paused again
before blurting out. "She said that roommates are good for the
character."

At this Lila rose with such an air of patient endurance that poor Bea
felt clumsy, remorseful, injured and perplexed simultaneously. A cloud of
resentful silence hovered over them both through the weary hours of the
afternoon. Not until the ten o'clock gong sent the echoes booming through
the deserted corridors, did Lila break down in a storm of weeping that
terrified Bea. She found herself begging pardon, apologizing, caressing,
explaining and repenting wholesale of rudeness about the desk, of selfish
neglect in the case of the books, of disloyalty in giving ear to Miss
Merriam's gratuitous comments. This gale blew over, leaving one girl with
darker circles under her eyes and a more pathetic droop at the corners of
her mouth, leaving the other with a fellow feeling for any unfortunate
bull who happens to get into a china shop, intentionally or otherwise.
Life at college promised to be like walking over exceedingly thin ice
every day and all day long.

And yet, after she had learned to make allowances for the
oversensitiveness, Bea found Lila more lovable and winning week by week.
She was philosopher enough to recognize the fact that every one has the
"defects of his qualities." The very quality that sent Lila hurrying
up-stairs in an agony of mortification because a senior had forgotten to
bow to her, was the one that inclined her to enter into Bea's varying
moods with exquisite responsiveness. It was delightful to have a friend
who was ever ready to answer gayety with gayety and sober thoughts with
sympathy. Indeed, when Lila was not wrapped up in her own suffering, she
could not be surpassed in the priceless gift of sympathy. For the sake of
that, much might be forgiven.

Much but not everything. Just before the midyear examinations came a
crisis in the growth of their friendship. One afternoon Lila reached the
head of the stairs barely in time to make a sudden swerve out of Miss
Merriam's breezy path.

"Heigho, Eliza Allan," she called in careless teasing, "why don't you
spell your name the way it is in the catalogue? More dignified, I think.
By the way, I've been into your room and left some burned cork for your
chapter play. We had more than we needed last night. By-bye."

Lila walked on in frosty silence. By-bye, indeed! And to address her as
Eliza, too, on this very afternoon when she had as much as she could bear
any