tand for, and couldn't.

This evening as she sat looking out into the dusk, her figure, usually
so apathetic and lifeless, took on an animated line, and stiffened into
something that suggested a smothered, half-dead temperament breathing
into life. She took her arms from the back of her neck, where they had
been supporting her head, and digging her elbows into her knees made a
place for her chin to rest in the palms of her hands. She sat this way
for a long time, thinking, and her thoughts, for the most part, were
occupied with her room-mate.

She wished she could get rid of her--be alone. She was tired of the
running in of the girls who had taken Blue Bonnet up; their incessant
gabble; their whispered conversations during the visiting hour. To be
sure, Blue Bonnet had tried, time and time again, to draw her into these
conversations, but she had no desire to be drawn in. She hated Annabel
Jackson--the little snob--and Ruth Biddle's impertinences were beyond
endurance. These girls had snubbed her since her entrance as a
Sophomore, three years before, leaving her out of their
festivities,--ignoring, scorning her, just as on the other hand they had
taken up this new room-mate, deluging her with devotion, showering their
gifts and attentions upon her.

Joy Cross was a scholar--so reputed, and justly; but one of life's most
important lessons had passed her by. She had never learned that to
receive, one must give; to be loved, one must love; to attain, one must
reach out. It never occurred to her to weigh her own shortcomings and
throw them into the balance with those of her enemies. She spent no
time in introspection, self examination. She set a high standard on her
own virtues, and, like most persons of this character, was oblivious to
her faults.

Her three years in the school had been marked by no serious
difficulties. She had been able to hide most of the unpleasant things in
her nature, by her very aloofness. She had no close friends. She was
judged by her work, her attention to duty, her obedience to rules; all
of which were apparently beyond criticism. Her teachers, though they
respected her, never grew fond of her. She led her classes through
assiduous application, rather than brilliancy of mind.

She was an omnivorous reader. The only rule she ever thought of
breaking, was to rise in the dead of night, when the house was still,
and taking a secreted candle, lock herself in the bathroom--which had an
outside wi