lad to have you with
us."

It was a simple welcome, but it was hearty, and we all know how much
that means.

Gladys led her to the window. "Come here first," she said, "and look
out."

It was the same view she had seen from the guest-room the night
before, only now it was soft and tender in the light of a half-clouded
autumn sun.

"My father said, when he saw it, it ought to make us better, nobler,
and happier to have this to look at. That was asking a great deal, was
not it? because, you see, we get used to it. But there's the sea; you
know how the sea looks, never the same twice; because it's still and
full of ripples to-day, you don't know but the waves will be tumbling
over Judith's Woe to-morrow."

"I never saw the ocean," said Marion. "That is one of the great things
I have come to the East to see."

"Never saw the ocean?" repeated Gladys, looking at Marion as curiously
as if she had told her she never saw the sun. "Oh, what a treat you
have before you! I almost envy you. This is well enough for a
landscape, but the seascapes leave you nothing to desire. Now, come to
our room. You are to chum with me, and we will be awful good and kind
to each other, won't we?"

"How happy I shall be here!" was Marion's answer, as she looked around
the rooms. "I wish my mother could see it all!"

"I wish she could," said Dorothy kindly.

The rooms in this academy building were planned in suites,--a parlor,
with two bedrooms opening from it. These accommodated four pupils,
unless, as was frequently the case, some parents wished their
daughter--as did Gladys's father--to have her sleeping-room to
herself. In this case extra payment was made.

Marion found her trunk already in Gladys's room, and the work of
settling down was quickly and pleasantly done, with the help of her
three schoolmates. Lucky Marion! She had certainly, so far, begun her
Eastern life under the pleasantest auspices.

CHAPTER V.

MRS. PARKE'S LETTER.

And now commenced Marion's work. She was not quite fitted in higher
mathematics, and Miss Palmer, not disposed to be too indulgent in a
study where stupid girls tried her patience to its utmost every day of
her life, conditioned her without hesitation.

Miss Jones found her fully up, even before her class, in Latin and
Greek; her father having taken special pains in this part of her
education, being himself one of the elect in classical studies when in
Yale College. Her words of commendat