returning things," said Lila, "she acts as if she
didn't care whether you do her a favor or not. I don't like her."

"She's queer," I said.

Now I had a perfect right to say that because it was true. Mary
Winchester was just about the queerest girl in college. Everybody thought
so. But I shall say no more at present, as her queerness is the subject
of the rest of this story. If I told you immediately just how she was
queer and all the rest of it, there wouldn't be any story left, would
there?

Well, as the weeks whirled past, we studied character and wrote daily
themes till we were desperate. Robbie Belle grew sadder and sadder until
Berta suggested that she might describe the gymnasium, the chapel, the
library, the drawing rooms, the kitchen, and so forth, one by one,
telling the exact size and position of everything. That filled up quite a
number of days. When Miss Anglin put a little note of expostulation, so
to speak, on the theme about the corridor--it was, "This is a course in
English, not mathematics, if you please,"--Berta started her in on the
picture gallery. There were enough paintings there to last till the end
of the semester. Of course, such work did not require her to read
character. Robbie Belle didn't want to do that somehow; she said it
seemed too much like gossip.

However, at first, it wasn't gossip. For instance one day Lila and I
collected smiles. We scurried around the garden and dived in and out of
the hedge in order to meet as many people as possible face to face. Then
we took notes on the varieties of greeting and made up themes about them.
Miss Anglin marked an excellent on mine that time. For another topic we
paid one-minute calls on everybody we knew. When they looked surprised
and inquired why we did not sit down, we frankly explained that we were
gathering material for an essay on Reading Character from the Way a
Person says "Come in!"

After we had been grinding out daily themes for three weeks we began to
long for something to break the monotony. My brain was just about wrung
dry, and Lila said she simply loathed the sight of a sheet of blank
paper. One afternoon while I was struggling over my theme, Berta threw a
snowball against my window, flew up the dormitory steps, sped down the
corridor, gave a double rat-tat-too on my door, and burst in without
waiting for an answer.

"Listen! Quick! I have an idea. It struck me out by the hedge. Why not
study manners as well as character?