n with a
swift hungry gesture she reached out her arms and swept the younger girl
close to her heart.

"Laura, I can't spare you, I can't spare you. You are all I have. Forgive
me and let me try again. It is an evil spirit that made me talk that way.
And, oh, Laura, dear, I want you to like me better than you like Berta. I
need you more."

Laura put up her mouth in child-fashion for a kiss of reconciliation. "I
like you both," she said, and freeing herself gently stooped to pick up
the loose leaves of the essay. "Shall we go on with revising this now,
Lucine? It is due this evening, you know. The board meets at eight in the
magazine sanctum."

Lucine watched her with a wistfulness that softened to tenderness the
faint lines of native selfishness about her mouth. "Laura, I want you to
room with me next year. We can choose a double with a study and adjoining
bedrooms. It will make me so happy. Do you know, last autumn when I lived
in the main building and you away off in the farthest dormitory, I used
to sit in a corridor window every morning to watch for you. I care more
for you than for any one else. I shall teach you to care most for me next
year."

Laura seemed to have extraordinary trouble in capturing the last sheet,
for it fluttered away repeatedly from her grasp and she kept bending to
reach it again. Lucine could not see her face.

"Will you," she repeated, "will you room with me next year, Laura?"

Laura coughed and made another wild dive in pursuit of the incorrigible
paper. "Let's not talk about next year," she mumbled uncomfortably, "it
is so far off and ever so many things may happen before June. Of course,"
she faltered and swallowed something in her throat, "I'd love to room
with you, if--if I can. But now we must hurry with this essay."

"Well, remember that I have asked you first," said Lucine, "and I can't
spare you."

Laura said nothing.

After the essay had been read and discussed by Laura whose critical
insight was much keener than Lucine's, the older girl settled herself to
rewrite the article before evening. Dinner found her still at her desk,
fingers inky, hair disordered, collar loosened in the fury of
composition. In reply to Laura's urgent summons to dress, she paused long
enough to push back a lock that had fallen over her brow.

"Don't bother me now. I'm just getting this right at last. Go away. I
don't want any dinner." The pen began again on its busy scratching.

"Lucine, you