who scrambles her things in with yours all the time. The disorder gets
on my nerves some days till I want to scream. There are times when I
think I shall be obliged to rise up in my wrath like old Samson, and
smite her 'hip and thigh with a great slaughter.'

"In most things I have been able to 'compromise.' Margaret Elwood, one
of the Juniors, taught me that. She tried it with one of her
room-mates, now happily a back number. Margaret said this girl loved
cheap perfumes, for instance, and she herself loathed them. So she
filled all the drawers and wardrobes with those nasty camphor
moth-balls, which the r.m. couldn't endure, and when she protested,
Margaret offered a compromise. She would cut out the moth-balls, even at
the expense of having her clothes ruined, if the r.m. would swear off on
musk and the like.

"I tried that plan to break E. of keeping the light on when I was
sleepy. One night I lay awake until I couldn't stand it any longer, and
then began to hum in a low, droning chant, sort of under my breath, like
an exasperating mosquito: '_Laugh_-ing _wa_-ter! _Big_ chief's
_daugh_-ter!' till I nearly drove my own self distracted. I could see
her frown and change her position as if she were terribly annoyed, and
after I had hummed it about a thousand times she asked, 'For heaven's
sake, Mary, is there anything that will induce you to stop singing that
thing? I can't read a word.'

"'Why, yes,' I answered sweetly. 'Does it annoy you? I was only singing
to pass the time till you turn off the light. I can't sleep a wink.
We'll just compromise.'

"She turned it out in a jiffy and didn't say a word, but I notice that