ld help
her to like college. I have told you all about Mabel before. Next to
Anne and Miriam, Mabel was my best friend here at Overton. I can't begin
to tell you how I missed her last year. When Miss West first came to
Overton I thought it would be perfectly splendid to have a real
newspaper reporter with us, and because she was Mabel's friend I felt
doubly sure of liking her.

"Mabel had sent me a telegram asking me to go to the station to meet
her. Anne and I didn't allow any grass to grow under our feet. We rushed
off post haste to the station. Confidentially, we were dreadfully
disappointed in her. She was not in the least the sort of girl that I
had expected to meet. I suppose I entertained an almost exaggerated idea
of what a newspaper woman should be. I've always enjoyed reading stories
about clever women who covered important assignments and made good on
newspapers. You know the kind of stories I mean."

Patience nodded understandingly. "Real people are never like people in
books," she commented. "Usually the real folks do far more startling
things than the book people ever thought of doing."

"I know it," agreed Grace, with a rueful smile. "Suppose I say what you
just said happens to apply to this case, and leave the rest to your
imagination."

"Very neatly put," was Patience's grim answer. "My imagination is quite
equal to the strain. As her roommate, I can draw upon fact rather than
imagination."

"Yet I have a curious feeling that you are going to succeed where we
have failed. You are so strong and capable and----" Grace's earnest eyes
looked their confidence in Patience, as she groped for the word that
would describe her friend. "I can't think of the right word now, but you
understand me. What I mean is that once you had made up your mind to do
something, you'd do it or die."

"'Tis the blood of my Revolutionary ancestors that spurs me on to deeds
of might," declaimed Patience. "Don't give up the ship--girl, I mean,"
she finished humorously.

"That looks like Miss West just ahead of us!" exclaimed Grace. "She came
from that house at the end of the row. A crowd of freshmen live there
and one of them seems to be a particular friend of hers."

"You mean Miss Rawle?" replied Patience. "I have named her my daily
affliction. She haunts Wayne Hall with a persistency worthy of a better
cause. She adores Miss West, and tells me all about it while she is
waiting for Kathleen, who, I suspect, runs away from