"Do you know, girls, that Marie Smith scarcely deigns to speak to me any more," said Stella Gard. "Oh, that's nothing, Stella. I was her room-mate last year, and she has conversed with me on just two occasions since she came back," supplemented Anna Fergus. "What is the matter with her?" asked a "new girl." "Is it possible, my dear young friend," rejoined Anna, with mock gravity, "that you don't know we have been sacrificed to the North Avenue Archingtons?" The new girl looked bewildered, and Anna went on to explain: "It seems that last summer certain blue-blooded Archingtons, with malice aforethought, left their patrician heights on North Avenue, on which they had hitherto dwelt in solitary grandeur, and went to Cape May. There they boarded at the same hotel with the Smith family, and deigned to bestow a few smiles upon them. This so lifted up the heart of Marie Smythe, formerly Mary Smith, that she no longer regards her humble class-mates as fit associates for her. _Hinc illae lacrymae_, which means, all you who don't know Latin, 'that's why I'm using my handkerchief.'" "She told me," said little Zoe Binnex, interrupting Anna's nonsense, "that Mrs. Archington had invited her mother to visit her." "I wish some of you were doomed to sit at the same table with her, as I am," Anna went on, "and then you would wish the Archingtons at the bottom of the sea. The way poor, patient Miss Sedgwick has to suffer! Marie sits next her, you know, and while Miss Sedgwick ladles out the soup, Marie ladles out the Archingtons. We have Papa North Avenue, with his four millions, at breakfast; Mamma Archington, with her diamonds, at dinner, and all the young Archingtons for supper." The ringing of the study-bell dispersed the members of the Browning Circle. As Anna and Zoe passed Marie's door, they overheard a servant requesting that young lady to go down to Mrs. Hosmer's study. "Perhaps Mrs. Hosmer thinks it is time to choke off some of those Archingtons," whispered Anna. But Mrs. Hosmer had sent for Marie for a different purpose. A new pupil was coming, and, as Marie had no room-mate, was to be put with her. "Oh, Mrs. Hosmer," protested Marie, "I'd much rather room alone." "I should be glad to gratify you," said her preceptress, "but it is impossible. Yours is the only vacancy on the second floor, and, as she is a delicate girl, I do not want to send her to the third." "Who is she?" Marie asked, seeing that she must yield to the inevitable. "Her name is Esther Jones. She is a very quiet little girl, inclined to be nervous. I hope you will do all you can to make her happy and to keep her from being homesick. She will come to-night." Marie was much vexed at the intrusion, as she chose to consider it. It was so much nicer to room alone. How provoking that just as she was "getting into" a better circle, and had succeeded in dropping her commonplace room-mate of last year, she should have this nervous little Esther Jones forced upon her.