Alma--I--er----"

"Why, yes. I'm so glad you got here safely," said Miss Leland, quite
cordially, taking Nancy's hand and Alma's at the same time. "Of course
you want to know where your room is. You two are going to room
together to-night, anyway. Later you will probably have different
roommates. Now, let me see--Mildred, this is Anne Prescott, and this
is Alma. They are new girls, so I'm going to count on you to help them
find themselves a little. They are going to be next door to you
to-night, so will you take them up-stairs?"

A very handsome, very haughty-looking girl, with gray eyes and a Roman
nose, shook hands with them briefly. The sisters followed her in a
subdued silence. She was the sort of girl plainly destined to become
one of the most frigid and formidable of dowagers; it was impossible to
look at her profile, her fur coat, or to meet her cold, critical glance
without immediately picturing her with a lorgnon, crisply marcelled
gray hair, and the wintry smile with which the typical, unapproachable
matron can freeze out the slightest attempt at an unwelcome
friendliness on the part of an inconsequential person. Her last name
was weighty with importance, since she was the daughter of Marshall
Lloyd, the well-known railroad magnate.

"I shan't like _her_," Nancy remarked to Alma, when this young lady had
indicated their room to them, and left them with a curt announcement
that they should go down-stairs in fifteen minutes.

"She is sort of snob-looking," agreed Alma, throwing her hat on her
narrow white bed. "But there's no sense in being prejudiced against a
person right away. Goodness, this room is chilly. I wish we knew
somebody here. I hate being a new girl. Everyone else sounds as if
they are having such a good time. I feel dreadfully out of it, don't
you? And all the girls look at you as if they were wondering who in
the world you are."

"Well, it's only natural that we feel that way now," said Nancy, trying
to sound cheerful. "Come on, we've got to hurry."

From the line of rooms along the corridor issued the unceasing chatter
of gay voices; there was a continual scampering back and forth, bursts
of tumultuous greetings, giggles, shrieks. Alma, comb in hand, stood
at the doorway, listening with a wistful droop to her lips. Two doors
down, four girls were perched up on a trunk, kicking it with their
patent-leather heels, and gabbling like magpies. In the room opposite,
five g