e hadn't
been able to realize before what York Hill stood for--to herself, to all
these New Girls, and to all the Old Girls who had come back to pay a
tribute to the School they loved. Whatever could she do? She tried to
think of something else to say, but Frances Purdy was speaking now and
the bursts of laughter all about were too infectious to withstand.
Frances was describing the woes of her first week. She had been told
that she must say "ma'am" to all the Sixth-Form girls, and that new
girls must get up before the others and have their baths before the bell
rang, and she convulsed her audience by a description of her first
ecstatic experience in the tuck shop. She had been informed that the
School provided buns and milk at recess, and meeting a neighbour who was
consuming a particularly luscious-looking Chelsea bun at recess-time,
she enquired where they were to be found. She was directed to the tuck
shop in the gymnasium, where she spent some happy moments choosing buns
and cakes and sweets, all of which the presiding genius had asserted, in
answer to her enquiries, she might have at recess. Her admiration for a
School where this kind of thing was done was only equalled by her dismay
when she discovered her mistake and was requested to hand over
twenty-three cents!

And now came the last and most important toast of all, and the School
song was sung with a right good will. Judith stood up and found herself
in the grip of an emotion stronger than herself. She looked out through
the trees where she saw the lights streaming out from the dining-hall
where the Old Girls were gathered; away off to the right was Miss
Meredith's green-shaded lamp burning on her study table; in front she
could see the lights in the common room and the library; here beside her
was the gymnasium where most of her own particular friends were sitting
at another table--and all these people were bound together by one
thing--love and loyalty to York Hill.

The song was ended--they were waiting for her to speak; here and there
in the semi-darkness she could distinguish a puzzled face; had they
been waiting long? With an effort she opened her paper, no, it wouldn't
do--she crushed it in her hand and waited for a minute till her heart
should stop throbbing in her throat. Then she spoke, falteringly at
first.

"Some of us were conceited--and--selfish. We thought about ourselves
mostly when we came here last September, but York Hill has made us
des