e table; while others were continually passing in and out to announce
their own arrival, or to search for absent companions. Several glanced
at Patty, but nobody spoke to her, or paid any particular attention, so
she walked over to the sofa, and taking a book which she found there,
sat idly turning the pages without reading them, and feeling very
uncomfortable and extremely homesick. Everybody in the room, she
thought, seemed talking, laughing, and joking with everyone else, and
she was the only stranger amongst them. No, she was mistaken. There was
one girl as solitary as herself, sitting on the music stool, and turning
over a pile of old pieces and songs that lay on the top of the piano.
She was an interesting-looking girl, with good features, grey eyes with
very long dark lashes, a clear pale complexion, as creamy as if it had
been bathed in milk, and light-brown hair that curled charmingly round
her forehead. She did not appear to find her occupation very absorbing,
for she glanced every now and then in Patty's direction, and finally,
putting the music back on the piano, came quietly across the room and
sat down beside her on the sofa.

"I suppose you're new, aren't you?" she said. "So am I. We seem rather
out of it at present, don't we? Do you know any of these girls?"

"No," replied Patty, "not one of them. I've only just come a little
while ago."

"Yes, I saw your cab drive up. I arrived by the earlier train, so I've
had more time to get used to it. I can't say I like it at all yet,
though. To tell you the truth, I don't mind confessing I'd give
everything in the world to find myself at home again."

This was so exactly Patty's present state of mind, that she felt it
established a bond of sympathy at once with her companion, and
encouraged her sufficiently to enquire her name.

"Jean Bannerman," said the girl, "and I'm almost fifteen. What's yours?"

"Patty Hirst, and I shall be fourteen in October."

"Then I'm nearly a year older than you, for my birthday's in November.
Which bedroom are you in?"

"No. 7."

"I'm in No. 10. I don't know what my room mates are like yet. I hope
they're nice. I wish you had been one of them. It seems so horrid when
everything and everybody are strange. Isn't it dreadfully noisy here?
Suppose we go into the courtyard for a little while. It's quite light
yet, and I see ever so many girls out there. Do you know your way about
the school?"

"Yes--no--yes," replied Patty, hes