not have experienced.

"I wish you could go down to breakfast with me, Princess," she thought,
turning for a last glance when she was dressed, and pausing with her
hand on the door-knob. "I dread to go down alone before all those
strangers."

Dinner, the night before, had been a very stately affair, with Madam at
the head of the table in the long banquet hall, and Hawkins in solemn
charge of his corps of waiters. But breakfasts were to be delightfully
informal, Mary found a few minutes later, when she paused at the dining
room door and saw many small round tables, each cozily set for six: five
pupils and a teacher. Betty, presiding at one, looked up and beckoned to
her.

"You're a trifle early, but come on in. You're to have a seat here by
me, with Elise and A.O. just around the corner. Now tell me what has
happened to give you that 'glorious morning face,' as Stevenson puts it.
You look as if you had found some rare good fortune."

"I have, but I didn't know I showed it." Mary's hands went up to her
face as if she expected to feel the expression that Betty saw. "I am so
happy to think that I'm to be at your table. And I'm glad that I can
stop playing dumb for awhile. Oh, but it has been funny up in our room
this morning. I took your advice, and I want to tell you about it before
the other girls come down."

Betty laughed heartily as Mary pictured herself in bed under the
umbrella, and smiled understandingly when she told about finding a
make-believe chum in Lloyd's picture.

"I know, dear," she answered. "I used to do that way with god-mother's
picture when I was a lonely little thing at the Cuckoo's nest. I'd
whisper my troubles and show her my treasures, and feel that she kept
watch over me while I slept. It comforted me many a time, when there was
no one else to go to, and is one of my dearest recollections now of
those days when I felt so little and lonesome and uncared for."

"How Jack would laugh at me," exclaimed Mary, presently, "if he knew
that one of my air-castles had collapsed. He is always teasing me about
building sky-scrapers without any foundation. On my way out here Mrs.
Stockton told me a lot of stories about her school days. She roomed with
the Judge's sister, and she heard so much about him and he heard so
much about her through this sister, that they got to sending messages to
each other in her letters. Then they exchanged photographs, and finally
they met when he came on the Commencement,