"'Last year's performance,'" repeated Miriam in a puzzled tone.
"Yes, don't you remember the Anarchist?" retorted Elfreda, with a reminiscent grin.
"Of course!" exclaimed Miriam, laughing a little at the recollection. "Wasn't she formidable, though, when she slammed the door in our faces?"
Elfreda nodded. "She is all right now. At least she was when she visited me. I never saw a girl blossom and expand as she did. Pa liked her. He thought she was smart. She is, too. She has lived so entirely with that scientific father of hers that she has absorbed all sorts of odds and ends of knowledge from him. That is why college and girls and the whole thing terrified her."
"Terrified her," said Miriam incredulously. "I thought matters quite the reverse."
"That was precisely what I thought until she told me that, no matter how vengeful she looked, she was always afraid of the girls. She never seemed to be able to say the right thing at the right moment. That was why she used to scowl so fiercely when any one spoke or looked at her."
"I don't think it was altogether fear of the girls that caused her to lock us out that day," observed Miriam, a gleam of laughter appearing in her black eyes.
"I don't suppose it was," retorted Elfreda good-humoredly. "She says she knows her disposition to be anything but angelic. But she is trying, Miriam. You wait and see for yourself how the new Laura Atkins behaves."
"But to go back to the subject of the door, what makes you think Grace locked it on account of last year?" persisted Miriam.
"Oh, I don't know," answered Elfreda vaguely. "I just thought so, that's all."