"Miss Alden, you may answer first. What is the chief duty of every Freshman?"

"To squelch the Soph.o.m.ores," returned Dolly promptly.

A deep groan sounded from all fifteen. "Wrong! Wrong! You have not the first idea of your fundamental duties. We shall be obliged to send you home, I fear. Miss Newby, answer!"

"Most potent, grave and reverend Soph.o.m.ores, the great duty of every Freshman is to try and become a Soph.o.m.ore herself, so that she may try to impress unsophisticated Freshies with a sense of her own importance and make everyone forget that she herself was nothing but a Freshman one short year--"

"Stop! Wrong! Wrong!" and a chorus of groans again broke forth. "The obvious duty of every Freshie is to run errands for the Soph.o.m.ores and make life as pleasant as possible for them. Miss Alden, I see a banjo on the table there. Sing something to us."

Dolly picked up the instrument with a mock-humble bow and touched the strings, a little uncertainly for a moment, but her touch soon became firmer, and a malicious little twinkle appeared in her eye.

"Oh, these Soph.o.m.ores, vain Soph.o.m.ores, In all their swelling pride, I would to them the giftie gie, To see--"

"Stop!" The fifteen rose majestically to their feet as Dolly, with a.s.sumed meekness, dropped her instrument at her side. "You may expect to hear from the faculty tomorrow. I regret that it is impossible for you to be retained at this hall of learning. Your influence would doubtless corrupt the other Freshmen, and teach them insubordination. You have also been guilty of greediness. I see the remains of a repast which you tried to conceal as we entered. You are ordered to pa.s.s that plate to your superiors."

Elizabeth demurely obeyed the command. The bits of fudge were small, and there were just enough to go around. They were taken with great stateliness and dignity, but a moment later the room was filled with groans, coughs, shrieks and wrathful exclamations.

"They would poison us!" "Let us be avenged!" "Choke them!" "Perish the Freshmen!" "Water, minions! water!"

But Dolly and Elizabeth had taken good care that there should be no water at hand, so the unlucky Soph.o.m.ores rushed away to their own rooms, followed by the taunting laughter of the two Freshmen and many gratuitous pieces of advice.

"I wonder if they will try to pay us back," Dolly said, with sudden gravity.

"No, tonight ends it all; Professor Graydon told me so. The Soph.o.m.ores are allowed to air their new dignity this one evening, but nothing is tolerated after tonight. I do not think they came out much ahead of us.

I must go now, Dolly, I wish I were your room-mate, but I presume that you will have a much more congenial one than I would be."

"I do not think so," Dolly said, with evident sincerity. "I have a dreadful feeling whenever you mention her. Good-night, and thank you a thousand times."

The next few days were busy ones. Dolly had new studies planned out for the term, and she found to her delight that she and Elizabeth had elected the same courses. The two were congenial, though Elizabeth was as reticent as Dolly was frank and open. Dolly had begun to hope that her unknown room-mate would not arrive at all, but on Tuesday, when she returned from her recitation in history, she found that Miss Sutherland had appeared.

In fact there was no doubt that she was there, and had been there for a couple of hours at least.

Dolly's dainty pink pillows, banners, and other trifles, had been summarily displaced. She could see no vestige of them. The room was now ornamented in a stiff sort of fashion with brilliant red tidies, afghans, and other things which Dolly considered quite antediluvian.

The room had lost all of its dainty personality and prettiness. It certainly looked very unattractive, and it was not much wonder that Dolly drew a deep breath of disgust.

The sound reached the ears of the newcomer, and she turned quickly.

Dolly's bright eyes took in every detail, the thick hair drawn back so tightly and unbecomingly, the heavy brown dress, just the shade that the girl with such a dark, sallow complexion should never have worn, the cheap jewelry and the clumsy shoes. And she must room with this girl instead of with Elizabeth--it was too bad, it was--and Dolly's whole soul rose up in rebellion.

"You are Miss Alden, aren't you? I am Mary Sutherland. I just came, and I have been trying to get my things in order."

"I see." Dolly glanced dryly around the room. "Where are my belongings?"

"I put them carefully on your bed, they were so pretty that it seemed a shame to have them get soiled; red is more substantial than pink, and of course, the two colors would not go well together--at least, I thought not"--looking a little timidly at Dolly's unresponsive face.

"No! I quite agree that pink and red don't harmonize, at least these particular shades," and Dolly pa.s.sed on to her bedroom and closed the door. She sat down on her bed while angry tears rose in her eyes. She was just beginning to make some pleasant acquaintances among the girls.

They liked to come to her pretty room and eat her fudge and drink her tea. There had been several gay evenings. But how could she ever bring them into such a room as this was now? It was worse than a nightmare.

The clang of the gong reminded her that she must hurry to the lecture on Roman art.

She picked up her note-book and pencil, and rushed down the corridor.

"Wait, oh, wait, my bonny maid," and Elizabeth caught her arm. "Why, Dolly, you have been crying!"

"Yes, I am an awful goose. But you see my room-mate has come, and--"

"I saw her, she hardly strikes me as being your style, but she will be quiet and inoffensive, I imagine."

"Quiet and inoffensive?" Dolly gave a hysterical laugh. "Just wait until you see my room; all of my pretty things are reposing on my bed now, and that sitting-room is too awful to contemplate."

"Dorothy Alden, are you in earnest?"

"Yes, I am. Of course, I suppose I had taken possession of it rather coolly, but at least it is half mine."

"Didn't you give her to understand that?"

"No, I didn't. I was very angry, and I remembered that Mother made me promise to think twice before I acted, when I got furious. I shall propose something, though, when I go back. We might take the room by alternate weeks, or each of us trim a half of it. Which do you think would be the better plan?"

"Either is bad," Elizabeth said decisively. "Why, oh, why, were we not put together? You could have had your things then in peace, and it would have saved me all the bother I am having now. I didn't think about my room before I came, and now that Miss Ainsworth has nothing to liven us up with either, we look as prim as a Quaker meeting-house. I have ordered some things, however, that will make us gorgeous. What do you say to a yellow room?"

"I say that it will be handsome if your room-mate leaves the arrangement in your hands."

"I made sure of that before I ordered anything," Elizabeth said, with a wise nod. "She was very willing that I should do all I wished, and on that understanding I went ahead."

The girls had reached the lecture-room by this time, and further discussion was impossible; but all through Professor Randall's talk, Dolly's thoughts roamed to the room she had left. How could she stand it? Dolly was exceedingly susceptible by nature to all artistic effects, and anything inharmonious grated on her.

She acknowledged to herself that Miss Sutherland did not seem aggressive, and apparently she had not acted as she had done through any petty spirit. As far as Dolly could judge, she was merely tactless and tasteless.

She and Elizabeth talked the matter over a little more as they walked back to their rooms, but Elizabeth abstained from offering any advice.

"I'll go in and see how the place looks. I'm curious to meet Miss Sutherland anyway."

They found her sitting on the easiest rocking-chair, studying the college catalogue. She rose quickly as the girls came in, and Dolly introduced her friend. They tried to make the conversation general, but it was no easy matter. Mary Sutherland would answer questions, and occasionally ask one herself, but when the conversation took a wider range, she sat by, looking out of place and constrained.

There was a knock at the door, and Charlotte Graves entered, followed by Winifred Paterson and Ada Rummel. They were all Soph.o.m.ores, and had been among the fifteen who had called on Dolly the first evening.

They had swallowed the red pepper which Dolly had hid in the fudge as best they could, and none of them bore any malice. "All things were fair in love and college," as Charlotte Graves tersely remarked.

The trio halted now on the threshold in open astonishment.

"What have you been doing to your room, Miss Alden?" Winifred demanded abruptly. "For a Freshman you showed most unusual taste, and you had about the prettiest den out, but now--pardon me if I ask why this thusness? It is quite too awful."

Dolly carefully refrained from looking at her room-mate. Miss Paterson was certainly frank to the verge of rudeness.

"Pray have some seats, most august Soph.o.m.ores. You see that red is more serviceable than pink, and in view of the fact that we are liable to have numerous visits from those who were Freshmen last year, and who of course do not know how to treat delicate things with proper respect--"

"Well, let me tell you one thing," Miss Graves interrupted, "you will be troubled with precious few calls from anyone if you intend to make this a permanent thing."

Dolly's cheeks flushed. She must stop them at any cost. Despite her own annoyance, she could not help feeling sorry for Miss Sutherland, who evidently thought that she had made the room charming. She turned to introduce her, but she was only in time to see her vanish into her own bedroom. Dolly's quick ears caught the sound of a sob as the door closed.