ice had a long braid
too, and her hair was the loveliest auburn and curled around her face,
and she laughed a good deal. Lila had noticed her the very first evening.
She was sitting at one of the tables in the middle of the big
dining-room. When Lila saw her, she was giggling with her head bent down
and her napkin over her eyes, while the other girls at that table smiled
amused smiles. Lila knew instantly that this poor freshman had done
something dreadful, and she was sorry for her. Later that same evening in
Miss Merriam's room she told how she had marched in to dinner alone and
plumped down at that table among all those seniors. She seemed to
consider it a joke, but Lila was sure she had been almost mortified to
death when she learned of her mistake, and that was why she had laughed
so hard. Several other freshmen were at Miss Merriam's. Two of them were
named Roberta, and one was named Gertrude something. But Lila liked
Beatrice best. Miss Merriam called her Bea. Miss Merriam was a junior who
had invited in all the students at that end of the corridor to drink
chocolate. Lila did not care for her much, because she had a loud voice
and tipped back in her chair and said yep for yes.

The third missive was only a postal card bearing a properly telegraphic
communication to the effect that it was Saturday morning, and Bea was
waiting to escort her to the chapel to hear read the lists of freshman
names assigned to each recitation section. Mrs. Allan scanned the message
with a quick throb of pleasure; then sighed as she laid it down. The
indications were hopeful enough if only Lila would be careful not to
drive away this friend as she had the others.

Meanwhile on that Saturday morning Bea and Lila, silent and shy, had
crowded with their two hundred classmates into chapel. The two friends
sat side by side. Lila was in terror of making some horrible blunder that
might overwhelm her with a vast indefinite disgrace. She leaned forward
in the pew, the pencil trembling between her fingers, the blood pounding
in her ears, while from the platform in front a cool voice read on evenly
through page after page of names. And then at last the tragic despair of
finding that she had jotted down herself for two sections in English and
none in Latin! When she managed to gasp out the awful situation in Bea's
ear, that young person looked worried for full half a minute. It was a
very serious thing to be a freshman. Then her cheery common sen