class="x-ebookmaker-pageno" title="[Pg 29]"/> will take you up and give you the keys. Here, Eugene."

In another minute they were in the elevator; then they went down a wide hall and turned a corner.

"Here we are. I wonder whether your room-mates are here."

It was the bell-boy who answered as he flung the door open.

"It looks so, miss."

The two newcomers stood in the doorway and gasped. Sarah was not entirely unacquainted with confusion. She knew what the kitchen at home looked like at the end of a morning's baking at which the twins and Albert had been allowed to assist. But the twins and Albert at their worst could accomplish nothing to equal this.

A room in which two trunks are being unpacked is not expected to look very neat, but this confusion seemed the result of careful effort. There were dresses scattered here and there, not on the backs of chairs, or laid across the beds, but dropped to the floor and in heaps on the table. There were shoes, not set side by side, but widely scattered, a slipper and an overshoe on the bureau, a boot and a slipper on the radiator. A drawer had been taken from the bureau and laid on a bed; into it a trunk-tray had been emptied, helter skelter, as though its contents were waste paper. Apparently the owner had been suddenly called away, for the tray still lay upside down across the drawer.

To Sarah's Pennsylvania-German eyes, the scene was terrible.

"You'll have to do some missionary work, Sarah," Laura said merrily. "This closet seems to be empty. Hang your hat here, and take that bureau. We'll turn it this way so that the light is a little better. That is the way Helen Ellingwood used to have it when she and I roomed here together. The school wasn't so crowded and there were only two of us. Now we'll take your pitcher down the hall and fill it, and by that time your trunk may come, and perhaps the owners of these clothes, also, and then we can clear up."

They made their way round the trunks and boxes in the hall. A few doors away, a girl who was bending over her trunk stood up to let them pass. She turned her face away, but not before they had seen that it was streaked with black. Her hands, too, were as black as ink, and she was crying. Laura stopped at once.

"Why, what is the matter?"

"I packed—a—bottle of ink—in my trunk, and it—it has broken. I—"

Laura looked into the depths of the trunk.

"Oh, my child! Have you taken the bottle out?"

"Yes, but the ink is there yet."

Laura pushed back her cuffs.

"Can you get me a lot of newspapers and spread them thickly on your floor? There, in the sunshine. Why, these things seem black to begin with. Your gymnasium suit is black, isn't it? And here is a black skirt. See, it hasn't reached down to your books, and the trunk isn't stained."

"But my white petticoats are—are all black." The girl's tears made white channels on her face.

Laura patted her on the shoulder. "Then wash your face and hands, and run down to the book-room and get some ink eradicator, and I'll show you how to apply it. Come, Sarah."

Sarah's bright eyes shone. Laura might not know how to make waffles, but she knew other, more wonderful things. Sarah's heart swelled; she thought of Albert and the twins in this safe care, and she slipped her hand into Laura's without a word, and Laura smiled down at her.

As they came back through the hall, they heard a cheerful voice.

"I'll unlock the door, Eugene. Yes, we're glad to be back. Move that trunk in here, please. Gertrude, you brought a trunk-cover, didn't you?"

A dark-eyed girl appeared in the doorway.

"Yes, Ethel."

"They are our girls," whispered Sarah.

"Yes, and they are evidently other people's girls."

The hall was suddenly crowded with a welcoming throng.

By this time, Sarah's room-mates had appeared. One was tall and stout; she said that her name was Ellen Ritter. The other, who was equally stout but much shorter, said that she was Mabel Thorn. It was to her that the bureau-drawer belonged. She lifted the trunk-tray and slid the drawer into place.

"Our trunks must be out of here by night," she said. "They take them to the trunk-room. Mine's ready."

"And mine," said Ellen Ritter.

She slammed down the lid, and pulled the trunk into the hall, and Mabel pushed hers after it. Two small, cleared spaces were left, otherwise there was no change in the appearance of the room. The girls did not return, even to close the door. Sarah, staring after them, saw a smiling young woman poise for an instant on the sill, a hand on either jamb.

"Well, Laura Miflin!" she said.

The speed with which Sarah had flown to meet William upon his return from Alaska was no greater than that with which Laura crossed the room.

"Helen Ellingwood!" she cried. "What are you doing here?"

"I am going to teach Elocution. Why haven't you written to me? I didn't even know you were married. I live next door. And who is this, and how are you?" And Miss Ellingwood pushed aside a pile of books and underclothes and collars and sat down on the edge of the bed. "These things don't belong 'to you nor none of your family,' I hope?"

Laura shook her head.

"This is my sister-in-law, Sarah Wenner, question number one. I am very well and very happy, question number two. No, these do not belong 'to me nor none of my family,' question number three. What would you do with them?"

"Spank the owners. Perhaps they'll clear up, though. The first day is always demoralizing. Now tell me everything you can think of."

And Miss Ellingwood shifted to a more comfortable position, and while Laura unpacked and Sarah put away, the old friends chattered until dinner-time.

The great dining-room, with all the confusion of the first day of school, was an awesome place to country-bred Sarah. She was sure that she should never know one face from another. She should never learn to find her place.

"You must sit at my table," said Miss Ellingwood. "There will be plenty of room there to-day, and this afternoon I shall have you assigned there permanently. This way"; and Miss Ellingwood put out a guiding hand. Sarah began to take courage.

The afternoon seemed as long as the morning had been short. Directly after dinner, Sarah went with Laura to the train. She did not see the rushing engine so clearly now, nor watch the streaming white smoke; her eyes, fixed firmly upon a slender figure in a brown suit, were dimmed, and the strange lump of yesterday had come back into her throat. Now, at last, the moment of separation had come.

She walked slowly back to school, and about the grounds. Laura would be getting home now, and William would have driven to the station to meet her. Had the twins done just as they were told all day? Had they remembered the deserted kittens in the barn? Would Laura be able to fix the fire for the night?

Sarah ate her supper with difficulty. Miss Ellingwood did not appear, the other students said little, Sarah could not see her room-mates, or the Ethel and Gertrude who seemed a little less strange than the other students, or the girl who had packed the ink in her trunk. At the recollection of her woe-begone face, Sarah smiled and felt better.

"She is dumber yet than I," she said to herself.

At seven o'clock there was a chapel service. The gongs rang in the halls, and there was a general opening of doors, and passing of footsteps. Sarah followed her neighbors down the hall. At the entrance