“Maggie, dear—­ you are far too sensitive.  Could the college afford to keep a room empty because poor, dear Annie Lee occupied it?”

“They could, they ought,” burst from Maggie.  She stamped her foot with anger.  “That room is a shrine to me.  It will always be a shrine.  I shall hate the person who lives in it.”  Tears filled her bright brown eyes.  Her arched, proud lips trembled.  She opened her door, and going into her room, shut it with a bang, almost in Nancy Banister’s face.

Nancy stood still for a moment.  A quick sigh came from her lips.

“Maggie is the dearest girl in the college,” she said to herself; “the dearest, the sweetest, the prettiest, yet also the most tantalizing, the most provoking, the most inconsequent.  It is the greatest wonder she has kept so long out of some serious scrape.  She will never leave here without doing something outrageous, and yet there isn’t a girl in the place to be named with her.  I wish—­” here Nancy sighed again and put her hand to her brow as if to chase away some perplexity.

Then, after a moment’s hesitation, she went up to the door of the room next to Maggie’s and knocked.

There was a moment’s silence, then a constrained voice said: 

“Come in.”

Nancy entered at once.

Priscilla Peel was standing in the center of the room.  The electric light was turned on, revealing the bareness and absence of all ornament of the apartment; a fire was laid in the grate but not lit, and Priscilla’s ugly square trunk, its canvas covering removed, stood in a prominent position, half on the hearthrug, half on the square of carpet which covered the center of the floor.  Priscilla had taken off her jacket and hat.  She had washed her hands, and removed her muddy boots, and smoothed out her straight, light brown hair.  She looked what she felt—­ a very stiff and unformed specimen of girlhood.  There was a great lump in her throat, brought there by mingled nervousness and home-sickness, but that very fact only made her manner icy and repellent.

“Forgive me,” said Nancy, blushing all over her rosy face.  “I thought perhaps you might like to know one or two things as you are quite strange here.  My name is Banister.  I have a room in the same corridor, but quite at the other end.  You must come and visit me presently.  Oh, has no one lit your fire?  Wouldn’t you like one?  The evenings are turning so chilly now, and a fire in one’s room gives one a home-like feeling, doesn’t it?  Shall I light it for you?”

“No, no, thank you,” said Priscilla stiffly.  She longed to rush at Nancy and smother her with kisses, but she could only stand in the middle of her room, helpless and awkward, held in a terrible bondage of shyness.

Nancy drew back a step, chilled in spite of herself.

“I see there are matches on the chimney-piece,” she said, “so you can light the fire yourself whenever you like.  The gong that will sound in a minute will be for dinner, and Miss Heath always likes us to be punctual for that meal.  It does not matter about any other.  Do you think you can find your way to the dining-hall or shall I come and fetch you?”