s, she said in English, "Good-night," kissed her own hand,
and, throwing the kiss toward Marion, disappeared.

Marion found her trunk in her room unstrapped, and, tired as she was,
began to make preparations for spending the night there.

She did not suppose for a moment it was to be permanently hers, but
fell asleep wondering what could be next in waiting for her.

CHAPTER III.

GLADYS HAS A ROOM-MATE.

When Dorothy left Marion at the call of the gong for study hours she
went at once to her own room.

She had two room-mates, both her cousins; one, Gladys Philbrick, was a
Florida girl, the only child of a wealthy owner of several
orange-groves. She was motherless, and needed a woman's care, and the
advantages of a Northern education, so her father sent her to live
with relatives in the small seaport town of Rock Cove.

The other, Susan Downer, was the child of a sister of Mr. Philbrick;
her father followed the sea, and her brother, almost the one boy in
Rock Cove who did not look upon a sailor life as the only one worth
living, was at the present time a student at the academy at Atherton,
only a few miles from Montrose. Dorothy herself was the child of a
fisherman--her own mother dead, and she left under the care of a weak
stepmother, whose numerous family of small children had made Dorothy's
life one of constant hardship.

When Mr. Philbrick, in one of his visits to Gladys at the North,
became acquainted with this little group of cousins, he had no
hesitation--being not only an educated man, but also one of a great
heart and generous nature--in making plans for their future education.
In carrying these out, he had sent Jerry Downer to Atherton; Gladys,
Susan, and Dorothy to Montrose.

Her cousins were already busy with their books when Dorothy came into
the room; and, careful not to disturb them, she sat quietly down to
study her own lessons, but she could not fix her mind upon them.
Marion alone down-stairs, homesick, with no one to say a kind word to
her, or to tell her about the school, "a stranger in a strange land,"
she kept repeating to herself; "and such a sweet-looking girl. It's
too bad!"

Try her best not to, she still found herself watching the hands of the
clock. For a wonder she was anxious to have study hours over; she
wanted to tell her cousins about Marion.

As it proved, they were quite as anxious to hear; for no sooner had
the clock struck nine, and the gong struck again for the