ROOM-MATES


Up in her orderly room, on opening day, Mary listened to the bustle of
arrivals, and the stir of unpacking going on all over the house. The
cordial greetings called back and forth from the various rooms and the
laughter in the halls made her long to have a part in the general
sociability. She wished that it were necessary for her to borrow a
hammer or to ask information about the trunk-room and the porter, as the
other new girls were doing. That would give her an excuse for going into
some of the rooms and making acquaintance with their occupants. But
everything was in absolute order, and she was already familiar with the
place and its rules. There was nothing for her to do but take out her
bead-work and occupy herself with that as best she could until the
arrival of her room-mate.

She set her door invitingly open, ready to meet more than half way any
advances her neighbours might choose to make. While she sorted her beads
she amused herself by fitting together the scraps of conversation which
floated her way, and making guesses as to the personality of the
speakers. Twice her open door brought the reward of a transient visitor.
Once a jolly Sophomore glanced in to say "I just wanted to see who has
the American Beauty room. That's what we called it last term when Kitty
Walton and Lloyd Sherman had it."

Soon after, a girl across the hall whom Mary had already identified as
one Dora Irene Derwent, called Dorene for short, darted in
unceremoniously with an agonized plea for a bit of court-plaster.

"I cut my finger on a piece of glass in a picture frame that got broken