“What can be the matter?” said Leslie as she entered.
“Oh, is that you, my new roomfellow? Pray don’t disturb me. I have just reached the bottom of a problem; but my brain nearly went in the effort. I see it at last; it is magnificent. I do wish you were mathematical; you could rejoice with me.”
Leslie glanced at her with a smile.
“I don’t know anything whatever about mathematics,” she said; “but, at least, I won’t disturb you.”
She moved softly to her own end, sat down on a corner of her sofa-bed, and taking up her Bible read a verse or two before she went to bed. The familiar words quieted her overexcited heart. She thought of her
mother at home, of Llewellyn, and of the younger children; and for the first time a rush of real loneliness visited her.
“But I won’t give way to it,” she said to herself. “Strange as it all is at the present moment, I am certain I shall find it delightful by and by. I intend to make the very best of everything. Poor Annie Colchester—has she a chance to sleep with that terrible mental excitement? I only trust I shan’t go mad over literature in the way she does over mathematics.”
Annie, having worn off some of her surplus excitement, had again sunk down by her desk; her face was buried in her hands, and she was sighing in a feeble sort of fashion. Leslie went up and touched her on her shoulder.
“You ought to go to bed,” she said; “you are absolutely weary from all that work.”
“To bed?” said Annie. “Just feel my brow.” She caught hold of Leslie’s slim hand and held it to her forehead.