study. But first, let me present you to these chatterers."

She dropped the hand that was trembling in her clasp, and,
slipping a reassuring arm about the girl's waist, continued:

"Young ladies, this is Miss Minturn, a new junior. I can't present
each of you formally, for she is wanted immediately elsewhere; but
I will see that she finds you all out later."

Katherine nodded a smiling acknowledgment to the vigorous clapping
of hands and the hearty "Welcome, Miss Minturn, to Hilton." Then
Miss Reynolds led her away, and the interrupted chatter of the
magpies was resumed with redoubled animation, but now the new
junior absorbed the attention of everyone.

"Say, girls, isn't she a dear?" "Came this morning, did she? where
from, I wonder?" "My! but wasn't that a nobby traveling suit, and
such a fit!" "Katherine Minturn--pretty name, isn't it?" "Does
anybody know anything more about her?" were some of the comments
and queries that slipped from those supple instruments with a
tendency towards perpetual motion, which, sometimes, are described
as organs that are hung in the middle and wag at both ends--
school-girls' tongues.

"Hush!--sh!--sh! Oh, girls, do ring off, and perhaps I can give
you a point or two," cried a high-pitched voice with an
unmistakable Southern drawl, as a somewhat overdressed girl of
nineteen or twenty years re-enforced her appeal by vigorous
gestures to attract attention, whereupon the ever alert spirit of
Curiosity silenced every loquacious chatterer, except one who