maid appeared and hurried down the hall to answer the bell.
“Apparently Rhoda has arrived. Isn’t she pretty?” breathed Anne softly.
When the door was opened, a low-toned conversation ensued, of which the eavesdroppers could hear nothing. Then Rhoda admitted the blond youth, who stood waiting while the maid came down the hall toward the two girls.
“Some one to see Miss Randall,” she announced.
Patricia clutched Anne’s arm in a frenzy. “You’ve got to come with me,” she whispered.
“Are you expecting a bag?” inquired the boy gravely, fixing his great grey eyes upon Patricia when she reached the door.
“Yes,” she faltered; “I left it on the bus.”
“The driver was going to bring it down on the six,” volunteered Anne irrelevantly.
“He did,” said the youth, “and asked me to deliver it. I have it in the vestibule.” Opening the door, he secured the bag and handed it to Patricia.
“I am very grateful to you,” said Patricia a bit stiffly. “It was good of you to bring it.”
“No trouble at all. I was down at the shelter waiting for some one—” he broke off suddenly, as if fearing he had said too much, and bowed himself solemnly out.
“Well!” exclaimed Anne. “Of all things! You seem fated to get mixed up with that young man.”
“Don’t I? I suppose Mike remembered that he was on the bus with us, and just naturally gave the bag to him on that account.”
“Probably. Anyhow, now you won’t have to borrow a dress. You’d better hurry, though; it’s after six, and we dine—mark, I said dine—at six-thirty.”
Dinner was quite an experience for Patricia, who had never before seen a college dining room. The big low room was bare and unattractive in itself, but the long tables, each surrounded by twenty girls in pretty dinner gowns, the bright lights, and the orange-clad waitresses made up for lack of decorations elsewhere.
“My ears will grow at least a yard long here,” she observed to Anne, who sat next to her.
“What on earth do you mean?” inquired that young lady, reaching for the olives.
“Why, there are so many interesting conversations going on all around me, that I want to hear them all.”
Anne laughed. “This is nothing; just wait until classes are in full swing. Then child psychology, music theory, library cataloguing, art appreciation, domestic science, and half a dozen other subjects are all being discussed simultaneously.”
That evening most of the girls had unpacking and settling to finish, but a few members of the Alley Gang gathered in Anne’s attractive room to visit. Betty Grant had just arrived, and she and Patricia had approved of each other at the first glance.
“Tell me, Betty,” Anne was saying, “is the Boy Friend coming down week ends, as he did last year?”
“No; this year, I’m going to work—hard.”
Everybody laughed.
“Well, I am. I told Ed he could come only twice during this term—”
“And a few times in between,” finished Hazel.
“By the way,” began Betty, in a different tone. “I saw the queerest thing, just as Ed and I drove up. There was a fellow standing in front of the laundry window, right under your room, Hazel, evidently talking to some one inside.”
“Come now, Betty,” protested Katharine, “you’re making that up to change the subject.”
“Honest to goodness, I’m not! I saw him plain as daylight. I didn’t say anything to Ed, because he would have wanted to investigate, and I’ve no fancy for having him get into an argument with strange men. He might have had a gun, for all I know.”
“Heavens, Betty! We’ll all be afraid to go to sleep tonight,” shuddered Mary. “Hazel, you’ll have to push your bed up close to mine so you can protect me.”
“What did the man look like?” asked Jane.
“I couldn’t see his face, but he was slight, of medium height and wore a grey suit and hat.”
“The blond youth!” whispered Anne to Patricia.
“But what would he be doing prowling around here?” asked Patricia, frowning.
“Search me! Oh, hello, Lu, where have you been all the evening?”
“In the laundry part of the time. I came on here right from a house party, and my clothes are in a fine state.”
Jane, Anne, Hazel, and Patricia glanced significantly at one another.
“Sure you were pressing, Lu?” asked Hazel mischievously.
Before Lucile had a chance to reply, Betty leaned forward and inquired, “Did you see the man, Lu?”
“What man?”
“The man who was looking in the laundry window.”
Lucile laughed, a bit loudly for her. “Nobody around the place while I was there,” she replied, with marked carelessness, “only Rhoda.”
“What was she doing?” asked Anne.
“Pressing her uniforms.”
A discussion of the new maid and her predecessor followed, and the subject of the mysterious man was dropped.
CHAPTER V
MOSS
One morning a couple of weeks later, Patricia was wakened suddenly by a marshmallow landing on her nose and scattering its fine, powdered sugar all over her face. Sitting up quickly, she saw through her open door Ruth and Jane in their room across the hall, sitting on their beds, doubled up with laughter.
“You fiends!” she cried softly. “Just you wait!”
“What’s the matter?” inquired Betty sleepily, from the other bed, without even opening her eyes.
“Those Goths across the hall threw a marshmallow in my face!” replied Patricia, seizing the unfortunate bit of confectionery and returning it with such good aim that it struck Jane’s hand and bounded off onto the rug, where it deposited the rest of its sugar.
“Get up, Lazy Bones!” ordered Jane. “We’ve got to go out for moss before breakfast.”
“I forgot all about it,” groaned Patricia. “I wish that botany class was in Hades.”
“I wish you’d all shut up,” complained Betty. “I want to sleep; and, thank Heaven, I don’t take botany.”
Patricia was soon ready, and the three girls stole softly down the hall
