A kitchenette and two sleeping rooms had been assigned to the Wellingtons by Miss Jordan, the larger dining room being shared by two groups. Miss Jordan explained she had found the individual kitchen indispensable, for all girls had their own ideas about kitchen work, while a dining room might be made communal, many persons having similar table habits, obviously. The living room was delightful. A long, high ceiled drawing room originally. Miss Jordan had preserved the splendor of the crystal chandelier, and the glory of the hand carved marble mantel. Here all the girls were wont to congregate in their evenings, and those of them who had the opportunity came together around the square piano or curled themselves up with books in the bay window's cushions in the late afternoons.
The clientele was sufficiently varied to be interesting, at the same time Miss Jordan personally vouched for the general standing of each of her paying guests. In fact, the rendezvous for young girls who might be in New York temporarily, and without personal chaperons, was a real innovation, and it did fill a perfectly legitimate long-felt want.
"Home was never like this," declared Judith, passing the chocolates to a little dark-haired art student, who had just come in from a morning's work in a co-operative studio. The art student called herself Anaa Kole, and just why she insisted on the second "a" to her otherwise plain Ana had not yet been discovered by Judith. It looked to her like a waste of type, that could not be vocally made use of.
"Miss Jordan is so motherly," admitted Anaa. "I sometimes wonder what I should have done if I had not found her apartment. I came here because my college directed me to."
"That is just what happened to me," Judith declared. "I came here because Wellington actually toted me to the doorstep. Have some more chocolates, do!"
"Oh, thank you, I do like sweets when I am tired. What are you studying?"
"Here? Nothing especially. We are just getting ready for our junior year. All but Miss Podonsky. She is just beginning."
"Isn't she dear? But why does she run every time the bell rings?"
"Does she? I hadn't noticed," prevaricated Judith. "She is a little shy, being a stranger, I suppose."
"And she never practices when anyone is around. I have so wished to hear her play her violin. I am sure she is a wonder at it. But every time I do have the good luck to come in while she is playing she stops instantly as I enter."