"It was wonderful--in some ways--" she said slowly, "so many girls, of all classes, gathered together. At first I could not understand. At home, you know, one is very careful whom one knows. It is changing a little now. I remember I was scandalized, my first months at college, to find that the President of the Senior class was a waitress in one of the campus houses--actually waiting on the table! It was too incredible! I wrote home, and Mother begged Father to send for me at once. She was even more shocked than I! But Father laughed, she said, and told her it would do me good. He said it was high time that a little of my American blood came to the fore. Later I learned that this girl, the Senior President, had practically worked her way through the four years of college. She was the daughter of a very poor man--a peasant, we would call him. And yet there was hardly a girl in that great college who would not have given everything she had for the respect and admiration and love which that quiet, plain-featured girl had won and held from students and faculty alike." "You too?" I asked. "I, too," said Mercedes simply. She bent her head a little lower over the white fabric in her lap and went on, not quite clearly. "I was not very popular. Some liked me, yes. They even asked me to their homes for the shorter vacations. But they liked me because I was 'different': because it was 'smart' to say that they had a Spanish-American girl as a friend: or because I was pretty and bright and did not care much to study. But I made no real friendships." I was, by now, very interested. Here was a cross-section of life that I had no knowledge of. A feeling of sympathy stirred in me: this gay, alien little creature, with the blood of two widely dissimilar nations warring in her, coming fresh from her convent to the democratic freedom of an American college. I said, "Tell me a little about it all, Mercedes. I only know college-life second hand, for, as perhaps Bill has told you, I was a helpless invalid for eleven years. But I was fortunate in my friends, although I had few of my own age, and in a Father who was my greatest playfellow and my most understanding comrade." The quick, facile tears rose to the big eyes. She pulled her chair a little closer and laid her warm, vibrant hand on mine. "I didn't know," she said. "I'm so sorry. Billy told me that you had been ill--but I didn't dream.--You're wonderful, Mavis," she said, "delicate and lovely as an orchid. I always feel clumsy and too highly-colored beside you. And you have been so kind and sweet--" I grew very remorseful: my feelings toward Mercedes Howells had been anything but "kind and sweet." They had been distinctly critical and almost unfriendly. For the first time, I did not resent her easy use of my husband's given name: for the first time I realized the old truth that to know people is to like them. I gave the narrow, high-bred hand a little squeeze.