"Well, I'll call round about ten. Make up your fire, and be comfortable. You're allowed a scuttle of coals a day, and let me warn you to _use_ it! If it's not all burnt, keep a few lumps in a convenient cache--a box under the bed will do. It comes in handy for another day, and when it gets really cold you can stoke up at night and have a fire to dress by in the morning. The authorities don't approve of that--they say it's bad for the stoves. Personally I consider myself before any stoves." She nodded casually and strode from the room, leaving the two friends divided between gratitude for her kindness and prejudice against her personality. "Don't like her a bit, do you?" "Humph. So-so! Means well, I think. Wonder how she knows Dan? He never mentioned her name." "Not at _all_ the sort of girl Dan would care for! Such a bumptious manner. A good many of them have, I observe. Fearfully self-possessed. Perhaps it's a special effort to impress the Freshers. She didn't take much notice of me, but I'm coming with you all the same to buy fixings for my room, and hear the second-year auctioneer. Call for me when you're ready, like a dear. I'm off now to read until ten o'clock." Darsie shut herself in her room, and set to work at her burry with all the ardour of a beginner, so that the hour and a half passed like a flash, and it seemed as if she had scarcely begun before Hannah's solid bang sounded at the door, and she went out into the corridor to follow Helen Ross to the Gym. The auction had already begun, and the auctioneer, a fresh-looking girl with grey eyes planted extraordinarily far apart, was engaged in extolling the excellencies of an aged kettle to a laughing circle of girls. She wore a black dress cut square at the neck, and a rose- coloured ribbon twined round her head. She held out the kettle at the length of a bare white arm, and raised her clear voice in delightful imitation of the professional wheedle.