uld die!"

After all her heroics it was a terrible come-down for poor Ulyth now the
actual had taken the place of the sentimental. Her class-mates could not
forbear teasing her a little. It was too bad of them; but then they had
resented her entire pre-appropriation of the new-comer, and, moreover,
had one or two old scores from last term to pay off. Ulyth began to
detest the very name of "the Prairie Flower". She wondered how she could
ever have been so silly.

"I ought to have been warned," she thought, trying to throw the blame on
to somebody else. "No one ever suggested she'd be like this. The editor
of the magazine really shouldn't have persuaded us to write. It's all
his fault in the beginning."

Though the rest of the girls were scarcely impressed with Rona's
personality, they were not utterly repelled.

"She's rather pretty," ventured Lizzie Lonsdale. "Her eyes are the
bluest I've ever seen."

"And her teeth are so white and even," added Beth Broadway. "She looks
jolly when she smiles."

"Perhaps she'll smarten up soon," suggested Addie Knighton. "That blue
dress suits her; it just matches her eyes."

To Ulyth's fastidious taste Rona's clothes looked hopelessly ill-cut and
colonial, especially as her room-mate put them on anyhow, and seemed to
have no regard at all for appearances. A girl who did not mind whether
she looked really trim, spruce and smart, must indeed have spent her
life in the backwoods.

"Didn't you even have a governess in New Zealand?" she ventured one day.
She did not encourage Rona to talk, but for once her curiosity overcame
her dislike of the high-pitched voice.

"Couldn't get one to stop up-country, where we were. Mrs. Barker, our
cowman's wife, looked after me ever since Mother died. She was the only
woman about the place. One of our farm helps taught me lessons. He was a
B.A. of Oxford, but down on his luck. Dad said I'd seem queer to English
girls. I don't know that I care."

Though Rona might not be possessed of the most delicate perceptions, she
nevertheless had common sense enough to realize that Ulyth did not
receive her with enthusiasm.

"I suppose you're disappointed in me?" she queried. "Dad said you would
be, but I laughed at him. Pity if our ready-made friendship turned out a
misfit! I think you're no end! Dad said I'd got to copy you; it'll take
me all my time, I expect. Things are so different here from home."

Was there a suspicion of a choke in the words?