Our life at the Y. W. C. A. building had much in common with boarding-school life--though less restricted in many ways--a community of women, its walls seldom echoed to a man’s step or voice, except in the evening when callers came. It sounded good to hear the deep tones of “Dan,” the janitor, when he brought trunks to the rooms, or was otherwise called up from the basement. Even the elevator-boy was a girl. As our medical books accumulated, we had need of book-shelves, but to buy a book-case, even the cheapest, was not to be thought of. There were so many expenses to be met, so many fees at College for the different courses, books to get, bones to rent, chemicals and breakages to pay for, board and laundry bills and the like, that we cut down on all else as rigorously as possible. I remember how my heart would sink at some new item of expense coming up at the College, and how I dreaded to write home about it, knowing well what a sacrifice it meant there. But to occasional expressed misgivings of mine, that I had undertaken anything requiring such an outlay, Father would always write reassuringly: “We shall manage somehow; don’t worry. One of these days you will be where you can earn money, and then we shall be glad you undertook it.” How often these cheery messages came to me during those years! One evening we sallied forth to a shoe store and bought a long, narrow pine box for ten or fifteen cents. “Where will you have it sent?” the man asked. “We will take it ourselves,” we replied, much to the man’s amazement and amusement. And Belle and I merrily carried the long box two or three blocks to our boarding-place. People turned and looked at us; street urchins guyed us, asking if it was our coffin; but to their jibes we answered good-humouredly--it was sport for us as well as for them. Standing the thing up on end, and making shelves of the lid, we covered it with blue paper-cambric, and when our medical books were in it, we were as proud as any girls in Boston; and it cost us about thirty cents! We had the diversion of gymnasium practice one evening a week, after which we would come down to our room for quizzes, sitting around in our “gym” suits, which rather embarrassed Miss Wilkins, and correspondingly tickled us. Miss Thorndike did it, too, so she couldn’t very well criticize it openly.