So chatting, they entered the dining-hall. Tables set for six each filled the room.
“Miss Cresswell, will you take charge of Elizabeth—I’m going to call you Elizabeth; you don’t look nearly old enough to be Miss Hobart.”
“Yes; come with me, Miss Hobart. Nancy, I presume you and I part here. I shall be surprised if Miss Morgan permits you and Mary to be together much longer.”
She led the way to a table by the window where she seated herself at its head, placing Elizabeth at her right.
“Miss Morgan never allows roommates to sit together at meals,” she explained, “or two girls who have been reared together as Mary and Nancy have. She wishes us to know all the students, and tries to prevent our forming little cliques, as we’re bound to do when we room and eat and study with the same people.”
“But what if you should not like the other people?” asked Elizabeth. “It must be rather unpleasant to sit at meals with someone whom you do not like.”
“That is one of the lessons Miss Morgan is giving us the opportunity of learning. We may discover on close acquaintance that one is more likable than we first supposed; and if that is impossible, then we learn to keep our dislikes to ourselves.”
The dining-hall was rapidly filling. Landis Stoner and Min Kean came in among the last, the former taking her place at Miss Cresswell’s table, sitting beside Elizabeth.
“Why, Anna Cresswell,” she exclaimed, leaning forward, “did Miss Morgan put you at the head of the table?”
“How else should I be here? You surely did not think I came unasked.”