t quick enough. Isn't it awful? Only the second day of
the term to have things come to such a pass! Everything we do seems to
rub the other's fur up the wrong way."

"I'd ask Madam to change me to some other room," said Dorene, but Mary
resented the suggestion.

"No, indeed! I'll not have it said that I was such a fuss-cat as all
that. I'll make myself get along with her."

"Well, I don't envy you the task," was Cornie's rejoinder. "I never can
resist the temptation to take people down when they get high and mighty.
I heard her telling one of the girls at the breakfast table that she'd
never ridden on a street-car in all her life till she came to
Washington. She made Fanchon take her across the city in one instead of
calling a carriage as they always do. They have a garage full of
machines at home, and I don't know how many horses. She said it in a way
to make people who had always ridden in public conveyances feel mighty
plebeian and poor-folksy, although she insisted that street-cars are
lots of fun. 'They give you a funny sensation when they stop.' Those
were her very words."

"Well, of all things!" cried Mary, then after a moment's silent musing,
"It never struck me before, what different worlds we have been brought
up in. But if a street-car ride is as much of a novelty to her as an
automobile ride would be to me, I don't wonder that she spoke about it.
I know I'd talk about my sensations in an auto if I'd ever been in one,
and it wouldn't be bragging, either. Maybe all our other experiences
have been just as different," she went on, her judicial mind trying to
look at life from Ethelinda's view-point, in order to judge her fairly.

"I wonder what sort of a girl I would have been, if instead of always
having the Wolf at the door, we'd have had bronze lions guarding the
portals, and all the money that heart could wish."

"Money!" sniffed Cornie. "It isn't that that makes the difference in
Ethelinda. Look at Alta Westman, a million in her own right. There
isn't a sweeter, jollier, friendlier girl in the school."

"Any way," continued Mary, "I'd like to be able to put myself in
Ethelinda's place for about an hour, and see how things look to
her--especially how _I_ look to her. I'm glad I thought about that. It
will make it easier for me to get along with her, for it will help me to
make allowances for lots of things."

The door stood ajar, and catching sight of Jane Ridgeway coming up the
hall, Mary started t