join in Janie's most enthusiastic praises of the new girl.
"Do you know that my room is in the same wing with yours, just next door?" Ida asked, as they rose from the table. "At least, I think so, for as I came down to dinner I saw some trunks being carried in there, marked E. L. L. and L. S."
"I am so glad!" exclaimed Lloyd. "I wondered who we should have for neighbahs. Betty and I ran up there a few minutes this mawning, but the beds and things mothah wanted us to use hadn't been sent ovah from Locust, and it was so topsy-turvy we didn't stay."
"I came yesterday," said Ida, as the three went up the stairs together, "so I've had time to investigate. I imagine we shall be able to do about as we please. You see, this wing of the house was added several years after the main part was built, so there are four rooms on this floor, nicely cut off by themselves."
She opened the door from the main corridor, and led the way into the narrow side-hall which separated the four rooms from the rest of the house.
"Several nights in the week the three of us will be here alone," she said. "This tiny room at the end belongs to that queer little Magnolia Budine whom everybody laughed at this morning. She lives near enough the seminary to go home every Friday night and stay till Monday morning. The three Clark sisters have this big room next to hers, and they go home to spend Sundays, too. By the way, wasn't it ridiculous the way Miss McCannister got their names all balled up this morning in the history division, trying to say Carrie Clark, Clara Clark, Cora Clark?"
"It was funny," laughed Lloyd. "Kitty Walton whispered to me that they ought to be called the triplets, because every one trips and stuttahs ovah their names. It's as bad as trying to say 'Six slim, slick, silvah saplings.'"
They had reached the third room by this time, the door of which stood open. "This is ours," said Lloyd. "The very same one mothah had one term when she was a girl."
She paused on the threshold, looking around the large, airy apartment, well pleased.
"I wonder if the outside stairway was built when she was here," said Ida. "I discovered it yesterday."
"I nevah heard her say anything about it," said Lloyd. "Where is it?"
"This way," answered Ida, leading them past her own room, which came next, and pushing aside a heavy portière which covered a door at the opposite end of the hall from Magnolia Budine's room.
"The matron told me that a slight fire in the school, one time, led to the building, of this extra means of escape, but the girls are forbidden to use the stairs for any other purpose."
"Let's open it," proposed Lloyd, daringly, fumbling with the bolt, which had lain so long unused that it had rusted in its socket. It moved stiffly with a grating sound as she pushed it back. The door swung open on to a small, uncovered landing, from which an open staircase descended to the rear of the kitchen.
"I've often seen these steps from the outside," said Lloyd, "but I didn't know where they led to. No, I nevah heard mothah speak of them. Isn't it fun to have a secret stairway of our own! Why do you suppose they have a curtain ovah the doah?"
"To hide it," said Betty, wisely, "so that the daily sight of it will not put it into our naughty heads to make use of it, and prowl around at nights. They evidently think 'How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds makes ill deeds done.' So they cover it up."
"That's from Shakespeare, isn't it?" asked Ida. "I'd give anything if I could make appropriate quotations like that, but I never think of the right thing till it's too late. But then, I suppose it comes easy to any one smart enough to write as you do. I am so anxious to read that play of yours, 'The Rescue of the Princess Winsome.' I was told that there is a copy in the library. Your room ought to be called 'Sweet Peas,' since it belongs to a princess and a poetess."
Betty blushed with pleasure. They had bolted the door again and were standing in front of their room, as Ida proposed the name of Sweet Peas.
"It is kind of you to give us such a sweet name for our room," said Lloyd. "Will you come in while we unpack?"
"No, thank you," was the answer. "I have some letters to write before four o'clock. That is the time, I believe, when we all have to turn out together for a walk." She turned away, but came back to ask, hesitatingly, "There's one thing I'd like to ask, Lloyd; do you mind if I call you Princess instead of Lloyd? The Princess Winsome? That name seems to suit you so well. The first thing I noticed about you was the proud little way you lift your head. You carry yourself like one."
A bright colour swept across Lloyd's face. "Of co'se I don't mind," she said, "and it is deah of you to care to call me that."
When Ida went back to her own room, it was with the comfortable feeling that she had left a very agreeable impression behind her.
"Isn't she a darling!" exclaimed Lloyd, enthusiastically, when she and Betty were alone, with their door closed. "She is pretty and stylish, and certainly has lovely mannahs. Besides, she is as sma'ht as can be, and mighty entahtaining. I've taken a great fancy to her."
"So have I," admitted Betty. "I love to sit and watch her. The least thing she says in that soft, slow way sounds sweet. I am so glad that her room is next to ours."
Mrs. Sherman had advised taking few furnishings to the seminary, but Lloyd insisted that they could not feel that they were really away at boarding-school unless they had all that goes to equip a modern college girl's room. So pictures and posters, sofa-pillows and book-racks were crowded into the overflowing trunks. A chafing-dish, a well-furnished tea-basket, a dainty chocolate-pot, and a mandolin were brought over in the carriage that took Mrs. Sherman to the depot. Both girls were kept busy until four o'clock, finding places to put their numerous possessions. Neither one realized how far she had passed under the spell of the new pupil, but unconsciously every picture they hung and every article they unpacked was located with a thought of her approval.
Once as Lloyd passed the mirror, when Betty's back was turned, she paused to look at her reflection with the pleased consciousness that Ida had spoken the truth; that she did hold her head proudly and carry herself well. And Betty several times passed her hand up over the brown curls on her forehead, recalling the graceful gesture of the white, heavily ringed hand. While she tacked up posters and put away clothes, she chattered busily with Lloyd, but through her thoughts, like an undercurrent to their conversation, ran a few musical lines suggested by the white hands and low voice. An "Ode to Ida" had already begun to weave itself into shape in her busy little brain.
A few minutes before the gong sounded, summoning the girls to the first of their daily walks, Ida tapped on the door. She had only stopped to ask a question about the rules, she said, and must run back and put on her hat; but catching sight of a picture of the long avenue at Locust, which hung over Lloyd's bed, she crossed the room to examine it.
"You've made a perfect love of a room with all these handsome things," she said, looking around admiringly. "But" – she scanned the few photographs on the mantel, and the two on the dressing-table in their frames of beaten silver – "it seems so queer, you know. You haven't the picture of a single boy. Didn't you bring any?"
"No!" answered Lloyd, in surprise. "Why should I?"
"But you have some at home, haven't you?" persisted Ida.
"Yes, I have lovely ones of Allison Walton's cousins, Malcolm and Keith MacIntyre, taken in the costumes they wore as 'two little knights of Kentucky.' And I have one of Ranald Walton taken in his captain's uniform, and nearly a dozen of Rob Moore. He's given me one whenevah he's had them taken, from the time he wore kilts and curls."
"My dear!"
