A Sweet Girl Graduate | Page 4

excellent friends for the rest of your life, and then-- p---- f! you'll snuff her out as if she had never existed; I know you, Maggie, and I call it cruel."
"Is not that Miss Banister I hear talking?" said a voice quite close to the two girls.
They both turned, and immediately with heightened color rushed up eagerly to shake hands with the vice-principal of their college.
"How do you do, my dears?" she said in a hearty voice. "Are you quite well, Maggie, and you, Nancy? Had you a pleasant holiday? And did you two great chums spend it together?"
The girls began answering eagerly; some other girls came up and joined the group, all anxious to shake hands with Miss Heath and to get a word of greeting from her.
At this moment the dressing-gong for dinner sounded, and the little group moved slowly toward the house.
In the entrance hall numbers of girls who had recently arrived were standing about; all had a nod, or a smile, or a kiss for Maggie Oliphant.
"How do you do, Miss Oliphant? Come and see me to-night in my room, won't you, dear?" issued from many throats.
Maggie promised in her good-natured, affectionate, wholesale way.
Nancy Banister was also greeted by several friends. She, too, was gay and bright, but quieter than Maggie. Her face was more reliable in its expression, but not nearly so beautiful.
"If you accept all these invitations, Maggie," she said as the two girls walked down the corridor which led to their rooms, "you know you will have to sit up until morning. Why will you say 'yes' to every one? You know it only causes disappointment and jealousy."
Maggie laughed.
"My dear, good creature, don't worry your righteous soul," she answered. "I'll call on all the girls I can, and the others must grin and bear it. Now we have barely time to change our dresses for dinner. Surely, though, Nance, there's a light under Annabel Lee's door. Who have they dared to put into her room? It must be one of those wretched freshers. I don't think I can bear it. I shall have to go away into another corridor."
"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