“Yes, Della, I think that you are,” her friend replied.
“Good!” the other exclaimed. Then darting to her closet, she brought out her best uniform. “I won’t need to wear this until Sunday, and, let me see, this is Wednesday; Miss Perring, who makes our uniforms, can finish yours by that time. I am going to loan you this, Matilda, and I want you to put it on this very minute before you meet your new roommate, the haughty Geraldine Barrington. She won’t be nice to you, however you look, but at least she cannot say that your dress is not up-to-date, for this is the very newest uniform in the school.”
Matilda was almost overcome with her gratitude, but before she could speak, Adele had dragged her behind a screen and was helping her with the buttons.
A few moments later the other girls were amazed at the transformation that had been wrought, for Adele had also loosened the pretty hair which had been braided so tightly. She stood off and gazed at the new pupil with admiration.
“There now!” she said. “You look just like the rest of us, all except your eyes, and honestly, Matilda, though I don’t want to make you vain, I’ve never met such eyes before in my travels, and I’ve been all the way to Arizona and back. I’ve one thing more to say and that is, that your name does not fit you any better than your dress did. Should you mind if I call you something different?”
Matilda laughed. The shyness of a few hours ago was entirely gone and she laughed as freely and musically as she had done out on her wide prairie, when, with her dog Shep, she had raced through the cornfields.
“Call me whatever you like!” she said.
“Then I am going to name you Starr and spell it with a double-r.”
When the retiring bell rang, Gertrude sprang up, saying, “Come, Starr, I will now introduce you to your roommate.”
“I surely do pity you if you are to room with that Lady Stuckup,” Doris Drexel declared.