“This is Raquel Daniels, isn’t it?” She laid a cordial hand on Raquel’s arm. “I’ve come up after you--to meet my new roommate. There was some mistake in the rooming plans, and we’re to be partners, you and I. Shall we go right on to my room? There’s just time before dinner.” Raquel’s head came up proudly. Then she smiled at Anne. “Thank you. My mistake.” “A game youngster,” thought Anne. She wouldn’t hold up a sore paw. Sporting! And--here was a girl you could understand, Raquel felt. Easy-handed enough to gentle a stallion colt. That tight feeling in the chest, the hurt in her throat, eased. And if Anne Marvin winced at Raquel’s grip, it did not go unreturned this time. It needed the reassurance of Anne’s handclasp to carry Raquel through that first meal at The Towers. Such fine linen and silver she had seen in San Antone, and for service, too, the Toltec Hotel, during the cattlemen’s convention, could not be surpassed. But to sit in the company of all these easy-mannered girls! “Do you find that even your clothing feels damp in the East, Miss Daniels?” “Is it true that there’s only one family to a county in Texas, Miss Daniels?” “Yes’m,” “No’m,” and “Yes, Ma’am,” and “No, Ma’am,” were all Raquel could find tongue for. It was not until late the next afternoon that Anne Marvin was called to Miss Carter’s office, a formal room of which the girls stood in awe. But Anne never minded being summoned there. Anne usually had her way in life. And this was as true at The Towers as it had been at home. There was a reasonableness and good humor in Anne’s way, a deep kindness of heart, that argued more eloquently than her words. Tall, blonde, handsome, she was easily the best and the most simply dressed girl at school. Her hair was ashen fair, her skin a flushed ivory, and she wore tans, ashes of roses, sage greens, deep blues, avoiding the usual pinks and blues affected by blondes. “Insipid,” she said of them. There was nothing insipid about Anne. Sports and studies alike came easily to her--far too easily, for, although she was talented, she was lazy. Everything had always come too easily to her--family, wealth, position, were hers by inheritance. She might have been a leader among the girls, but leadership did not seem worth exerting herself for. She did what amused or interested her, and read voraciously. She had just finished Cooper’s _Pathfinder_, and that wonderful tale of the Pueblo Indians, _The Delight Makers_, which had stirred her enthusiasm for the West. Then Raquel arrived, fresh from that land of adventure, a character out of a book. Anne’s example did have a great deal of influence at school. She was copied and sought after. But she had not the slightest inclination to manage, and down in her heart she realized that her inertia was often not only lazy but selfish.