“I did not tell you quite all she said,” confessed Molly, opening the letter again and reading. “She says, ‘remember me to that nice Professor Green, who is almost as lovely as Crit,’” and Molly beat a hasty retreat. CHAPTER VIII.—THE OLD QUEEN’S CROWD. “Nance, do you fancy this has really been such a quiet, uneventful college year, or are we just so old and settled that we don’t know excitement when we see it? It has been a very happy time, and I feel that I have got hold of myself somehow, and am able to make use of the hard studying I have done at college. I know you will laugh when I tell you that one reason I have been so happy is that I have not had to bother myself over Math. No one can ever know how I did hate and despise that subject.” “You poor old Molly, I know it was hard on you. You were in good company, anyhow, in your hatred of it. You remember Lord Macauley hated it, too, but for that very reason was determined ‘to take no second place’ in it. You always managed to get good marks after that first condition in our Freshman year. I often laugh when I think of you with your feet in hot water and your head tied up in a cold wet towel, trying to cure a cold and at the same time grasp higher mathematics,” answered the sympathetic Nance, looking lovingly at her roommate. The girls found themselves looking at each other very often with sad, loving glances. Their partnership was rapidly approaching its close. They could not be room-mates forever and college must end some time. “The funny thing about me and Math. is that I never did really and truly understand it,” laughed Molly. “I learned how to work one example as another was worked, but it was never with any real comprehension. Nothing but memory got me through. I remember so well when I was a little girl, going to the district school. I came home in tears because division of decimals had stumped me. My father found me weeping my soul out with a sticky slate and pencil grasped to my panting breast. ‘What’s the matter, little daughter?’ he said. ‘Oh, father, I can’t see how a great big number can go into a little bits of number and make a bigger number still.’ ‘Well, you poor lamb, don’t bother your little red head about it any more, but run and get yourself dressed and come drive to town with me. I am going to take you to see Jo Jefferson play “Cricket on the Hearth.”’ I shall never forget that play, but I never have really understood decimals; and you may know what higher mathematics meant to me.”