and becoming and almost
transformed the girl.

When the time came to leave home, her resolution was near the breaking
point. She feared her father might be convicted, though she had faith in
Mr. Cornwall, which had been strengthened by his predicted reversal of
her father's case. She had never been separated any length of time from
her mother, except when at school in Pineville. Then she had lived with
her mother's sister, her aunt Mandy, and went home every Saturday. Now,
for many months, she would be away from all kindred and acquaintances,
depending for sympathy and companionship on yet unmade friends.

Her father said: "Don't go, little girl, if you don't feel like it,"
while she cried in his arms.

"Father, I shall go; be good to mother, and when Mr. Cornwall gets you
off never touch a gun."

"Alright, Mary."

Her mother accompanied her to Winchester and there, with face stained by
tears and the coal dust of the local train, bade her good-bye. Mary
bought her ticket by way of New York, on the C. & O. At the advice of
the agent, who was a kindly man and had grown daughters of his own, she
purchased a Pullman ticket and was told when she arrived in New York to
go straight to the traveler's aid matron in the station.

When the train pulled up, her cheap, little trunk was put in the baggage
car and she, with a paper shoe box of lunch under her arm and a cheap
handbag in the other hand, boarded the train and took a seat in the day
coach, where she would have remained, except that the agent, seeing her
talking through the window with her mother, pointed her out to the
conductor as a Pullman passenger. After the train started, the conductor
piloted her to her section and, as he went out, whispered to the car
conductor to shoo off the drummers.

In New York the station matron put her aboard her train and sent a
telegram to the college, asking that some one meet her, which Mary
signed and paid for.

She was unable to qualify for the freshman course, but was permitted to
enter on probation. Her natural ability and application were such that
in a few months she had qualified herself to continue in the class and
at the end of the spring term was ranked among the most proficient of
the freshmen.

Upon her arrival she had been given a room with a little snob, the only
child of a newly rich couple who lived in a suburb of Boston. Her
roommate did everything she could to make Mary as miserable as possible.
She made fun