“Girls, did any of you see the new pupil?” Carol Lorens asked when the dwellers of Apple-Blossom Alley had gathered in Adele’s room one wild March afternoon.

“I haven’t seen her,” Doris Drexel replied, as she curled up on the rug in front of the fireplace where a log was snapping merrily. “What does she look like and where has she come from?”

“I can answer one of those questions,” Peggy Pierce declared, “for I just this moment saw her in the lower hall standing near Madame Deriby’s door as though she were waiting to be admitted, and truly, she is the queerest-looking girl that I have ever seen outside of a picture-book. She had on a plaid shawl and a beaver cap and, think of it, girls, she was wearing thick woolen mittens and her skirt was skimpy and much too short, for she is almost as tall as Gertrude. She must be a new pupil, though, for an old battered suit-case was on the floor beside her. I suppose that I stared at her rather curiously and she actually looked frightened. I guess that she isn’t used to seeing other girls, for surely there is nothing scary about me, is there?”

“Of course not, Peggy,” Rosamond Wright replied indignantly. “I certainly can’t see why such a countrified girl is coming to Linden Hall Seminary, which is supposed to be a select school for the daughters of the gentry.”

“Well, don’t let’s decide about this girl until we know her,” Adele had just said, when there came a tap on the door followed by the appearance of Gertrude Willis, who was gladly welcomed by all. Peggy Pierce sprang up from the easiest chair and offered it to the newcomer.

“Oh, Peg, do keep your comfortable seat,” the older girl urged with her winning smile.

“Truly I feel much more at home on the floor,” the other maiden replied as she sat down tailor-fashion by her chum Doris.

“I can’t stay but a moment,” Gertrude said. “Madame Deriby wishes me to come to her office at four-thirty. We have a new pupil, it seems, who is unused to the ways of girls, and Madame Deriby wishes me to meet her and take her under my wing, so to speak.”

“Oh,” moaned Doris Drexel, “I know what that will mean. You will have to spend all your free time coaching her, and we won’t see anything of you, and if it’s that gawky country girl Peggy has just been telling us about, you won’t find much pleasure in her company, I’m sure of that.”

“Well, girls,” Gertrude said brightly as she arose, “you remember that one of the mottoes that we chose for our Sunnyside Club was, ‘The only creed of which we have need is the art of being kind.’”

“You are right!” Adele exclaimed. “I am afraid that we do forget sometimes. Bring the new pupil back with you and we will all help to make her feel at home.”

Then, when Gertrude was gone, the girls took out their mending, and tongues and needles flew, while they wondered what the new girl would be like.

Half an hour later there came a tap on the door and Adele sprang up to open it. Gertrude smilingly entered, leading by the hand a young stranger whose dress was too short in skirt and sleeve, as though she had long since outgrown it. Her face was tanned by sun and wind and her dark hair was tightly braided, and, as Peggy had said, there was an almost startled look in the big brown eyes that were unusually beautiful and expressive.

The girls about the fireplace arose to greet the newcomer.

“This is Matilda Perkins,” Gertrude said kindly. “She has come to be one of our Linden Hall family.” Then, turning to the stranger, she added in her friendliest manner, “Matilda, I am not going to tell you the names of these eight maidens just at first, but you will quickly learn them. Suppose you and I occupy the window-seat. Oh, girls,” she chatted on, “I do believe that I smell pop-corn. Did you pop some while I was away and eat it all up?”

“We did pop it while you were away,” Betty Burd agreed, “but we saved every kernel of it to share with you and Matilda.” Then, opening the closet door, she brought forth a big Chinese bowl brimming over with fluffy white kernels.

“Cup your two hands, everybody!” Betty then sang out. “You may each have all that they will hold.” Sewing had to be abandoned for a time and the girls purposely chatted together that the newcomer might become used to them and their ways. Glancing at her a few moments later, Adele was glad to see that the startled expression had vanished from those wonderful brown eyes and that instead they were twinkling with amusement.

The girls, although they said little to Matilda directly, included her in a general way as they talked about exams only a week ahead, and at last, when Marie, the maid, rapped and told them that Madame Deriby was now ready to receive the new pupil in her office, that girl arose and said without a trace of her former shyness, “Thank you all for the pleasant time,” and then she was gone.

As soon as they were sure that Matilda was out of hearing, Peggy Pierce tiptoed over to the door and locked it. Then she said, “Now, Gertrude, do tell us all you know about her. She certainly is a new type of girl to me.”

“Well,” Gertrude began, “even Madame Deriby does not as yet know much about Matilda. She told me that about two weeks ago she received a letter from an old friend of hers, Bishop Wesley. His sister went to school with Madame Deriby in France, and they are still devoted friends. Now and then the good Bishop has sent a pupil to Linden Hall, but it has always been a girl from a home of wealth and refinement, and so when the Bishop wrote that he would like to send another little friend of his, Madame Deriby replied that she would gladly receive Matilda even though the rooms are really all taken. Of course she was expecting a pupil of the type that the Bishop usually sent, but when she saw this countrified girl, Madame Deriby, who is kindness personified, said that for a moment she was puzzled to know what to do, for the only bed unoccupied is in the room of that English girl who came at Christmas, the one who considers herself too good to associate with any of us.”

The others gasped and Rosamond asked, “Gertrude, do you mean that this backwoodsy girl with that awful name, Matilda Perkins, is to room with the snobbish Lady Stuckup?”

Trudy nodded, and Peggy, whose bump of mischief and merriment seemed sometimes to be more prominent than her bump of sympathy, laughingly declared, “Girls, it would be as good as a circus to see them when they first meet.”

“Oh, Peggy, how can you speak that way?” Adele remonstrated. “I just know that it is going to be ever so hard for both of them.”

“I’m sure that I don’t care how uncomfortable that English girl is made,” Doris Drexel remarked. “Carol overheard her saying that she thinks it is dreadful because there are no class distinctions in America. She was telling Miss Merritt that there isn’t one pupil attending Linden Hall who would be in her class in England.”

“Well, then, why doesn’t she go back to her native land?” Peggy inquired. “No one is begging her to stay here that I know of.”

“Her father is traveling in the West, Madame Deriby told me,” Evelyn replied. “He will soon come after her, and then she will leave our plebeian shores forever.”

“Girls!” Adele suddenly exclaimed with enthusiasm, “Matilda Perkins may be countrified, but there is something about those wonderful eyes of hers that makes me feel sure that she can hold her own even with Peggy’s Lady Stuckup, but, Gertrude, you haven’t told us where Matilda came from. Have you heard as yet?”

“She hails from the Dakota prairies,” the older girl replied. “Her mother was a well-educated woman who married a ranchman and she taught her little girl and her two boys as best she could, but, when Matilda was twelve, she and her brothers became orphans, and since that time she has kept house for them and helped on the farm, but, Adele, if you want to see Matilda’s eyes glow, you must hear her tell about her prairie home. I will bring her up here this evening, if Madame Deriby will excuse us from the recreation hour in the hall.”

Then she added, springing up, “There’s the get-ready-for-supper bell. I must hunt up Matilda this very minute or she will be losing herself in the maze of corridors.”