The new girl was as plain as her name. She wore a woolen dress, heavy shoes and an ordinary sailor hat. "Very countrified," was Marie's mental verdict, as she watched her unpacking her trunk. She did not offer to assist the little stranger, who seemed much in awe of her. A new girl who enters a boarding-school a month after the term has begun is always to be pitied. The other girls all have their homesickness over by that time, and are not apt to be so sympathetic with the newcomer as they would have been earlier. They have formed their little coteries, and the new girl feels herself "outside." With Esther this was especially true. Marie neglected her utterly, and she had not confidence in herself to try to make other friends. She went about with a dejected, homesick look that moved Mrs. Hosmer's heart. "I must make some other arrangement after Christmas," she thought. "Esther doesn't seem happy where she is." If she had known how much of Esther's unhappiness was due to Marie's unkindness, her indignation would have made itself felt. Marie meantime poured forth her heart on cream note-paper to her friend Marguerite Archington, bewailing the cruel fate which separated them, and doomed her to the companionship of Esther Jones. Esther's natural timidity was increased by Marie's treatment. At first she made feeble efforts to converse, but finding herself continually repressed, gradually ceased from her endeavors to make friends with Marie. Not only her timidity, but her nervousness, as well, grew on her. She began to be startled at every sudden sound. Now Marie was a girl without "nerves," in the ordinary sense of the word, and could not understand or sympathize with those who are constituted differently. She really believed poor Esther's nervousness to be affectation, and had no patience with it. "She's been coddled all her life, evidently," she reflected, "until now she expects every one to pet her on account of her foolish nervous tricks. She needs a process of hardening." If Marie had not really believed this, I do not think she would have put into execution a plan which suggested itself to her the week before Thanksgiving. It was a cruel scheme, and even though she assured herself that it was really for Esther's good and that it would cure the nervousness, I think she was at heart a little ashamed of herself all the time. [Illustration: "WHAT WAS THAT BY THE TELESCOPE? A WHITE, TALL FIGURE STOOD BY THE INSTRUMENT."] At the western end of the third floor there was a stairway leading up to a room at the top of the building, which was occasionally used as an observatory. A telescope was mounted there, but, as it was not very powerful, the astronomy classes generally used one at the private residence of their professor instead.