quiver as I
came within view, and then actually she threw something overboard. People
always see more than you think they do. At least I saw that, and she
thought I didn't, for when I emerged upon the platform she looked up with
a surprised smile of welcome and said, "Isn't the river beautiful!"

I said, "Oh, isn't it!" and then I gazed at it very hard and attentively
so as to give her a chance to wipe the spot of jelly from her shirtwaist.
She had been eating her luncheon too. She had carried it wrapped up in
the funneled magazine. She had been ashamed to acknowledge that she
needed to be economical, too. I saw it all in a flash. She had intended
to ride in the common coach and save pullman fare, just like me. And
there we had been racing, neck and neck, trying to keep up with each
other.

"Oh, dear!" I said at last, "I wish we had taken a berth together and
saved our two dollars and a half apiece."

I heard her give a little gasp and I felt her staring at me. The next
minute she said, "There are crumbs on your necktie too." And then she
bent down her head and laughed and laughed and laughed till I had to
laugh too.

"I hope it'll be a lesson to us," I said at last.

She wiped the tears from her lashes. "It will be. I expect to be
repenting for weeks ahead,--at least, until my next allowance comes in.
But, you! Why, Miss Leigh, it seems so queer. I thought the college girl
was different as a rule--independent and frank and--oh, pardon
me--and--and so forth."

"She is," I assured her sadly, "as a rule. But I am an exception. I prove
the rule."

CHAPTER X

CONSEQUENCES

For her junior year Bea was fortunate enough to secure a mail-route, the
proceeds of which helped to make her independent of a home allowance for
spending money. To tell the truth, however, she enjoyed the work even
more than the salary. While distributing the letters she felt a personal
share in every delighted, "Oh, thank you!" in each ever-unsatisfied, "Is
that all?" or the disappointed, "Nothing for me to-day?"

From her own experience and observation during the years already past,
she was particularly interested in the different pairs of roommates who
came within the scope of her daily trips. In a certain double lived two
freshmen, one of whom always greeted her with, "Oh, thank you!" whether
the mail was addressed to her or to her roommate. But when the roommate
answered the knock, she invariably exclaimed, no matter how much w