ck to the door, and gave herself up to the sad consolation
of tears. In a little while the door opened. Someone came in. Nancy
bent over her stocking, and began to run a threadless needle through a
"Jacob's-ladder"; from the corner of her eye she saw Alma busily
engaged in taking some of her things out of the bureau-drawers. Alma
was as painstaking in keeping her own face concealed as Nancy, though
she tried to hum a tune under her breath. The silence became
intolerable, but diffidence weighted their tongues. Each one of them
longed to throw her pride to the winds and sue for a reconciliation;
but the fear of having her overtures met with coldness held her back.
At length Alma said in a voice which she vainly tried to make natural
and casual:

"Miss Leland has changed us. Charlotte Spencer is going to be your
roommate from now on--and--and I'm going in with--with Mildred."

"That's--a--a good idea," replied Nancy; sarcasm was a thousand miles
from her mind, and she spoke really only for the sake of sounding as if
all differences had been forgotten; but a more ill-chosen sentence
could not have fallen from her lips.

"I suppose--you--you're glad to be rid of me," said Alma, her lips
quivering. "Anyway, you'll have Charlotte, and she's ever so much more
congenial with you than I am."

Nancy did not answer. If Alma had not made that last reference to
Charlotte she would have had Nancy back in a moment, but there is a
little devil who takes a delight in twisting people's tongues when they
most need to be inspired with the right thing to say.

With her night-gown and dressing-gown over her arm, and her sponge-bag
in her hand, Alma walked in silence to the door. There she paused, and
like Lot's wife flung back at Nancy one piteous parting look, which,
alas, met only the back of Nancy's down-bent head. The door closed.

Nancy sprang up, and crossed the room, running, while the spools from
her overturned basket rolled off placidly under the bed. Then she
paused; pride conquered the tenderness in her heart at that moment,
bringing in its trail a sequence of unhappy days.

"No---it won't do to admit I'm wrong. I'm not, and I'll just let her
find it out."

And having voiced this stern resolution, she flung herself down on the
bed and, burying her face in the pillows, cried herself into a doze;
while, separated from her by a thin partition of lath and plaster, Alma
made up her new bed, and bedewed it with her