"This is your dormitory, Avelyn--the Cowslip Room, we call it. Here's your bed, and these are your dress hooks and your drawers. The janitor's bringing your box upstairs. Oh, he's here now! Put it at the end of the bed, Tom, please. I suppose you have the key, Avelyn? Then you'd better unlock it at once. These are your room-mates--Laura Talbot, Irma Ridley, Janet Duncan, and Ethelberga Carnforth. Girls, this is Avelyn Watson. I hope you will make her welcome. Begin your unpacking now, Avelyn. I shall be back directly to see how you are getting on." Miss Hopkins, whose duties on the first day of term were multifarious, withdrew as hurriedly as she had entered. Her visits generally resembled the brief career of a whirlwind--sometimes her pupils considered that they carried equal desolation. The new girl remained standing by the bed, and for the moment made no effort to obey orders and unlock her box. She was pretty--her four critics decided that point at their first glance--her chin was softly rounded, and her nose was small and straight. Her general colouring was brunette, but the big wide-open eyes were grey as the estuary outside. She flushed vivid pink under the scrutiny of her room-mates. For a brief instant they thought she was going to cry, then she winked rapidly and began to whistle instead. "I shouldn't advise you to whistle too loud," counselled Janet, by way of breaking the ice. "Miss Hopkins is only in the next dormitory, and she's got a crusade on against whistling--at least she had last term, and I don't suppose she's changed her tactics; she doesn't generally." "Do the eternal snows change?" murmured Ethelberga. The new girl stopped with her mouth puckered into a button. A look of consternation spread over her face, then passed into a smile. "I was told I'd have to be jolly careful and mind my p's and q's here!" she remarked cheerily. "I've been just five minutes in the school, and my first impressions are that Miss Thompson aims at unadulterated dignity, and that Miss Hopkins is concentrated essence of fuss. Am I near?" "Not so far off!" laughed Laura. "They can exchange characters sometimes, though. I've seen Miss Hopkins ride her high horse and be dignity personified, and on the other hand I've seen Miss Thompson more ruffled than a head mistress has any business to be. You'll soon get to know them." "I suppose I shall. Whether I shall altogether like them is another question." "You'll like Silverside!" gushed Irma. "It's a perfectly delightful school--at least it used to be. We're afraid it is going to be utterly and entirely spoilt now." "Why?" "Because it's being invaded. It used to be quite small and select, more boarders than day girls, you know. And now we've just had a horrible shock--the whole of another day school is being plumped upon us--a school we've always despised. We're too indignant for words." Avelyn, who was fumbling with the lock of her box, lifted her head. "Don't you like them coming?"