Eleanor Mertoun, deep in the comfort of her cushioned window-seat, alternately mused on the contrast between her busy Thursday self and her lazy Sunday self, and wished for the return of her roommate, who was spending the Saturday and Sunday in Philadelphia. It was certainly the time and place in which to enjoy the retrospect of work done. The red glow of a quiet little coal fire in the grate mingled pleasantly with the fading cold light from without, and lit up warmly the dark green walls of the study, and its polished floor. An antique oval mirror in a dull old gilt frame dimly gave back the double of a graceful sword fern which spread its long fronds over the end of a well-filled bookcase below. Eleanor, being in a contemplative mood, stared hard at the fern and reflected that _it_ toiled not and was very beautiful. Before she could go on to the philosophic consequences of her meditation, the door was swung open vigorously, and in came a tall figure in hat and ulster. "Why, it's Marjorie Daw herself," exclaimed Eleanor, springing up to greet the longed-for roommate. "I thought you weren't coming back till to-morrow? You're just in time to save me from acute melancholia, but I can't believe you had any premonition of that!" "I'm _gefrohren_--give me a cup of hot tea, for the love of--Me, and then I'll tell you," answered Marjorie Conyngham, as she threw off hat and coat, sat down on the rug by the hearth, and held out both hands towards the fire. Eleanor dashed out to fill the kettle, and soon had a steaming cup and a "jammed" cracker ready for Marjorie. Then she put a "Busy" sign on the outside of the door to guard against too attentive friends on borrowing bent, sat down beside the newcomer, clasped her hands around her knees, and commanded, "Go on." "I had an unusual and severe attack of piety that prevented me from cutting Pol. Econ. in the morning. It was brought on, I think, by the idea of having to copy six pages of lecture notes on the social state of the indigent Indians." Eleanor interrupted her. "Oh, I don't in the least care what brought you, now that you're here. I meant, I want to know all about the Atkinsons, what you did and said,--and how many times you upset your glass at table." Marjorie passed over this insulting thrust, and irrelevantly remarked: "Isn't it a pleasant thought that exam. time is over, and so Betty Hall no longer goes down the corridor warbling 'Earth is my resting place, Heaven is my home,' or 'I'm a pilgrim and I'm a stranger, I can tarry, I can tarry but a night'?" Eleanor laughed at the remembrance. "It is, surely. Poor old Betty! Doesn't she suffer more from the fear of being flunked out than any upper-classman you ever saw?--and she makes elaborate preparations for going home at every exam. time. But come back from this digression and stick to the manuscript. Marge, conversationally you're a tramp!"