"Good old Scrooge!"
"Merry Christmas, everybody—Happy New Year to all the world," quoted Judith promptly, seizing her letters and making her way through the crowd around Miss Marlowe's door down to the good old "Jolly Susan" and Nancy.
Yes, there was Nancy's pretty yellow head, and in another minute she was looking into Nancy's merry eyes and trying to answer three questions at once and say "hullo" to Josephine and Jane and Sally May.
Judith was the last to arrive, so they all crowded into her room and sampled Aunt Nell's Christmas cake—thoughtfully provided for the occasion—and the big box of chocolates which Josephine's brother had sent.
Five tongues wagged merrily in spite of cake and candy, for there were endless things to tell—Josephine had been to her first real dance, and Jane had been down to New York with Phyllis Lovell, and you may be sure that Nancy and Judith were not behind the others in their accounts of "perfectly gorgeous" times. And when Catherine joined them and added her tale of a gay winter fête in Winnipeg, Judith felt that no home-coming could be happier.
"Oh, isn't it nice to belong!" said Judith to herself as she dressed for supper. "I wonder how that new girl is getting on—I guess she's in our form when Eleanor got Peggy for her—I wish I could do something to make her feel at home—"
Josephine's head appeared in the door and she whispered mysteriously, "Come on down to the common room when you've finished."
"What do you think," she said when Judith joined her, "that mean Genevieve Singleton has been trying to get in here in Jane's room! Jane said once at the beginning of last term that she wished she was down in Peggy Forrest's cubicles, but that was ages ago. Genevieve went to Miss Marlowe and said that Jane wanted to change her room, and may she please have Jane's room, as she hasn't been very well during the holidays and her mother doesn't want her to climb stairs. Miss Marlowe sent for Jane, and you should have heard her when she came back! Genevieve is in Catherine's room now telling her how heartbroken she is, I suppose. Silly thing, I wish she would try holding my hand."
Judith laughed at Josephine's disgusted expression, and blushed a little as she remembered her own foolishness about Catherine.
"Genevieve's queer, isn't she? I can't make her out—you remember how crazy she was about Helen, and Helen didn't seem to like her a bit."