“It’s a beaut,” said Katherine, taking the hint promptly. “I don’t see how you ever fixed your desks and couches, and left so much space in the middle. Our room is like the aisle in a Chicago theatre. That Japanese screen is a peach and the water-color over your desk is another. Did you buy back the chafing-dish?”
Betty laughed. She had amused the house by getting up before breakfast on the day after Nan left, in her haste to buy a chafing-dish. In the afternoon Rachel had suggested that a teakettle was really more essential to a college establishment, and they had gone down together to change it. But then had come Miss King’s invitation to eat “plowed field” after the frolic; and the chafing-dish, appearing once more the be-all and end-all of existence, had finally replaced the teakettle.
“But we’re going to have both,” ventured Helen shyly.
“Oh yes,” broke in Betty. “Isn’t it fine of Helen to get it and make our tea-table so complete?” As a matter of fact Betty much preferred that the tea-table should be all her own; but Helen was so delighted with the idea of having a part in it, and so sure that she wanted a teakettle more than pillows for her couch, that Betty resolved not to mind the bare-looking bed, which marred the cozy effect of the room, and above all never to let Helen guess how she felt about the tea-table. “But next year you better believe I’m hoping for a single room,” she confided to the little green lizard who sat on her inkstand and ogled her while she worked.
When church was over Katherine proposed a stroll around the campus before dinner. “I haven’t found my bearings at all yet,” she said. “Now which building is which?”
Betty pointed out the Hilton House proudly. “That’s all I know,” she said, “except these up here in front of course–the Main Building and Chapel, and Science and Music Halls.”
“We know the gymnasium,” suggested Helen, “and the Belden House, where we bought our screen, is one of the four in that row.”
They found the Belden House, and picked out the Westcott by its name-plate, which, being new and shiny, was easy to read from a distance. Then Helen made a discovery. “Girls, there’s water down there,” she cried. Sure enough, behind the back fence and across a road was a pretty pond, with wooded banks and an island, which hid its further side from view.
“That must be the place they call Paradise,” said Betty. “I’ve heard Nan speak of it. I thought it was this,” and she pointed to a slimy pool about four yards across, below them on the back campus. “That’s the only pond I’d noticed.”
“Oh, no,” declared Katherine. “I’ve heard my scientific roommate speak of that. It’s called the Frog Pond and ‘of it more anon,’ as my already beloved Latin teacher occasionally remarks. To speak plainly, she has promised to let me help her catch her first frog.”