Lancaster and Cathalina Van Buskirk had occupied the year before, their first happy year at this girls’ school. By taking down a partition or two, three large rooms had been made, one sitting room or study in the middle, a good-sized bedroom, with its two comfortable cots, on each side of the sitting room.

“Won’t Cathalina be surprised?”

Hardly had Lilian finished her sentence when a light little rap sounded at the door, which opened to reveal Miss Cathalina Van Buskirk of New York. Dainty and lovely as ever, her expressive face glowing with delight at surprising her friends, she stood a moment while two pairs of arms opened to greet her.

“Cathalina!”

“And Betty is downstairs in Miss Randolph’s room with her mother. It was mean of me to come on up, but I couldn’t wait,—Alma told me that she saw you girls come upstairs, and that by the way you were carrying on she thought you were glad to get back!”

“Is Alma still Miss Randolph’s helper?” asked Hilary.

“Yes,” replied Lilian, “she was the one who brought me up here when I came. I couldn’t find Miss Randolph and nobody but you, Cathalina, knew where we were to be. What do you think of it?”

Cathalina, whose home boasted every luxury, looked around at the room (which was bare of every adornment), glanced into the bedrooms (where dressers needed dusting and a linen cover of some sort), and with an expression of perfect and unassumed bliss, sank into a chair saying, “This seems just like heaven. Do you remember, Lilian, when you came over in the pink kimono last year and invited Hilary and me into your suite to eat fudge and peanuts? I had just gotten over a terrible fit of homesickness and we were in the midst of getting settled. Well, that was the beginning of my absolute a—adoration of this school! But come on,—we mustn’t forget our Betty, and her mother is a dear. You will all like her. Betty is her ‘living image.’ We were motoring, and Phil took me to Betty’s,—so we all came here together, I mean Betty and her mother and I, on the train. My trunk and things were to come by express from home. I must see about them, too.”

In a moment the room was empty again, except for several traveling bags, hats, and a few other articles scattered about. Hilary’s treasured one and only silk umbrella had fallen unheeded behind the steam pipes.

But Betty Barnes met the other girls on the stairs 

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