a chaperon, and she said it in such a way
that I couldn't help saying that I thought one must feel like a poodle
tied to a string--always fastened to a chaperon. As for me give me
liberty or give me death. And she answered, 'Oh, aren't you _queer_!'
Then after awhile I tried again, but she wouldn't draw out worth a cent.
Said she had never roomed with any one before, but supposed it was one
of the disagreeable things one had to put up with when one went away to
school. Imagine! Pleasant for me, wasn't it!"

"Try letting her alone for awhile," advised Betty. "Beat her at her own
game. Play dumb for--say a week."

"But that is so much good time wasted, when we might be chums from the
start. When you're going to bed is the cream of the day. You see you
always had Lloyd, so you don't know what it is like to room with an
oyster."

"Here it is," announced Betty, unwrapping the package she had just
found, and passing it to Mary. "Lloyd's latest photograph, the best she
has ever had taken, in my opinion. It's so lifelike you almost wait to
hear her speak. And I like it because it's so simple and girlish. I
suppose the next one will be taken in evening gown after she makes her
debut."

"Oh, is it for me?" was the happy cry.

"Yes, frame, picture, nail to hang it on and all. Lloyd sent it with her
love. The day the photographs came home, she found that funny slip of
paper with all the questions on it Jack was to ask. And you wanted so
especially to know just how the Princess looked and how she was wearing
her hair and all that, that she said, 'I believe I'll send one of these
to Mary. She'll admire it whether any one else does or not.'"

"Tell me about her," begged Mary, propping the frame up in front of her
that she might watch the beloved face while she listened.

Nothing loath, Betty sat down and began to talk of the gay summer just
gone, of the picnics and the barn parties, the moonlight drives, the
rainy days at the Log Cabin, the many knights who came a-riding by to
pay court to the fair daughter of the house. Then she told of her own
good times and the disappointment when her manuscript had been returned,
and the reason for her coming to Warwick Hall to teach.

"I have come to serve my apprenticeship," she explained. "The old
Colonel advised me to. He said I must live awhile--have some experiences
that go deeper than the carefree existence I have been living, before I
can write anything worth while. I am sure he i