care for Ethelinda's comfort. With this preconceived
notion it was somewhat of a shock when she went back to her room and
found the real Ethelinda being ushered into it.

She was not blue-eyed and appealing. She was large, she was
self-assured, and she took possession of the room in an expansive
all-pervading sort of way that made Mary feel very small and
insignificant. The room itself that heretofore had been so spacious
suddenly seemed to shrink, and when a huge trunk was brought in, it was
fairly crowded.

Mary drew her chair into the narrow space between the bed and the
window, but even there she felt in the way. "I don't see why I should,"
she thought with vague resentment. "It's as much my room as hers."

It was one of the requirements of the school that all trunks must be
emptied and sent to the store-room on arrival, and presently, as
Ethelinda seemed ignorant of the rule, Mary told her and offered to help
her unpack. The answer was excessively polite, so polite that it left
Mary at greater arm's length than before. Fanchon was to do the
unpacking. She had come on purpose for that. In a few moments Fanchon
came in, a middle-aged woman who had accompanied her from home, and who
was to return as soon as her charge was properly settled. The two
conversed in French, as Ethelinda, with her hands clasped behind her
head, tipped back in a rocking chair and lazily watched proceedings. She
was utterly regardless of Mary's presence.

"I might as well be the door-knob for all the notice she takes of me,"
thought Mary resentfully, "Well, she may prove to be as much as a tin
whistle, but she certainly isn't the prize I had hoped to find."

She cast another furtive glance at her over her lead-stringing, slowly
making up her estimate of her.

"She's what Joyce would call a drab blonde--washed out complexion and
sallow hair. She looks drab all the way through to me, but she may be
the kind that improves on acquaintance. She certainly has a good figure,
and looks as stylish as one of those fashion ladies in _Vogue_."

From time to time Mary proffered bits of information as occasion
offered, as to which of the drawers were empty and how to pull the
wardrobe door a certain way when it stuck, but her friendly advances
were so coldly received, that presently she slipped out of the room and
went over to the East wing to see what Elise Walton was doing.

Elise had already made friends with her room-mate, a little dumpling of