Career" etc.

Illustrated by Eva M. Nagel

[Illustration: SHE HID HER FACE AGAINST MARTHA'S DRESS]

The Penn Publishing Company
Philadelphia MCMVII

Copyright 1907 by the Penn Publishing Company

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
I Bea's Roommate 9
II Enter Robbie Belle 35
III A Question of Economy 59
IV Her Freshman Valentines 81
V The Giftie Gie Us 92
VI A Wave of Reform 115
VII Four Sophomores and a Dog 145
VIII Classes in Manners 172
IX This Vain Show 198
X Consequences 214
XI A Girl to Have Friends 231
XII An Original in Math 255
XIII Just This Once 283
XIV Classmates 299
XV Victory 321

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE
SHE HID HER FACE AGAINST MARTHA'S DRESS Frontispiece
Lila Stood Staring Out at the Snow 28
"Anything New?" 73
"Oh, Thank You; I Don't Want Anything to Eat" 96
We Handed Over Five Dollars Apiece 201
She Waved an Open Letter In Her Hand 276
She Held Both Hands, Smiling 301

BEATRICE LEIGH AT COLLEGE

CHAPTER I

BEA'S ROOMMATE

Lila Allan went to college in the hope of finding an intimate friend at
last. Her mother at home waited anxiously for her earliest letters, and
devoured them in eager haste to discover some hint of success in the
search; for being a wise woman she knew her own daughter, and understood
the difficulty as well as the necessity of the case.

The first letter was written on the day of arrival. It contained a
frantic appeal for enough money to buy her ticket home immediately,
because she had a lonesome room away up in the north tower, and nobody
had spoken to her all the afternoon, and her trunk had not come yet, and
she did not know where the dining-room was, and the corridors were full
of packing-boxes with lids scattered around, and girls were hurrying to
and fro with step-ladders and kissing each other and running to hug each
other, and everything.

The second letter, written the following day, said that a freshman named
Beatrice Leigh had come up to help her unpack. Beatr