, "Come in," out of the shadows.

"Oh, excuse me!" began Helen in a frightened voice. "I've brought you
the material for the sketch department. Please don't bother about a
light. I mustn't stay."

But Miss Raymond went on lighting the lamp on her big table. As she
stood for a moment full in the glare of it, Helen noticed that she
looked worn and tired.

"I'm very sorry that I disturbed you," she said sadly. "You were
resting."

Miss Raymond shook her head. "Not resting. Thinking. Do you like to
think, Miss Adams?"

"Why--yes, I suppose so," answered Helen doubtfully. "Isn't that what
college is supposed to teach us to do?"

"I shouldn't like to guarantee that it would in all cases," said Miss
Raymond smilingly. "Has it taught you that?"

"Yes," said Helen. "I don't mean to be conceited, Miss Raymond, but I
think it has."

"And you find it, as I do, rather a deadly delight," went on Miss
Raymond, more to herself than to Helen. "And sometimes you wish you had
never learned. When people tell you sad things, you wish you needn't go
over and over them, trying to better them, trying to reason out the whys
and wherefores of them, trying to live yourself into the places of the
people who have to endure them. And when they don't tell you, you have
to piece them out for yourself just the same." Miss Raymond came sharply
back to the present and held out her hand for Helen's bundle of
manuscript.

Helen gave it to her in puzzled silence, and watched her as she looked
rapidly through it.

"Ruth Howard?" she questioned, when she reached the signature of the
monologue. "Do I know her? Oh, a freshman, is she? She sounds very
promising. Ellen Lacey--yes, I remember that story. Cora Wentworth--oh,
I'm very glad you've got something of hers. She needs encouragement.
Anne Carter--oh, Miss Adams, how did you know?"

"How did I know?" repeated Helen in bewilderment.

Miss Raymond looked at her keenly. "So you didn't know," she said. "It
is a mere coincidence that you are going to print her verses."

"I don't know anything about her," Helen explained. "I heard you read
the verses in your theme class last week. And at the close of the hour I
asked you to let me have them and several other things. I used these
first because I had all the prose I needed for this time."

"I see," said Miss Raymond. "Have you told her yet that you want them?"

"No," said Helen, guiltily. "I was going to write her a note as soon as
I got home. I