plump damsel with brown elf locks, a ruddy sunburnt complexion, and a freckled nose.

Where, oh, where, were the delicate features, the fairy-like figure, and the long rich clustering curls of Rose of the Wilderness? Ulyth stood for a moment gazing as one dazed; then, with an effort, she remembered her manners and introduced herself.

"Proud to meet you at last," replied the new-comer heartily. "You and I've had a friendship switched on for us ready-made, so to speak. I liked your letters awfully. Glad they've put us in together."

"Did—did you have a nice journey?" stammered Ulyth.

It was a most conventional enquiry, but the only thing she could think of to say.

"Beastly! It was rough or hot all the time, and we didn't get much fun on board. Wasn't it a sell? Too disappointing for words! Mrs. Perkins, the lady who had charge of me coming over, was just a Tartar. Nothing I did seemed to suit her somehow. I bet she was glad to see the last of me. Then I was sea-sick, and when we got into the hot zone—my, how bad I was! My face was just skinned with sunburn, and the salt air made it worse. I'd not go to sea again for pleasure, I can tell you. I say, I'll be glad to get my things fixed up here."

"This is your bed and your side of the room," returned Ulyth hastily, collecting some of the articles which had been flung anywhere, and hanging them in Rona's wardrobe; "Miss Moseley makes us be very tidy. She'll be coming round this evening to inspect."

Rona whistled.

"Guess she'll drop on me pretty often then! No one's ever called neatness my strong point. Are those photos on the mantelpiece your home folks? I'm going to look at them. What a lot of things you've got: books, and albums, and goodness knows what! I'll enjoy turning them over when I've time."

At half-past eight that night a few members of the Lower Fifth, putting away books in their classroom, stopped to compare notes.

"Well, what do you think of your adorable one, Ulyth?" asked Stephanie Radford, a little spitefully. "You're welcome to her company so far as I'm concerned."

"Rose of the Wilderness, indeed!" mocked Merle Denham.

"Your prairie rose is nothing but a dandelion!" remarked Christine Crosswood.

"I never heard anyone with such an awful laugh," said Lizzie Lonsdale.

"Don't!" implored Ulyth tragically. "I've had the shock of my life. She's—oh, she's too terrible for words! Her voice makes me cringe. And she pawed all my things. She snatched up my photos, and turned over my books with sticky fingers; she even opened my drawers and peeped inside."

"What cheek!"

"Oh, she hasn't the slightest idea of how to behave herself! She asked me a whole string of the most impertinent questions: what I'd paid for my clothes, and how long they'd have to last me. She's unbearable. Yes, absolutely impossible. Ugh! and I've got to sleep in the same room with her to-night."

"Poor martyr, it's hard luck," sympathized Lizzie. "Why did you write and ask the Rainbow to put you together? It was rather buying a pig in a poke, wasn't it?"

"I never dreamt she'd be like this. It sounded so romantic, you see, living on a huge farm, and having two horses to ride. I shall go to Miss Bowes, first thing to-morrow morning, and ask to have her moved out of my room. I only wish there was time to do it this evening. Oh, why did I ever write to her and make her want to come to this school?"

"Poor old Ulyth! You've certainly let yourself in for more than you bargained for," laughed the girls, half sorry for her and half amused.

Next morning, after breakfast, the very instant that Miss Bowes was installed in her study, a "rap-tap-tap" sounded on her door.

"Come in!" she called, and sighed as Ulyth entered, for she had a shrewd suspicion of what she was about to hear.

"Please, Miss Bowes, I'm sorry to have to ask a favour, but may Rona be changed into another dormitory?"

"Why, Ulyth, you wrote to me specially and asked if you might have her for a room-mate!"

"Yes, I did; but I hadn't seen her then. I thought she'd be so different."

"Isn't it a little too soon to judge? You haven't known her twenty-four hours yet."

"I know as much of her as I ever want to. Oh, Miss Bowes, she's dreadful! I'll never like her. I can't have her in my room—I simply can't!"

There was a shake, suggestive of tears, in Ulyth's voice. Her eyes looked heavy, as if she had not slept. Miss Bowes sighed again.

"Rona mayn't be exactly what you imagined, but you must remember in what different circumstances she has been brought up. I think she has many good qualities, and that she'll soon improve. Now let us look at the matter from her point of view. You have been writing to her constantly for two years. She has come here specially to be near you. You are her only friend in a new and strange country where she is many thousand miles away from her own home. You gave her a cordial invitation to England, and now, because she does not happen to realize your quite unfounded expectations, you want to back out of all your obligations to her. I thought you were a girl, Ulyth, who kept her promises."

Ulyth fingered the corner of the tablecloth nervously for a moment, then she burst out:

"I can't, Miss Bowes, I simply can't. If you knew how she grates upon me! Oh, it's too much! I'd rather have a bear cub or a monkey for a room-mate! Please, please don't make us stop together! If you won't move her, move me! I'd sleep in an attic if I could have it to myself."

"You must stay where you are until the end of the week. You owe that to Rona, at any rate. Afterwards I shall not force you, but leave it to your own good feeling. I want you to think over what I have been saying. You can come on Sunday morning and tell me your decision."

"I know what the answer will be," murmured Ulyth, as she went from the room.

She was very angry with Miss Bowes, with Rona, and with herself for her own folly.

"It's ridiculous to expect me to take up this savage," she argued. "And too bad of Miss Bowes to make out that I'm breaking my word. Oh dear! what am I to write home to Mother? How can I tell her? I believe I'll just send her a picture post card, and only say Rona has come, and no more. Miss Bowes has no right to coerce me. I'll make my own friends. No, I've quite made up my mind she shan't cram Rona down my throat. To have that awful girl eternally in my bedroom—I should die!"

After all her heroics it was a terrible come-down for poor Ulyth now the actual had taken the place of the sentimental. Her class-mates could not forbear teasing her a little. It was too bad of them; but then they had resented her entire pre-appropriation of the new-comer, and, moreover, had one or two old scores from last term to pay off. Ulyth began to detest the very name of "the Prairie Flower". She wondered how she could ever have been so silly.

"I ought to have been warned," she thought, trying to throw the blame on to somebody else. "No one ever suggested she'd be like this. The editor of the magazine really shouldn't have persuaded us to write. It's all his fault in the beginning."

Though the rest of the girls were scarcely impressed with Rona's personality, they were not utterly repelled.

"She's rather pretty," ventured Lizzie Lonsdale. "Her eyes are the bluest I've ever seen."

"And her teeth are so white and even," added Beth Broadway. "She looks jolly when she smiles."

"Perhaps she'll smarten up soon," suggested Addie Knighton. "That blue dress suits her; it just matches her eyes."

To Ulyth's fastidious taste Rona's clothes looked hopelessly