It was amusing, and a little pathetic too, to watch the shy Roberta expand in the genial, happy-go-lucky atmosphere of the Wales household. A lonely, motherless child brought up by a father who loved her dearly, treated her as an equal, and was too absorbed in his own affairs to realize that she needed any companionship but his own, she had been absolutely swept off her feet by the rush of young life at Harding. The only close friend she had made there was Mary Brooks; and, though Mary fully reciprocated Roberta's fondness for her, she was a person of so many ideas and interests that Roberta was necessarily left a good deal to herself. During her first year, the sociable atmosphere of the Chapin house had helped to break down her reserve and bring her, in spite of herself, into touch with the college world. But now, in a house full of noisy, rollicking freshmen, who thought her queer and "stuck-up," she was bitterly unhappy. So she shut herself in with her books and her thoughts, wondered whether being on the campus would really make any difference in her feelings about college, and stayed on only because of her devotion to Mary and her unwillingness to disappoint her father, who was very proud of "my daughter at Harding."
Roberta loved children, and she and the smallest sister instantly became fast friends. Will frightened her dreadfully at first, but before the week was out she found herself chatting with him just as familiarly as she did with her Boston cousin, who was the only young man she knew well. And after she had helped Mrs. Wales to trim the smallest sister's Christmas tree, and been down town with Mr. Wales to pick out some books for him to give Nan,—"Because you and Nan seem to be cut out of the same piece of cloth, you see," explained Mr. Wales genially,—Roberta felt exactly like one of the family, and hoarded the days, and then the hours, that remained of this blissful vacation.
"It seems as if I couldn't go back," she told Betty, when the good-byes had all been said, and the long train was rumbling through the darkness toward Harding.
"I'm sorry to leave too," said Betty dreamily. "It's been a jolly old vacation. But think how we should feel if we couldn't go back at all—if the family fortune was swept away all of a sudden, or if we were sick or anything, and had to drop out of dear old 19—."
"Yes," said Roberta briefly.
Betty looked at her curiously. "Don't you like college, Roberta?" she asked.
"Betty, I can't bear it," declared Roberta in an unwonted burst of confidence. "I stay on because I hate people who give things up just because they don't like doing them. But it seems sometimes as if I couldn't stand it much longer."
"Too bad you didn't get on the campus. Perhaps you will this term." suggested Betty hopefully, "and then I know you'll fall absolutely in love with college."
"I don't believe that will make a bit of difference, and anyway Miss
Stuart said I hadn't the least chance of getting on this year."
"Then," returned Betty cheerfully, "you'll just have to make the best of it where you are. Some of the Chapin house freshmen are dear. I love that cunning little Sara Westervelt."