"Why, you've got your room fixed already," said Josephine admiringly. "Somebody's been working hard! Look at her lovely curtains! I wish I'd had rose now, instead of yellow." "'T wouldn't have made a speck of difference, Jo, and you know it," commented Jane with a wicked twinkle. "You know you say you were made untidy, and untidy you'll stay." "I promised Miss Marlowe I'd reform. I'm not going to forget anything, and I'm going to get a _beautiful_ record for my room, and my hair and clothes are going to be so irreproachable that Miss Watson will have nothing to do but create masterpieces all term." "Are we going to have Miss Marlowe for English, by the way?" asked Jane. "I hope so. And is Eleanor here yet? I've got to see her about a new basket-ball." "I never saw three girls so different," thought Judith as she sat eating chocolates and listening to School gossip. "Nancy's much the prettiest--I love gold hair, and she has such aristocratic hands and feet--she's lovely--I do hope we'll be friends. Josephine's almost rough--and what an untidy mop of hair! I wonder if her eyes are brown--she shuts them up so tight when she laughs I can't see--and she seems to be laughing most of the time. She's awfully big--I don't think I'd like to be quite so tall. Jane's funny--she's almost square--fair and solid--and how straight her hair is; she's got a wicked grin--she's a monkey, I do believe." The dressing-bell rang before the three friends had caught up on the latest news, but thanks to the low walls conversation could proceed even while they dressed. Nancy remembered to ask Judith if she needed any help with dome fasteners, and then they went down to the dining-room together. The tables were laid for six, each headed by a sixth-form girl. "At dinner we usually have a teacher at each table," explained Nancy, "but this being first night the staff are by themselves." Judith was introduced to the prefect, Esther Harriman, a tall, black-haired girl who enquired at once what games Judith played, and learning that she preferred tennis assured her that she could have a game the next day. Nancy continued to point out notables: the brown-haired prefect at the next table with the frank, boyish look was Eleanor Ormsby, the Captain of the School, and next to her was Rosamond-- Esther interrupted them in order to introduce a newcomer who had arrived late, evidently just from a journey. "This is Sally May Forsythe, Nancy, from Richmond, Virginia, and she's going to be in your set of cubicles, Miss Marlowe says." Sally May was almost as pretty as Nancy, Judith decided, but not quite, though her eyes were big and brown, and her soft Southern voice wholly charming. "We're to go back to Miss Marlowe's room so she can talk over your schedule of lessons with you," announced Nancy as they left the dining-room, "and then we'll go over to the gymnasium." "Gymnasium?" gasped Judith.