As the days went by, Cathalina became accustomed to her new surroundings and the school routine, with the stimulating life in the midst of much young companionship. Yet no one knew just what it cost her to overcome her timidity. She was, to be sure, not the only young girl at Greycliff who was learning lessons of self-reliance, and the very knowledge of that fact helped her. Pride, also, came to the rescue. She was not going to appear like a dunce, not she! And as confidence grew, she discovered that many even of the older girls, for all the superior years and wisdom for which she had given them credit, could not recite as correctly as she, nor cared, apparently, to use their brains in thinking things out.

“Why, Helen,” she said one day to Helen Paget, as they came together from Randolph, where their Literature class had been reciting, “Victoria Parker did not even blush when she made that awful mistake today.”

“O, she really hasn’t enough sense, Cathalina, to know how bad it was, and doesn’t care anyhow. She’s one of the ‘Simps.’ Her father sent her here, I heard, because she was so silly and he was afraid she might run away to be married.”

“It wouldn’t have been so bad if we had not just been studying George Eliot. The way she rattled it off, that Adam Bede was an English monk and was called the venerable Bede!”

“But you ought to hear her recite in French or Latin, Cathalina. She doesn’t think it needs to make sense and takes any meaning that she can find in the dictionary for the words and strings them together. We just nearly die when she recites. You can imagine what a fit Dr. Carver takes over her Latin recitations, and the French teacher has all she can do to keep her face straight sometimes.”

“Who is the French teacher?—there are several of the teachers on the platform at Chapel that I don’t know yet.”

“Madame Dumont. She is wonderful, a perfect dear! The girls work their heads off for her. She’s a native, you know, and goes over home every summer. But she’s terribly worried since the war started in August, you know. She had a son and other people in it, of course. You must meet her. She’d only be too delighted since you can talk with her.”

“It would be wonderful for me, only I’m afraid of making mistakes. But what did you mean by ‘simps’?”

“Can’t you guess?”

“Simpletons?”

“Yes. She and that queer girl that she is always with were rather snippy to Diane and me and called us the ‘Imps,’ so we sometimes call them the ‘S’Imps,’ with our crowd, of course.”

“Victoria is quite pretty,” said Cathalina.

“Yes; she looks just like one of those yellow-haired dolls that I used to have. Pearl is rather stunning, with those big black eyes. But the way they both dress! And it would be worse if Miss Randolph did not tell us all occasionally what to wear. The first time they came down to dinner last year, Pearl had on a blue silk evening dress with a train, and Victoria wore a fussy lace and chiffon dress with satin slippers to match.”

“I suppose,” remarked Cathalina, thoughtfully, “that it isn’t criminal not to know that George Eliot wrote ‘Adam Bede,’ or not to be able to translate a foreign language. Lots of good people don’t know either, I guess.”

“O, of course,” Helen laughed. “I can forget history over night. But I don’t know what these girls do care for that amounts to anything. I reckon”—and Helen’s drawl was much in evidence, “our fathehs and mothes want us to get our lessons paht of the time anyway! They say that Pearl has a silly motheh that wants huh to be ‘in society’ and huh fatheh wo’ks his head off to get money enough foh them. He was here one time, a kind-looking man, not very much fixed up, and Pearl acted as if she felt ashamed of him!”

“Victoria has been real nice to me.”

“That is because”—but Helen stopped and changed the reference she was going to make to the style and daintiness of Cathalina’s clothes to “well, I feel sorry for Vic. She hasn’t any mother. She has more common sense, too, in some ways than Pearl.”

That very day, after study hours, it chanced that Cathalina had callers. Hilary was off with some of the girls, but Cathalina had a theme to write and since genius had begun to burn, was scribbling away at a great rate.

A light tapping came at the doors and a rather pretty voice called, “Is Miss Van Buskirk at home?”

“She is,” replied Cathalina pleasantly, opening the door to admit two beruffled and befurbelowed young ladies of the Junior Collegiate classes, Victoria Parker and Pearl Opal Taylor.

Victoria’s flaxen locks were puffed and waved and frizzled. She was short and plump, her arms and hands fair and pretty, for Victoria would not risk her white skin in any of the athletic sports. A wide gold bracelet, long earrings, and half a dozen finger rings were her chief ornaments. She sank gracefully into a chair, patting her puffs and turning the bracelet right side before.

Pearl was tall and thin. Much powder and careless eating had had its effect already upon her dark complexion, but she added more powder and even a bit of rouge upon occasion, though not when in the presence of her teachers. Her stylish silk frock was adorned with braid and beads and dabs of color until it almost made Cathalina’s eyes ache.

“I undehstand that your home is in N’Yawk, Miss Van Buskirk,” simpered Victoria, after the exchange of greetings was completed and the three were settled for a visit.

“Yes, we have always lived there, though Father’s people came from near Troy. But don’t call me Miss Van Buskirk. I am not grown up yet.”

“But you have quite an air about you, and as you recite with us in literature,—”

“Mother wants me to be a little girl as long as possible, she says.”

“O, indeed! When will she let you come out?”

“O, we aren’t that kind of people. We don’t give balls and big affairs as a rule. We have lovely family parties, and nice teas and dinners with our friends.”

“Do you know Nora Perry?” asked Pearl abruptly.

“No, I think not; though it is hard to remember whom I have met—there are so many.”

“She is in our class,” said Virginia, forgetting to drop her r’s. “She told me that she was going to take the first opportunity to call on you because she thinks it was your brother that she met at Virginia Beach last summer.”

“Very likely,” said Cathalina, thinking “poor Phil!”

“O, then you do have a brother?” continued Victoria, brightening. “Is he quite a little older than you?”

“Several years.”

“Nora was saying that your father is vary wealthy and that you could have all the clothes and jewelry you wanted.” This came from Pearl, and even Victoria frowned at the remark.

Cathalina froze a little at this and said, “Mother says that there is nothing people are so often mistaken about as other people’s money, and, anyway, she thinks it isn’t in good taste for little girls like me to have fussy clothes.”

By this time Cathalina was very much tried; but she wanted to be polite and finally succeeded in getting away from clothes, her own private affairs and boys to interest them in some other things. They asked many questions about New York and talked volubly about their own experiences of the summer. When at last the dinner gong released Cathalina, the two girls went away happily, thinking that they must have made quite an impression upon “that little Van Buskirk girl”.

As Cathalina went to the bureau to choose a fresh hair ribbon, she picked up her mother’s picture in its ivory frame. “There is the ‘real article, all wool and a yard wide,’ as Father says. She looks just as she does at Father when he comes home, tender and glad to see him,—bless her! My, I’m thankful for the kind of a home I have!” and Cathalina was thinking neither of its elegance or wealth. “I never realized it, nor was half thankful enough. Those poor girls! I wish I could do something for Victoria; she has a kind, pleasant way, after all.” But Cathalina shook her head doubtfully. “Nineteen and such ideas!” For Cathalina, who did not realize the changes taking place in her own ideas of life, thought nineteen quite too late for an awakening.

After dinner, as Cathalina left the dining room, she happened to be near Miss Randolph, who slipped her hand through Cathalina’s arm.

“How are you, dear child?” she asked. “I have been too busy to look after you properly, but I have watched your cheeks get rosy, and the bright face you carry. Have you been homesick?”

“Not much, Miss Randolph,—it’s all so interesting and I know the nicest girls!”

“I have a letter from your Aunt Knickerbocker and another from your mother, and before I reply I would like a little visit and talk with you. Suppose we take our Sunday evening lunch together in my rooms.” And with a kind look, Miss Randolph went on her way, leaving Cathalina.

“Somebody is terribly intimate with ‘Ellen,’” said one of the girls who did not like Miss Randolph and now included in her displeasure “that stuck up Van Buskirk girl”.

Hilary, who happened to be near, replied, “Her aunt is a friend of Miss Randolph’s.”

Cathalina just then joined Hilary and with a group of girls they wandered out to the porch seats.

“Does Miss Randolph teach anything?” inquired Hilary.

“No,” one of the older girls replied. “She did a year or so ago, but was too busy and gave it up. She taught History of Art and was a perfectly grand teacher, the girls say.”

“I’m scared to death every time she looks at me!” said Isabel Hunt, who perched on the balustrade and swung one nervous foot. “I wonder if my hair is frowzy or the button I sewed on my waist matches, or the one I didn’t sew on will be missed. I’m sure she can see clear through me!”

“Why how funny!” exclaimed Cathalina. “I never thought of it.”

“That is because you are always as neat as a pin.”

“I wish I ‘wuz,’” and Cathalina laughed as she thought of various hurried occasions when she had longed for Etta. “Hilary, I’m wrongfully accused! Come to the rescue!”

Hilary made big eyes and said in a stage whisper, “Never reveal it,—but Miss Buskirk was known to rush off to early class one morning with a great tear in her petticoat, pinned for a yard around,—more or less!”

“Fie, fie!” cried Isabel. “I feel better!”

“And you ought to have seen her, Isabel, when she came back from her first ride on old Poky! You wouldn’t think Poky’s going could jolt anybody, would you?”

“She galloped awfully,” interrupted Cathalina, while the girls laughed.

“Cathalina did not have a hairpin or a ribbon left! Her hat was over one ear, her hair flying—well, I will spare her the rest! Ever there was a girl in distress she was it!”

“Well, I was in distress. That old riding teacher showed everybody how but me!”

“He probably thought that anybody on Poky didn’t need any showing.”

“Hilary, how you do rub it in!” said Isabel, reaching over to pat Cathalina, who was not minding it at all.

“She appealed to me!” urged Hilary in self-defense.

“That was the way my oldest brother taught me to swim,” Isabel continued. “He took me out to where I couldn’t stand and began to be floated off,—’n when I was yellin’—‘Jimmy, take me out,’ the wretch swam off with ‘strike out, Izzy’!”

“O, my,” gasped Avalon, “what did you do?”

“Well, you see I’m here,” and Isabel grinned at Avalon, who looked sheepish.

“Putty!” said one of the girls. “I happen to know that Isabel had been practicing for a month and could float anyway. All she needed was confidence in herself.”

“Don’t spoil a good story,” said Isabel.

“Did you ever hear why Miss Randolph never got married?” asked Diane, going back to the first subject of conversation.

“No; why?”—and the whole group leaned forward to catch the first word of romance.

“She wasn’t asked!” replied Diane mischievously, and was rewarded by groans from all quarters.

“Mean thing!”

“No, sir!” Isabel exclaimed. “There is a real love story about Miss Randolph. She was going to marry a young professor of oratory. You know what a lovely voice she has, so rich and deep sometimes it gives you the shivers in Chapel when she prays!”

“Thrills, you mean,” corrected Hilary.

“Well, anyway, this young man heard her voice in another room at a party and went in to hunt it up—oratory, you know,—and found Miss Randolph and fell in love at first sight.”

“Sound, you mean,” softly suggested the same mentor.

“You’re awful smart, Hilary Lancaster,” grinned Isabel, “who’s telling this?—And they picked out their furniture and he had a dandy job at some school, and she had the love-li-est clothes, and—”

“O, don’t say that he died!” exclaimed Cathalina.

“No, he didn’t,—that was the worst of it.” The girls laughed here.

“Well, which would you rather if you were engaged, have him died and still love you, or have something happen and maybe somebody else get him?”

Nobody seemed to be able to decide the question.

“Just before the time to send out the invitations, something happened. Nobody ever knew what. She wouldn’t say a word, except that the engagement was broken. She went to Europe and studied art and things, and I suppose he went to his old school.”

“You seem to be sure that it was all his fault. Are you so fond of Miss Randolph?”

“Well, I always feel guilty when she’s around, but then that isn’t her fault, and I can’t imagine her ever doing anything wrong.”

“Who told you all that, Isabel? I don’t believe a word of it.”

“Annabel Wright, in the elocution class. Her people came from the same town, in Virginia. Just ask her.”

“Funny Cathalina never heard of it.”

“O, no; Aunt Katherine wouldn’t speak of it if she knew.”

Not a girl of this group failed to look at Miss Randolph the next time she saw her with a new interest because she had had a lover! But it was hard to believe that any one so calm and cheerful could have had the note of tragedy in her life.