ll be coming to see me one of
these days?"

Miss Vroom shook her head.

"I haven't much feeling for a vacation," she said. "I don't seem to fit
in anywhere except here at the University."

"I've no patience with you," cried Kate. "Why you should hang around
here doing graduate work year after year passes my understanding. I
declare I believe you stay here because it's cheap and passes the time;
but really, you know, it's a makeshift."

"It's all very well to talk, Kate, when you have a home waiting for you.
You're the kind that always has a place. If it wasn't your father's
house it would be some other man's--Ray McCrea's, for example. As for
me, I'm lucky to have acquired even a habit--and that's what college
_is_ with me--since I've no home."

Kate Barrington turned understanding and compassionate eyes upon her
friend. She had seen her growing a little thinner and more tense
everyday; had seen her putting on spectacles, and fighting anaemia with
tonics, and yielding unresistingly to shabbiness. Would she always be
speeding breathlessly from one classroom to another, palpitantly yet
sadly seeking for the knowledge with which she knew so little what
to do?

The train came thundering in--they were waiting for it at one of the
suburban stations--and there was only a second in which to say good-bye.
Lena, however, failed to say even that much. She pecked at Kate's cheek
with her nervous, thin lips, and Kate could only guess how much anguish
was concealed beneath this aridity of manner. Some sense of it made Kate
fling her arms about the girl and hold her in a warm embrace.

"Oh, Lena," she cried, "I'll never forget you--never!"

Lena did not stop to watch the train pull out. She marched away on her
heelless shoes, her eyes downcast, and Kate, straining her eyes after
her friend, smiled to think there had been only Lena to speed her
drearily on her way. Ray McCrea had, of course, taken it for granted
that he would be informed of the hour of her departure, but if she had
allowed him to come she might have committed herself in some absurd
way--said something she could not have lived up to.

* * * * *

As it was, she felt quite peaceful and more at leisure than she had for
months. She was even at liberty to indulge in memories and it suited her
mood deliberately to do so. She went back to the day when she had
persuaded her father and mother to let her leave the Silvertree Academy
for