There was no time for a reply from Jane, for the smiling Wellington lady and her companion now caught sight of the girls, and were advancing quickly. “Just in time,” Mrs. Weatherbee exclaimed with more precision than originality. “How splendidly you both look!” Then the usual hand shaking, and exchange of courtesies included the introduction to Miss Helka Podonsky. So the girls at last beheld the object of their long outstanding guesses and conjectures! Yes, Helka was pretty—she was different, and she was surely attractive. Her hair tangled around her ears and made the most adorable little puffs. Its shade was dark, not black, but more dark than brown. All of these details were easily observed, and the girls absorbed them, but the color of her eyes—Jane thought they blue, Judith thought them brown, and neither knew how to classify the flashes and “volts” the little stranger shot out from under the long curly lashes. But that she was lovely each silently agreed. “This is our friend who is coming with us to Wellington,” Mrs. Weatherbee explained, in that formal way “the faculty” always take to say unnecessary things. “She is delighted with the prospect,” another superfluous banality. “Oh, yes, it will be very—nice,” spoke Helka, and her accent betrayed the slightest foreign tinge. Her words seemed carefully chosen, but she did not hiss her “s” nor choke her “e.” Jane was glad the voice and accent would not excite undue prejudice. “I am sure it will be perfectly jolly,” Judith hurried to add, and in her effort to speak clearly she chose the very word a stranger might not understand. “Jolly” was not included in the usual English phrases given in foreign school text books. “Yes?” Helka ventured to answer, and her rising inflection might easily span a sea of doubt. “Oh, it will be—delightful,” Jane took great pains to qualify. She had no intention of confusing Helka, and wished above all things to impress her with a sense of companionship. Yet there was a certain strain apparent. Helka did not “fall on her knees, or neck” after the manner of the proteges in children’s books, neither did “her eyes fill with tears of silent appreciation.” Nevertheless the three girls, with their college director, were going through that process of self consciousness bordering on embarrassment. “Can’t we go to the rest room for a few moments?” asked Jane. “I think we will have a better chance to get acquainted sitting down,” she declared. Quick to catch the possible humor of this remark Helka smiled broadly, and the set of teeth she exposed caused the girls again to exchange knowing glances. Now, Judith had wonderful teeth. In fact, she might claim championship in the tooth beauty contest, did Wellington carry such a sport, but Helka’s! They were so small, so even and so white, matched pearls indeed. Thoughts of the pure grain foods of Poland filtered through Jane’s mind, while Judith wondered about Polish dentifrice.