Miss Vincent was the name of the present principal. She was an old lady and had a vice-principal under her at Vincent Hall, the largest and newest of these spacious homes, where young women received the advantages of university instruction to prepare them for the battle of life. Priscilla was to live at Heath Hall— a slightly smaller house, which stood at a little distance away— its grounds being divided from the grounds of Vincent Hall by means of a rustic paling. Miss Heath was the very popular vice-principal of this hall, and Prissie was considered a fortunate girl to obtain a home in her house. She sat now a forlorn and rather scared young person, huddled up in one corner of the fly which turned in at the wide gates, and finally deposited her and her luggage at the back entrance of Heath Hall. Priscilla looked out in the darkness of the autumn night with frightened eyes. She hated herself for feeling nervous. She had told Aunt Raby that, of course, she would have no silly tremors, yet here she was trembling and scarcely able to pay the cabman his fare. She heard a girl’s laugh in the distance, and it caused her to start so violently that she dropped one of her few treasured sixpences, which went rolling about aimlessly almost under the horse’s hoofs. “Stop a minute, I’ll find it for you,” said a voice. A tall girl with big, brown eyes suddenly darted into view, picked up the sixpence as if by magic, popped it into Priscilla’s hand and then vanished. Priscilla knew that this was the girl who had laughed; she heard her laughing again as she turned to join some one who was standing beside a laurel hedge. The two linked their arms together and walked off in the darkness. “Such a frightened poor fresher!” said the girl who had picked up the sixpence to her companion. “Maggie,” said the other in a warning voice, “I know you, I know what you mean to do.” “My dear, good Nancy, it is more than I know myself. What awful indiscretion does your prophetic soul see me perpetrating?” “Oh, Maggie, as if anything could change your nature! You know you’ll take up that miserable fresher for about a fortnight, and make her imagine that you are going to be excellent friends for the rest of your life, and then— p—— f! you’ll snuff her out as if she had never existed; I know you, Maggie, and I call it cruel.” “Is not that Miss Banister I hear talking?” said a voice quite close to the two girls. They both turned, and immediately with heightened color rushed up eagerly to shake hands with the vice-principal of their college. “How do you do, my dears?” she said in a hearty voice. “Are you quite well, Maggie, and you, Nancy? Had you a pleasant holiday? And did you two great chums spend it together?” The girls began answering eagerly; some other girls came up and joined the group, all anxious to shake hands with Miss Heath and to get a word of greeting from her.