later that evening. Milly had ordered a form of ice-cream and a birthday-cake from Mazetti's, and we had invited in a half-dozen friends to share the treat. As a damper on this beautiful fête, Madame had called us into her private study that afternoon, and had told us that she had decided to assign Witch Winnie as my room-mate. She did not scruple to tell us her reasons for doing so. Winnie (according to Madame) was the head-centre of a wild set of "ne'er-do-weels" who roomed in the top of the house, "a perfect hornets' nest under the eaves," Madame said. Madame felt that if the queen hornet was taken away, the rest would be more amenable to discipline, and that Winnie, placed among such proper and well-behaved girls as we were, would herself feel our beneficial influence.

"I think," said Madame, "that if you knew Winnie's history you would understand her better. Her parents were both very talented and highly imaginative people. Her father is a playwright of reputation, who married a very lovely young actress who had sustained the leading part in several of his plays. They were tenderly attached to each other. Mrs. De Witt had great dramatic talent; she made it the study of her life to realize his conceptions, and succeeded to his perfect satisfaction. She said that she so lived in her part that frequently she forgot her own personality, while Mr. De Witt was always cudgeling his brains to invent new plots, situations, and characters for his wife. Mrs. De Witt died when Winnie was but three years of age. The child has lived with different relatives, and has been spoiled and neglected by turns, but never quite understood. I have studied her carefully, and think I see in her a combination of both parents. She has her father's highly organized imaginative nature, but instead of constructing plots for plays, it develops itself in plots for scrapes. She delights in dramatic situations, and is a natural and unconscious actress. Her father hopes that she may never adopt the stage as her profession, for it was that life of mental and physical strain which killed Winnie's mother. Something remarkable in organization or in action the girl will certainly be, and as she takes her color, like a chameleon, from her surroundings, or, rather, her cue from the other actors, I have great hopes for your influence over her."

Madame's confidences made little impression upon our prejudice. We listened in silence, and, returning to our rooms, held an indignation meeting, in which Emma Jane led. Adelaide, who ought to have sympathized with the neglected orphan, for she had lost her own mother when a little girl, and who did find in this fact a bond of fellow-feeling later on, now ignored all her claim for pity, and chose to feel that we were all grossly insulted. Milly pitied me the enforced companionship, several of us were in tears, and in the midst of it all Witch Winnie appeared. The clatter of voices sank to sudden silence, and the new-comer, looking from face to face, instantly understood the situation.

"If you feel half as badly as I do, girls," she said, with a merry laugh, "I'm sorry for you; I wouldn't intrude on you in this way if I could help it. Madame tells me you are to have a spread to-night, and have invited your particular friends. It's too bad she wouldn't let me put off moving till to-morrow morning. I'll tell you what I'll do—I'll sit in the recitation-room and cram for examination until the party is over. Of course you don't want me, a perfect stranger to your friends; it isn't to be supposed you would."

Emma Jane Anton looked relieved. "We provided for a limited number," she explained; "if we had known that we were to have the honor of your company—"

But Adelaide interrupted her instantly. "Sit in that dismal recitation-room while I am having my birthday party! Indeed you shall do nothing of the sort!" while Milly came gallantly to the rescue, assuring her that she had ordered more ice-cream than they could possibly consume, and I did the best I could to make Winnie believe that she was welcome.

The girls appeared en masse as soon as the bell struck for the close of evening study-hour—congratulations were offered to Adelaide, and Winnie was introduced. All made extravagant efforts to be gay and sociable, but there was a certain constraint, a forced quality, in it all, which had for its reason something beyond the fact of an unwelcome addition to the Corner: the refreshments had not arrived. Mazetti had forgotten to send them. There stood the study-table neatly spread with a table-cloth borrowed from the steward's department, and set with saucers, spoons, and plates, all disappointingly empty.

Adelaide tried to carry off the situation as an immense joke. Milly alternated between hope and despair, fancying each noise of wheels the confectioner's cart. The guests showed their disappointment plainly, some confessing that they had slighted the evening prunes and rice in anticipation of this treat. And I heard Cynthia Vaughn whisper that it was a very cheap way to give a party—to pretend that there had been a mistake. At this juncture I suddenly noticed that Witch Winnie had disappeared.

A few moments later a loud knocking, or kicking, for it was evidently bestowed with feet instead of hands, was heard at the door. "Let me in, girls!" cried Witch Winnie's voice—"let me in, quick! before Madame catches me." We opened the door, and Witch Winnie burst in, and sat laughing on the floor; from her dress, which had been gathered up in her hands, and had served as a market-basket, rolled a quantity of paper bags and parcels—lemons, bottles of olives, sugar, mixed pickles, crackers, sardines, macaroons, nuts, raisins, candy, etc., etc.

"Help yourselves, girls," she chuckled. "We'll have the spread, after all. I have been around the corner and bought out Mr. Beeny's little grocery." Then broke in a chorus of voices—

"How did you ever get out of the house?"

"Was Cerberus asleep?" (Cerberus was our nickname for the janitor.)

"How very sweet of you!"

"But how extravagant!"

"O girls! these pickled limes are too lovely for anything."

Adelaide appeared with her ewer. "I'll make the lemonade," she said, and began rolling the lemons with Milly's curling-stick, while Emma Jane Anton manipulated the can-opener with energy and success. Each girl flew to her room for her tooth-mug, and we drank Witch Winnie's health in brimming bumpers of lemonade.

"How did you ever manage it?" Milly asked again.

"I climbed down the fire-escape." Witch Winnie giggled.

"But you had to drop twelve feet onto the sidewalk!"

"What of that? I've done it in the gymnasium from the trapeze many a time."

"But you never came back that way?"

"Hardly. I rang the basement bell, and when Cerberus said he'd tell Madame, I made him a present of three packages of cigarettes and some Limburger cheese, and I am quite certain that he will never say a word."

Witch Winnie's generosity and good-fellowship had won the day. From that moment we took her into our hearts.

The ice-cream which Milly had ordered arrived the next day, but we were all too ill to touch it; we had feasted without restraint on our new chum's bountiful but somewhat heterogeneous repast, and were paying the penalty with rousing headaches, but in our fiercest pangs we were still ready to declare that if there ever was a trump it was Witch Winnie.

CHAPTER II.
GUINEVERE'S GOWN.