Sidney, relieved that Mrs. Milliken did not expect _her_ to recite the "precious and personal anecdotes," drew back into a corner from where she could enjoy to its fullest measure the delight of such close propinquity to real boarding-school girls. Their talk, broken by smothered shrieks of laughter, rang like sweetest music to her. They seemed so jolly. Their blue serges and white collars were so stylish. She wondered where they all came from and whether they had "scrapes" at Grace Hall. The first eight girls filed back into the hall from the study and Miss Byers motioned eight more to enter. There was a general stirring, then the chatter swelled again. Presently a girl slipped into Sidney's corner and dropped down upon a chair. "Isn't this the _stupidest_ bore!" she groaned. Then looking at Sidney, she gasped and laughed. "Say--I _beg_ your pardon. I thought you were one of the girls. And you're--you're--the poet's daughter, aren't you?" The slanting dove-gray eyes above the white collar actually softened with sympathy. Sidney thought this young creature the very prettiest girl--next to Vicky--she had ever seen. She did not mind her pity. The stranger had taken her for "one of the girls" and Sidney would have forgiven her anything for that! "I suppose it is a bore. Isn't it fun, though, just going places?" The boarding school girl stared. "Oh, we go so _much_. There isn't a big gun anywhere within a radius of five hundred miles that we don't have to visit. We get autographs and listen to speeches and make notes about graves and look at pictures. Most of the girls get a kick out of it slipping in some gore behind Byers' back--but I don't. I travel so much with my family that nothing seems awfully exciting now." Sidney wished she'd say that over again--it sounded so unbelievable. And the girl couldn't be any older than she was. She was conscious that the slanting eyes were regarding her closely. "Do you like living here and having a lot of people tramp all over your house and stare at you and say things about you and poke at your father's things?" It was plain magic the way this stranger put her finger directly upon the sore spot. "No, I don't!" vehemently. "_I'd_ hate it, too. And I suppose you always have to act like a poet's daughter, don't you? Do you have to write poetry yourself?" "No, I loathe poetry!" "But I'll bet you don't dare say so when that Dame in there can hear you! I have to be careful talking about candy. My father makes the Betty Sweets. Don't you know them? They're sold all over the world. We have an immense factory. And there isn't any other kind of candy that I don't like better. But I don't dare tell anybody that. Funny, I'm telling you! Our spirits must be drawn together by some invisible bond." Sidney's ears fairly ached with the beauty of the other's words. She stiffened her slender little body to control its trembling. She tried to say something but found her throat choked. The other girl rattled on: