"Head up, honey," whispered Aunt Nell, holding Judith's hands firmly. "Ask Miss Marlowe to let you 'phone me if you need anything, and on Friday I'll come for you. What a lot you'll have to tell me!"
For one desperate instant Judith felt that she must follow her or else let the wretched lump, which was growing larger and larger, compel her to tears, but there at her elbow was Nancy whose blue eyes were dancing and who apparently had no sympathy for tears.
"Let's go over to South and see about your room," she began. "Do you know any one here?"
Judith shook her head.
"Oh, well, you'll soon know heaps. What a perfectly sweet bag," she added tactfully, surveying Judith's beaded treasure from Paris. "Do let me see it."
Judith wondered if she could speak, but Nancy didn't wait. Her soldier brother had brought her a bag from Liberty's. Would Judith come and see it? She did hope Judith's room was near hers; at least hers was not a room, but a cubicle. Judith's eyes questioned. Cubicle had to be explained as a room with low walls about six feet high, such a friendly place to live in, "five or six of us in a row and we're never lonely," finished Nancy; "but then no one is lonely at York."
By this time they had crossed by a cloister to South House and were standing at the House Mistress's door.
"Miss Marlowe must be a very popular person," thought Judith. Outside the green baize door was a chattering mob of girls, all apparently talking at the top of their voices. Indeed, it seemed to Judith that they were screaming.
"Nancy, darling!" cried one, and Nancy was literally dragged from Judith by several impetuous young persons who all talked at once.
"Glorious time . . . . Did you?" . . . . "Temagami" . . . . "camped out for three weeks" . . . . "Indian guides" . . . . "Such diving" . . . . "Heavenly time" . . . . "Murray Bay" . . . .