other. No, he's not at the front. I haven't unpacked his photo. I
can't tell whether I like Brackenfield yet; I've only been here half an
hour."

As she still seemed at the shy stage, Betty and Sylvia stopped
catechizing her and concerned themselves with their own affairs. The
new-comer went on quietly with her unpacking, taking no notice of her
room-mates, but when the gong sounded for tea she allowed Betty and
Sylvia to pass, then looked half-appealingly, half-whimsically at
Marjorie.

"May I go down with you?" she asked. "I don't know my way about yet.
Sorry to be a nuisance. You can drop me if you like when you've landed
me in the dining-room. I don't want to tag on."

At the end of a week opinions in Dormitory No. 9 were divided on the
subject of Chrissie Lang. Betty and Sylvia frankly regretted Irene, and
were not disposed to extend too hearty a welcome to her substitute. It
was really in the first instance because Betty and Sylvia were
disagreeable to Chrissie that Marjorie took her up. It was more in a
spirit of opposition to her room-mates than of philanthropy towards the
new-comer. Betty and Sylvia were inclined to have fun together and leave
Marjorie out of their calculations, a state of affairs which she hotly
resented. During the whole of last term she had not found a chum. She
was rather friendly with Mollie Simpson, but Mollie was in another
dormitory, and this term had been moved into IV Upper A, so that they
were no longer working together in form. It was perhaps only natural
that she adopted Chrissie; she certainly found her an amusing companion,
if nothing more. Chrissie was humorous, and always inclined for fun.
She kept up a constant fire of little jokes. She would draw absurd
pictures of girls or mistresses on the edge of her blotting-paper, or
write parodies on popular poems. She was evidently much attracted to
Marjorie, yet she was one of those people with whom one never grows
really intimate. One may know them for years without ever getting beyond
the outside crust, and the heart of them always remains a sealed book.
There is a certain magnetism in friendship. It is perhaps only once or
twice in a lifetime that we meet the one with whom our spirit can really
fuse, the kindred soul who seems always able to understand and
sympathize. In the hurry and bustle of school life, however, it is
something to have a congenial comrade, if it is only a girl who will sit
next you at meals, walk to church w