“Much,” replied Belle. She looked fixedly from one sister to the other. “I had hoped a great deal before you arrived; but already the keenest sense of disillusionment is mine. You are neither of you beginning your college life as I could have hoped. There are two attics on the same floor with this, which you might have got had you given me the management of your affairs. I should have gone to Miss Lauderdale and represented the case to her. I believe she would have been very glad to let them to you. The college is overfull at present, and yet no girls wish to use the attics. These attics are at present unfurnished, and the college would, doubtless, when the matter was properly represented, allow you to have them as bare as you pleased. They did so in my case. I represented that it would be a saving. I managed the thing somehow, and here I am. It is true that I dread the governors visiting my room and ordering some of those useless articles which the other girls weaken their characters by using. But you did not put the matter into my hands, your old friend; and now you are accommodated with some of the nicest rooms in college.”
“Oh, never mind; don’t worry any more about the furniture,” said Eileen. “It seems to me that one can waste time in trying to lead the existence of the anchorite as well as in endeavoring to surround one’s self with luxuries.”
“One thing, at least, we will promise you, Belle—we
are not going in for any extras—no pictures nor knick-knacks for us.”
“Thank Heaven!” said Belle, with a deep sigh. “Had you done so, I must have cut you.”
“Don’t you think that would have been rather narrow of you?” said Marjorie.
“Narrow or not, I should have felt it my duty to do it. I have my eccentricities—I own to the fact—and I will cling to them through thick and thin. What you said just now was quite right, Eileen; we will drop the subject of furniture. After all, what does it matter whether one has a chest of drawers or not, whether one has a suitable washhand-stand or not? Are these the things we live at St. Wode’s for? What about the intellect, what about the development of the brain? Your brows are capable of expansion, your eyes are capable of acquiring depth, your——”
“Hear! hear!” said Eileen.
“Do not interrupt me with that senseless remark. I speak to you from my soul. You come here to study, to forget yourselves in the great riches of the past. You are like two miners come to dig out the gold. You have heard of that awful place, Klondike, where people go mad over earthly gold. Yours is the intellectual, the spiritual, the gold which is treasured in the great storehouses of the past.”
As Belle spoke she paced up and down the room. Her dress was very untidy, and there was a great rent behind. While she was speaking there came a soft tap at the door. She did not hear it. Eileen went and opened it. Lettie stood without.