Rhoda rose with the rest, and for ten minutes there was silence, broken only by the splashing of water. Then suddenly the air was filled with a deep, melodious roll, at which, as at a signal, Thomasina appeared from her lair--beautiful in a magenta dressing-jacket, and hair coiled in a tight little knot at the top of her head--and opened wide the door of the dormitory. Rhoda, peering from between her curtains could see other doors opening all the way down the corridor, and bare arms hastily withdrawn from view, while all the time the music swelled into fuller force, and pealed over the great, silent house like some majestic wakening voice. "What is it?" she queried breathlessly, and Thomasina answered from behind her curtain: "The organ, of course. The organ in the hall. One of the music mistresses plays a voluntary every morning ten minutes after we get up, and the choir sings a hymn. You will hear them presently. Each house takes it in turn to do choir duty. It's the Greens this week." As she spoke the first note of the hymn sounded, and the words rose clearly on the air:-- "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee. Holy, holy, holy, Merciful and Mighty, God in Three Persons, Blessed Trinity!" The clear voices were softened by distance into almost angelic sweetness, the treble rang true and sweet against the harmonious background of alto; the organ sank to a flute-like softness. It was an unexpected and beautiful beginning to the day's work, and the tears started to Rhoda's eyes as she listened, for she was of an emotional nature, quick to respond to any outside influence. She followed each line of the hymn with devout attention, and when it was finished knelt down beside her bed to offer a prayer, which was much longer and more fervent than it would have been ten minutes before. She prayed for strength, for guidance, and--with a remembrance of yesterday's trials-- for patience too, that she might be able to take a joke in good part, and not value too highly her own dignity, and finally rose from her knees in a glow of virtuous resolution. No sooner was she out of her cubicle than the blow descended. With the glow of good resolution still upon her, she was tried--and fell! Thomasina regarded her critically, and said, with a cool assurance more maddening than downright rudeness: "That coiffure is very becoming, Fuzzy, but it won't do here. Go back to your den, and plait it in a pigtail like mine!" The glare of indignation, of scorn, of outraged dignity in Rhoda's eyes was beyond description. She straightened her back into a poker of obstinacy, and replied-- "I shall do no such thing! I shall wear my hair as I choose, and as I have always worn it." "No you won't, my dear. Pigtails are the rule in this establishment, and pigtails you must wear so long as you are within its walls."