Almost mechanically Jane reached down to pick up the suitcase she had placed on the station platform in the first moment of reunion. All the pleasure of coming back to Wellington had been replaced by a sense of deep depression. In spite of the presence of her chums she felt now as she had formerly felt when just a year before she had stood on that same platform, hating with all her sore heart its group of laughing, chatting girls. "Do not look so cross, _cherie_." Adrienne had slipped a soft hand into Jane's arm. "All will yet be well. Come, I, your Imp, will lead you to the taxicab." "And I'll help do the leading," declared Judith gaily, taking hold of Jane's free arm. "Ethel, you can walk behind and carry Jane's traveling bag. That will be some little honor." Knowing precisely how Jane felt, Judith affected a cheeriness she was far from feeling. She heartily wished that she had not been obliged to say a word to rob her roommate of the first joy of meeting. While traversing the few yards that lay between the station and the point behind it where several taxicabs waited, both she and Adrienne chattered lively commonplaces. Jane, however, had little to say. She was experiencing the dazed sensation of one who has received an unexpected slap in the face. What had happened? Why had Judy insisted that they must have a talk before going on to the Hall? Surely some very unpleasant news lay in wait for her ears. But what? Jane had not the remotest idea. "Now, Judy," she began with brusque directness the instant the quartette were seated in the taxicab, "don't keep me in the dark any longer. You must know how--what a queer feeling all this has given me." Seated in the tonneau of the automobile, between Adrienne and Judith, Jane turned hurt eyes on the latter. "Jane," began Judith impressively, "before you went home last year did you arrange with Mrs. Weatherbee about your room for this year?" "Why, yes." A flash of amazement crossed Jane's face. "Of course I did," she went on. "Mrs. Weatherbee understood that I was coming back to Madison Hall." "Humph!" ejaculated Judith. "Well, there's just this much about it, Jane. About nine o'clock this morning a little, black-eyed scrap of a freshman marched into my room and said Mrs. Weatherbee had assigned her to the other half of my room. I told her she had made a mistake and come to the wrong room. She said 'no,' that Mrs. Weatherbee had sent the maid to the door with her to show her the way." "Why, Judy, I don't see how----" began Jane, then suddenly broke off with, "Go on and tell me the rest." "I didn't like this girl for a cent. Her name is Noble, but it doesn't fit her. She has one of those prying, detestable faces, thin, with a sharp chin, and she hates to look one straight in the face," continued Judith disgustedly. "I went over to see Adrienne and Ethel and told them. Then we all went downstairs to interview Mrs. Weatherbee. She said you weren't coming back to Madison Hall this year."