ent--I didn't open this on the train at all."

She fell on her knees and opened her suit case while her friends
exchanged knowing smiles.

"Ruling passion even strong in death," observed Judy.

"Of course it's something good to eat," laughed pretty Jessie.

"Of course," replied Molly, pitching articles of clothing out of her
satchel with all the carelessness of one who pursues a single idea at a
time. "And why not? My sister made them for me the morning I left and
packed them carefully in a tin box with oiled paper."

"Cloudbursts!" they cried ecstatically and pounced on the box without
ceremony, while Molly, who, like most good cooks, had a small appetite,
leaned back in a Morris chair and regarded them with the pleased
satisfaction of a host who has provided satisfactory refreshment for his
guests.

The summer had made few changes in the faces of her last year's friends.
Margaret was a bit taller and more massive, and her handsome face a
little heavier. Already her youthful lines were maturing and she might
easily have been mistaken for a senior.

Nance was as round and plump as a partridge and there was a new
happiness in her face, the happiness of returning to the first place she
had ever known that in any way resembled a home. Nance had lived in a
boarding house ever since she could remember; but Queen's was not like a
boarding house; at least not like the one to which she was accustomed,
where the boarders consisted of two crusty old bachelors; a widow who
was hipped about her health and always talked "symptoms"; a spinster who
had taught school for thirty years; and Nance's parents--that is, one of
them, and at intervals the other. Mrs. Oldham only returned to her
family to rest between club conventions and lecture tours.

Judy had a beautiful creamy tan on her face which went admirably with
her dreamy gray eyes and soft light brown hair. There were times when
she looked much like a boy, and she did at this moment, Molly thought,
with her hair parted on one side and a brilliant Roman scarf knotted
around her rolling Byronic collar.

Jessie, just now engaged in the pleasing occupation of smiling at her
own image in the mirror over the mantel, was as pretty as ever. As for
Sallie Marks, every familiar freckle was in its familiar place, and, as
Judy remarked later, she had changed neither her spots nor her skin. She
had merely added a pair of eye-glasses to her tip-tilted critical nose
and there was, perha