“And you are certain to succeed,” said Leslie in a tone of sympathy. “I wish I could feel as sure of taking honors by and by in literature. I find these modern languages so very stiff.”
“What are you studying now?” asked Annie.
“I have to take German literature from 1500 to the death of Goethe,” said Leslie. “The course is enormous, and I am sometimes almost in despair.”
“But you have only just come; you can easily manage, and in any case, even if you fail——”
“I do not mean to fail any more than you do,” replied Leslie.
Annie did not smile. Her queer red-brown eyes with their distended pupils gazed straight before her.
“It can never mean the same to you,” she said at last in a solemn voice, and then she looked down again at her book, pushed her hands through her red locks, and resumed her contemplation of the problem which lay before her.
A few moments later there came a tap at the door. Annie did not hear it. Leslie opened the door.
Jane Heriot stood without.
“These letters have just come for you and Annie Colchester,” she said: “and, as I was coming upstairs, I thought I would leave them with you.”