ernoon, having skipped
gymnasium work of all kind for the day. The proprietor of the room had
finished her baby blue cap and had worn it the first time that week.

"I feel that they are not all staring at me now," she confessed to Ruth.

Ruth was at the piles of old papers which Rebecca had hidden under a
half-worn portierre she had brought from home.

"Do you know," the girl of the Red Mill said reflectively, "these old
things are awfully interesting, Becky?"

"What old things?"

"These papers. I've opened one bundle. They were all printed in Richmond
during the Civil War. Why, paper must have been awfully scarce then.
Some of these are actually printed on wrapping paper--you can scarcely
read the print."

"Ought to look at those Charleston papers," said Rebecca, carelessly.
"There are full files of those, too, I believe. Why, some of them are
printed on wall paper."

"No!"

"Yes they are. Ridiculous, wasn't it?"

Ruth sat silent for a while. Finally she asked:

"Are you sure, Becky, that you have quite complete files here of this
Richmond paper? For all the war time, I mean?"

"Yes. And of the South Carolina paper, too. Father collected them during
and immediately following the war. He was down there for years, you
see."

"I see," Ruth said quietly, and for a long time said nothing more.

But that evening she wrote several letters which she did not show Helen,
and took them herself to the mailbag in the lower hall.

Before this, Mrs. Jaynes, Dr. McCurdy's sister-in-law, was settled in
the room which had formerly been used by the girls as their own
particular sitting-room. She was not an attractive woman at all; so it
was not hard for her youthful associates on that corridor of Dare Hall
to declare war upon Mrs. Jaynes.

Indeed, without having been introduced to a single girl there, Mrs.
Jaynes eyed them all as though she suspected they belonged to a tribe of
Bushmen.

Naturally, during hours of relaxation, and occasionally at other times,
the girls joked and laughed and raced through the halls and sang and
otherwise acted as a crowd of young people usually act.

Mrs. Jaynes was plainly of that sort that believes that all youthfulness
and ebullition of spirits should be suppressed. Luckily, she met the
girls but seldom--only when she was going to and from her room. On
stormy days she remained shut up in her apartment most of the time, and
Mrs. Ebbetts sent a maid up with her tray at meal time. She