color of your hair."

"How do you know it, Nance, dear?"

"Well, because so many people would dye their hair that color. There would be no more drab browns like mine, or rusty blacks or faded tans."

"But, Nance, your hair is lovely. It's smooth and glossy and fine and thick. Has that girl been talking to you about your looks?"

"They both have," admitted Nance. "They've got me to thinking I'm plain but would be greatly improved if I wore a rat and waved my bang and did my hair in a bunch of curls in the back like Jessie."

"But Jessie's hair curls naturally," put in Molly.

"Yes, of course, and mine doesn't. It would be a fearful nuisance, but one can't help listening to such talk when it concerns oneself. You know how Judy does run away to things, and there is something convincing about Adele's arguments."

"She's very bright," admitted Molly. "What do you think she wants me to do, Nance? Something much worse than crimping."

"There is no telling. Probably lather your face with that horrible white-wash stuff called 'Youthful Bloom,' Judy was telling us about."

"No, worse still. She says my face is too thin and that I am getting lines from nose to mouth. She wants me to have it filled."

Nance gave a wild whoop of derision.

"Can't you see Judy Kean's head being stuffed with such nonsense until it bursts?" she cried, breaking off suddenly as the door opened and Judy herself appeared on the threshold.

"May I bring in a visitor?" she asked stiffly, feeling from the sudden stillness that her own name had been under discussion. "Nobody likes to have her name bandied back and forth even between intimate friends," she thought with some indignation. But Judy's little fly-ups never lasted long and when Molly called out hospitably: "Yes, indeed, delighted," and Nance said: "Certainly, Judy," her sensitive feelings immediately withdrew into the dark caverns of her mind.

"I've brought a friend up to see our rooms," Judy went on, putting special emphasis on friend.

Judy had introduced a new member to the Old Queen's circle and while that body was only exclusive in the matter of intelligence and good breeding, and the new member seemed to meet both requirements, still the circle as a whole was not entirely agreeable to Judy's latest find.

The new girl had a very grand sounding name, "Adele Windsor," and Judy was hurt when Edith Williams demanded if Adele was related to "The Widow of Windsor." Adele was certainly very handsome,—tall, with a beautiful figure, dark eyes and hair more red than brown.

"She dresses with artful simplicity," Margaret had remarked, but hardly a girl in college had handsomer clothes than Adele Windsor.

Nobody could cast aspersions against her intelligence, either. She had entered the junior class of Wellington as a special; which was pretty good work, in the opinions of our girls. If any name could be given to the objections they all secretly felt for Judy's new friend, it was that she was so excessively modern. She was a product of New York City; and so thoroughly up to date was this bewildering young person regarding topics of the day, from fashions and beauty remedies to international politics, that she fairly took the breath away even of such advanced persons as Margaret Wakefield.

Adele now followed Judy into the room, and Molly, shaking back the hair from her face, bowed and smiled politely. Nance was not so cordial in her greeting. She had already prophesied what the history of Judy's friendship with this girl would be.

"Judy will get terribly intimate and then awfully bored. I know her of old."

"You're right in the fashion, Miss Brown," observed Adele, taking a seat near Molly and regarding her hair with admiration.

"That's the first time anybody ever said such a thing about me," exclaimed Molly with a laugh. "I'm usually three years behind. Now, you couldn't mean this gray kimono, could you? Or maybe it's my pumps," she added. "I know low heels are coming back again." Thrusting out one of her long, narrow feet, she looked at it quizzically.

"No, no, it's your hair," replied Adele. "Red hair is the fashion now. You see it everywhere; at the theaters, in society, at the opera——"

"You mean everywhere in New York," corrected Nance.

Adele smiled, showing a row of even white teeth. She was really very handsome.

"Well, isn't New York the hub of the world?" put in Judy.

"No," answered Nance firmly. "Boston and San Francisco and Chicago and St. Louis are just as much hubs as New York—to say nothing of the smaller cities. Any place with telegraph wires and competent people at both ends can keep up with the times nowadays——"

"Yes, but what about the theaters and operas," Judy began hotly.

"And clothes," added Adele softly, with a quick glance at Molly's old blue suit which had been well brushed and cleaned that morning and hung on the back of a chair to dry. Molly had not even noticed the glance. She was looking across the campus in the direction of the infirmary and at the same time forming a resolution to go over and inquire for Professor Green as soon as she could arrange her tumbled hair.

But Nance had caught the slightly contemptuous expression in Adele's eyes and resented it with warm loyalty.

"I don't see what clothes have to do with it," she asserted. "Because in New York people look at one's clothes before they look at one's face, it doesn't follow that they are more advanced than people in other places."

"New York only shows one how to improve one's clothes and one's face," put in Adele calmly.

Nance felt somehow reproved by this elegant cold-blooded creature whom Judy had thrust upon them. And now Judy must needs take a flying leap into the discussion.

"Nance, you are behind the times," she cried. "There is no excuse now for women to be badly dressed or plain. Even poor people can dress in taste and there are ways for improving looks so that the most ordinary face can be beautified."

"Can you make little eyes big?" demanded Nance.

"Don't be silly," said Judy.

And it looked for a moment as if a quarrel were about to be precipitated between the friends, when Molly, glancing at Adele Windsor, began to laugh.

"And all this because somebody said red hair was the fashion," she said, but she had an uncomfortable feeling that Adele was fond of starting a fight in order to look on and see the fun, and she wished in her heart that her beloved Judy had not taken up with such a dangerous young woman. She now tactfully changed the subject to the theater.

Adele had signed photographs of almost all the actors and actresses in the country and could give interesting bits of personal history about many of them. Having launched the company on this safe topic, Molly seized the old blue suit and departed into her bedroom. Judy and presently Nance also were soon absorbed in an account of Miss Windsor's visit at the home of a famous actress. Molly, indeed, was careful to leave her door open a crack in order not to miss a word. After all, it was fun to live at "the hub," as Judy called it, and know great people and see the best plays and hear all the best music. But this stunning metropolitan person did make one feel dreadfully provincial and shabby. She wondered if Adele had noticed the shabby dress. Molly sighed.

"I don't think clothes would interfere so much with my good times," she thought, "if only I didn't love them so."