presently, "if he knew that one of my aircastles had collapsed. He is always teasing me about building sky-scrapers without any foundation. On my way out here Mrs. Stockton told me a lot of stories about her school days. She roomed with the Judge's sister, and she heard so much about

him and he heard so much about her through this sister, that they got to sending messages to each other in her letters. Then they exchanged photographs, and finally they met when he came on the Commencement, and the romance of their lives grew out of it. I kept thinking how romantic it would be to have your brother marry your dearest chum, someone you already loved like a sister and that if my room-mate turned out to be lovely and sweet and charming, all that I hoped she'd be, how interesting I could make it for Jack. There's no society at all in Lone-Rock, and he never can meet any nice girls as long as he stays there."

"And you don't think he would be interested in Ethelinda?" asked Betty mischievously. "An heiress and a girl with such a distinguished air? She certainly has that even if she doesn't measure up to your standard of beauty. He might be charmed with her. You never can tell what a man is going to like."

"Not that-that-clam!" Mary answered warmly, with an expression of disgust. "I know Jack! You've no idea how she can shut herself up in her shell. She never would fit in our family and I know he'd never

The signal announcing breakfast made her stop

in the middle of her sentence, for at that same instant the girls began to file in.

"Well, it's goodbye, ' Betty.' I must begin talking to Miss Lewis' now." Giving Betty's hand a quick squeeze under the table, she drew herself up sedately.

The Old Girls' Welcome to the New was the chief topic of conversation that morning. It was to take place that night, and as the invitations would not be delivered until the opening of the first mail, every Freshman was in a flutter of expectancy, wondering who her escort was to be.

"I hope mine will be either Cornie Dean or Dorene Derwent," confided Mary to Betty in an undertone," because I know them so well. But if I should have to choose a stranger I'd rather have that quiet girl in gray, over at Miss Chilton's table. She looks like a girl in an English story-book. I mean the one that Ethelinda is talking to now. And I wish you'd notice how she is talking," Mary continued in amazement. "Did you ever see more animation? She's making up for lost time."

"Oh, that's Evelyn Berkeley," answered Betty. She is English; a distant relative of Madam's with such an interesting history. The year I finished school she came in the middle of the spring term,