pkin in the gaze of a long line of ancestral portraits.

Madam Chartley, who had been looking forward to the dinner hour with
some apprehension on the new pupil's account, knowing she would be
obliged to curb the lively little tongue if she talked at the table as
she had done in the reception room, was amazed at the change in her.
Warwick Hall had done its work. Already the little chameleon had taken
on the colour of her surroundings. Hawkins, in all his years of London
service, had never served a more demure, self-possessed little English
maiden, or one who listened with greater deference to the conversation
of her elders.

She spoke only when she was spoken to, but some of her odd, unexpected
replies made Herr Vogelbaum look up with an interest he rarely took in
anything outside of his music and his dinner. Miss Chilton was so amused
at her accounts of Arizona life, that she invited her up to her room,
and led her into a conversation that revealed her most original traits.

"She's a bright little thing," Miss Chilton reported to Madam afterward,
"The kind of a girl who is bound to be popular in a school, just because
she's so different and interesting."

"She is more than that," answered Madam, smiling over the recollection
of some of her quaint speeches. "She is lovable. She has 'the divine
gift of making friends,'"

CHAPTER III

ROOM-MATES

Up in her orderly room, on opening day, Mary listened to the bustle of
arrivals, and the stir of unpacking going on all over the house. The
cordial greetings called back and forth from the various rooms and the
laughter in the halls made her long to have a part in the general
sociability. She wished that it were necessary for her to borrow a
hammer or to ask information about the trunk-room and the porter, as the
other new girls were doing. That would give her an excuse for going into
some of the rooms and making acquaintance with their occupants. But
everything was in absolute order, and she was already familiar with the
place and its rules. There was nothing for her to do but take out her
bead-work and occupy herself with that as best she could until the
arrival of her room-mate.

She set her door invitingly open, ready to meet more than half way any
advances her neighbours might choose to make. While she sorted her beads
she amused herself by fitting together the scraps of conversation which
floated her way, and making guesses as to the personality of the
spe