"Well?" said Evelyn, when the silence had lasted for several minutes while each waited for the others to speak.
"Alison ought to be able to answer that question," said Kathy.
Alison was slow to speak. "I don't know," she said at last. "She is in all our classes; she is pretty; she obeys all the college regulations. She seems all right; but—well, she is my roommate, I don't like talking of her behind her back."
"Well, I don't mind a bit," said Joan the outspoken. "I can tell you what's wrong with her. She doesn't like us. She hates school. She calls it a jail. She hates lessons. She hates Miss Harland. I heard her say so once, when Miss Harland said no to something she wanted to do. I don't see why she came to Briarwood at all."
"Neither does she," put in Evelyn. "Her father sent her, that was why."
"Well, I don't like her, and I wish she roomed in another hall," said Joan; and no one gainsaid her, for there was no denying that Marcia took no pains to make herself popular.
Polly changed the subject abruptly.
"Kathy, did you ever find your ring?" she asked.
Katherine looked startled. "No. And I've lost something else—my great-grandmother's pearl necklace. Mother said I shouldn't take it to school with me, but I was sure I would be careful with it. And I was, girls, I really was. It stayed always in the bottom of my trunk, in its velvet case. I don't believe any of you ever knew about it. I haven't even taken it out since I left home. But yesterday I thought I would make sure that it was safe under everything in the trunk. And I looked, and it was not there. I cannot understand it, but it is true. Mother was right, as usual. I don't know how I am ever to tell her."
There was a dead silence—the silence of dismay. What was this that was among them?