For the Sake of the School | Page 7

together? It was rather buying a pig in
a poke, wasn't it?"
"I never dreamt she'd be like this. It sounded so romantic, you see,
living on a huge farm, and having two horses to ride. I shall go to Miss
Bowes, first thing to-morrow morning, and ask to have her moved out
of my room. I only wish there was time to do it this evening. Oh, why
did I ever write to her and make her want to come to this school?"

"Poor old Ulyth! You've certainly let yourself in for more than you
bargained for," laughed the girls, half sorry for her and half amused.
Next morning, after breakfast, the very instant that Miss Bowes was
installed in her study, a "rap-tap-tap" sounded on her door.
"Come in!" she called, and sighed as Ulyth entered, for she had a
shrewd suspicion of what she was about to hear.
"Please, Miss Bowes, I'm sorry to have to ask a favour, but may Rona
be changed into another dormitory?"
"Why, Ulyth, you wrote to me specially and asked if you might have
her for a room-mate!"
"Yes, I did; but I hadn't seen her then. I thought she'd be so different."
"Isn't it a little too soon to judge? You haven't known her twenty-four
hours yet."
"I know as much of her as I ever want to. Oh, Miss Bowes, she's
dreadful! I'll never like her. I can't have her in my room--I simply
can't!"
There was a shake, suggestive of tears, in Ulyth's voice. Her eyes
looked heavy, as if she had not slept. Miss Bowes sighed again.
"Rona mayn't be exactly what you imagined, but you must remember in
what different circumstances she has been brought up. I think she has
many good qualities, and that she'll soon improve. Now let us look at
the matter from her point of view. You have been writing to her
constantly for two years. She has come here specially to be near you.
You are her only friend in a new and strange country where she is
many thousand miles away from her own home. You gave her a cordial
invitation to England, and now, because she does not happen to realize
your quite unfounded expectations, you want to back out of all your
obligations to her. I thought you were a girl, Ulyth, who kept her
promises."

Ulyth fingered the corner of the tablecloth nervously for a moment,
then she burst out:
"I can't, Miss Bowes, I simply can't. If you knew how she grates upon
me! Oh, it's too much! I'd rather have a bear cub or a monkey for a
room-mate! Please, please don't make us stop together! If you won't
move her, move me! I'd sleep in an attic if I could have it to myself."
"You must stay where you are until the end of the week. You owe that
to Rona, at any rate. Afterwards I shall not force you, but leave it to
your own good feeling. I want you to think over what I have been
saying. You can come on Sunday morning and tell me your decision."
"I know what the answer will be," murmured Ulyth, as she went from
the room.
She was very angry with Miss Bowes, with Rona, and with herself for
her own folly.
"It's ridiculous to expect me to take up this savage," she argued. "And
too bad of Miss Bowes to make out that I'm breaking my word. Oh dear!
what am I to write home to Mother? How can I tell her? I believe I'll
just send her a picture post card, and only say Rona has come, and no
more. Miss Bowes has no right to coerce me. I'll make my own friends.
No, I've quite made up my mind she shan't cram Rona down my throat.
To have that awful girl eternally in my bedroom--I should die!"
After all her heroics it was a terrible come-down for poor Ulyth now
the actual had taken the place of the sentimental. Her class-mates could
not forbear teasing her a little. It was too bad of them; but then they had
resented her entire pre-appropriation of the new-comer, and, moreover,
had one or two old scores from last term to pay off. Ulyth began to
detest the very name of "the Prairie Flower". She wondered how she
could ever have been so silly.
"I ought to have been warned," she thought, trying to throw the blame
on to somebody else. "No one ever suggested she'd be like this. The
editor of the magazine really shouldn't have persuaded us to write. It's

all his fault in the beginning."
Though the rest of the girls were scarcely impressed with Rona's
personality, they were not utterly repelled.
"She's rather pretty," ventured