or the room he had prudently engaged months
ahead, and was duly bestowed within those plain white walls between
which the Freshman begins a charmed existence of four years or four
months, as the Committee may determine.

It is recorded that once before Commencement two Seniors came from
fraternity houses at opposite ends of the campus and slept together the
last night, as they had slept their first, in their Freshman room at the
Hall. They had been rivals and in warring factions, but they lay down
together in that place of beginnings, before a new heaven opened for
them over a new earth. This is proof positive that you never forget your
first room in the Hall. You may give it up for an attic in a
chapter-house, you may go to live with young Freshleigh, with whom you
are already chums, and whose apartment has the morning sun; but the
first room is a foundation stone in your house of memories. Your trunk
is brought in by the Student Transfer man (first lesson in self-help)
and put down near the dreary-looking beds with their mattresses doubled
on the foot-rail. Then, sitting down by the bare, shining table where,
later on, theses are to be written and punches brewed, you stake out
claims for the decorative material in your trunk. Certainly decorations
are needed. The wardrobe stands forbiddingly against the wall. You will
soon learn how to move it forward, reverse it, and adorn the back. The
chilling whiteness of the walls is relieved only by one square,
uncompromising mirror. An "Addersonian" tenderness has placed a
yellow-flowered rug beside each bed. Otherwise, the place is barren.

If there is time before dinner, you swallow your loneliness and get out
the home photographs and stand them up here and there, and the room is
changed. These walls may become a scrap-book of four years' association
with Alma Mater; the wardrobe may be hidden with kodaks of the gang and
its exploits; but to-day, before you have even met the gang, you come
into your own.

The newly-arrived Haviland, in the throes of this emotion, looks about
him. He has put upon the ugly commode sundry pictures of his graduating
class at the High School, each one dressed in his best, each flanked by
floral offerings, each holding the impressive diploma. Later, these
portraits will be less prominent in this college room.

He looks at them with a feeling of pity. It must be hard not to come to
college. He is a lucky boy. Sliding unobtrusively into the hall-w