"Well, you're wrong there--she's just crazy about reading--she reads everything--her room is full of books, and Miss Ashwell says she knows more about Russian literature than most people in this country. None of you children been bothering Miss Ashwell, have you?" There was an indignant denial, and Judith, remembering that she had seen her friend and comforter looking very much as if she herself stood in need of comforting, asked quickly: "Why do you ask, Cathy?" "Oh, well, she seems bothered," was the rather vague answer. Judith ran down to Miss Ashwell's room at visiting time that night, and tapping at the door put in her head and enquired, "May I come in?" "Not just now, Judith," said Miss Ashwell, "I'm busy." Judith with a mumbled apology disappeared at once, but not before she had seen that Miss Ashwell's busy-ness had to do apparently with the snapshot of a handsome soldier propped against the reading-lamp--a despatch case lay open on the floor beside her and there were letters strewn over the table and in Miss Ashwell's lap. "Now, wasn't that too bad of me to rush in like that," thought Judith, as she hurried away. "I wonder if that's the picture she showed me the other day--she was probably going to write to him--wouldn't it be exciting?" Miss Ashwell looked complacently next day at her line of forty girls as they were ushered into reserved seats near the front of Convocation Hall. They might some of them look like young hoydens in middy blouses and gymnasium bloomers--which costume most of them affected during school hours--but now, in their trim serge suits and _chic_ little hats, they were a credit to their chaperon, and as it was considered bad form to misbehave "in line" at church or concert or lecture, Miss Ashwell settled down and gave herself up to the luxury of her own thoughts.