One Saturday directly after breakfast the girls from Sunnyside were asked to meet in Adele’s room before beginning the tasks of the morning.

“What does it mean?” Doris Drexel inquired. “This is my practice hour and Professor Patz has given me such a difficult piece to learn.”

“We won’t keep you but a moment,” Adele said. “Sit down, everybody, and I will tell you all about it.”

In a semicircle in front of the fireplace they sat, and all turned wondering eyes toward Gertrude and Adele who had called the meeting.

“There has recently come to our school,” Della began, “a young girl who might be very pretty were it not for a fretful and perhaps unhappy expression. In fact she has been here two weeks and I have not seen her smile once.”

“Poor thing!” Carol Lorens exclaimed. “Are you speaking of Katrina Mason?”

“Yes, that is her name,” Adele replied, then turning to Gertrude she added, “You tell what Madame Deriby wishes us to do.”

“Yesterday I was in the office making my weekly report,” the older girl began, “when Madame Deriby said, ‘Gertrude, I am much troubled about our new pupil Katrina. She has been brought up by a wealthy and idolizing mother who has gratified her every wish. Realizing, perhaps too late, that she was spoiling her daughter, that mother has sent her to us, but unfortunately she is discontented and wishes to return to her home. You girls from Sunnyside have such pleasant times, I wish you would confer together and plan some way, if you can, to make Katrina happier.’”

“That will be a hard task,” Peggy Pierce said. “She is in one of my classes and when Miss Sharpleigh tried to insist upon Katrina’s reciting, she stamped her foot and replied angrily that she had never been made to do anything against her will, and that she most certainly would not recite unless she wanted to.”

“Poor little wild thing, she seems almost untamable,” Evelyn Dartmoor said pityingly. “Adele, have you and Gertrude thought of a plan?”

“If the rest of you agree, I had thought it might be well to select one of us to call upon Katrina in her room this morning and perhaps invite her to join us this afternoon in some merry-making. Madame Deriby would grant us permission to do whatever we would wish.”

“Oh-h! Don’t choose me!” Betty Burd begged. “I said good-morning real pleasant-like to Katrina only yesterday and she tossed her head and walked past in the rudest manner.”

“When I was a little girl,” Doris Drexel began, “we used to say a rhyme and point at each child in the ring to see who would be it. That would be a good way to select the one who is to call upon Katrina.”

“You repeat the rhyme then,” Gertrude suggested, and so Doris began,—

“Rosies, posies, violets so blue,
Somebody must be it
And that somebody is you.”

“Poor Carol is the victim!” Betty Burd said sympathetically.

The slender, pretty girl at whom Doris was pointing sprang up as she exclaimed brightly, “I have nothing to do right this very minute and so I will begin at once to try to tame little Katrina. Let us meet here at the ten o’clock rest period and I will report results.”

“That will give me time to do my piano practice,” Doris declared as she arose. The girls then went about their different tasks, each wondering what the outcome of the visit would be.

On leaving the others Carol Lorens did not go at once to Katrina. She first slipped into her own room, and finding no one there, she went to her dresser and lifted a picture in a silver frame and gazed at it tenderly. The sweet face of her mother looked out at her.

“Mummie,” she said softly, “how would you go about it if you had to tame Katrina?”

“With loving kindness!” the thought flashed to Carol. Once her mother had told her that those two words linked together were all the creed of which one had need. Replacing the photograph, the girl went with a light heart to the west wing and tapped on the door of the most luxurious room in the school.

“Come in!” a fretful voice called in reply to her knock. The girl curled on the window-seat was reading a book and she did not even glance up when the door opened.

“Miss Mason, am I intruding?” Carol asked pleasantly as she entered the room.

Katrina turned and looked surprised. “Oh!” she said, “I supposed it was a maid. Be seated if you want to.”

Betty was right. The girl was deliberately rude, but Carol would not leave until she had at least tried the power of loving kindness.

“Miss Mason,” she began, “perhaps you have heard that just before Christmas we are to give a play, and I was wondering if you would like to take part. I am on the committee for selecting the actors,” she added with her friendliest smile.

Katrina tossed her head as she replied haughtily, “Well, I certainly do not care for a servant’s part, and I am told that is the only one that is not taken.”

Carol knew that this was true. “How would you like to be one of the summer girls?” she asked. “That was to have been my part, but I will gladly let you have it. In fact, I would rather enjoy being Norah. It’s such fun trying to speak the Irish brogue.” Then, taking from her pocket a folded paper, she handed it to the astonished girl as she said, “These are the lines that you would have to speak. I copied them on a typewriter and they will not be hard to learn. Rosamond, Doris, and Betty are the other summer girls. I am sure you will like that part.”

“Thank you!” Katrina heard herself saying. She found it hard to be rude to Carol. Then she added impulsively, “Miss Lorens, I have watched you and your friends often. You seem to be so happy all together, but none of the girls here like me. They think I am just horrid!” again the fretful expression in the face, which, for a moment, had been truly pretty.

“If you wish them to like you,” Carol began, “you might try loving kindness.”

Katrina looked puzzled. “But how?” she asked curiously.

The visitor smiled. “Isn’t there something nice that you could do for the girls? I am sure that if they knew that you wanted to be friends, they would be willing to come more than half-way.”

After a thoughtful moment, Katrina looked up with a smile. “I might share the box of goodies which Mother sent me for my Thanksgiving treat,” she said. “Do you suppose they would like that?”

“Oh, that will be a splendid way,” Carol exclaimed joyously, “and now let’s plan how you are to do it.”

At the ten o’clock rest period Carol skipped into Adele’s room where her friends were all eagerly awaiting her.

“Well, did you tame Katrina?” Betty Burd inquired.

Carol’s face was shining. “I do believe that Katrina is as nice as she can be underneath,” she said; then she added with a twinkle, which she tried to hide, “at any rate she is tamed enough to wish us to call upon her at five this afternoon. Now, girls, when we make this call, I want you all to act as though you really liked Katrina, and that will help you to like her, I am sure.”

“We will do just as you say,” Doris Drexel replied in a doleful tone, “but I am quite sure that we are going to be dreadfully bored.”

A happy surprise awaited the girls.