ant. To Hester it seemed as though hours
had passed before Helen replied gently and firmly, "Not to-night,
Hester. I--I--cannot--to-night."

CHAPTER XI

After this, Hester Alden believed that school could never be as it had
been. The first day proved that she was wrong. Outwardly, life at
Dickinson moved on as before. No one appeared to know or care that
Hester Alden had been touched to the quick, and that she was very
miserable and unhappy.

Helen was courtesy itself. She was careful to include Hester in all her
invitations, but it was a carefulness forced upon her from a sense of
duty and not from love. Hester was not dull. She felt the difference.
She could be quite as proud as Helen. So she raised her head a trifle
higher as she walked and drew her shoulders a little more rigid and gave
back to Helen the same rigid courtesy that she was receiving.

To Hester it was tragic. The alienation was a genuine sorrow to her. To
one who merely looked on, the two girls were acting foolishly. A few
words would have cleared away the misunderstanding and saved them from
suffering. Helen acted from what she thought was a high sense of
justice; Hester's action was from pride only.

The other girls in the dormitory knew not the cause of the estrangement,
for both Helen and Hester had that sense of honor which impelled them to
keep closed lips on such matters. The intuition of the girls told them
that affairs between Helen and Hester were not quite the same. That was
as far as their intuition carried them.

In spite of Hester's unhappiness, matters at Dickinson moved on as
before. Renee came to borrow; Erma laughed merrily; Mame wept over the
condition of her clothes which looked as though they were fresh from the
French tailor; Josephine grew eloquent on moonlight, love-stories, and
kindred subjects; Mellie Wright came and went like a gentle ray of
sunshine. The strangest part of all to Hester was that Mellie, who never
appeared to notice what took place, was first to grasp the situation.
Before the week had passed, she made an occasion to join Hester on the
campus. No reference at all was made to the state of depression which
hung over Hester like a cloud, but before the two had parted, the
younger girl carried with her these impressions:

Everything comes right some day, and that day comes when least expected;
nothing matters if one continues to do what is right, regardless of
other people's opinion of one; and if