As Peggy meditated, steps came along the corridor, and halted at her door. A face peeped in. "May I come in?" asked the girl who had sat beside her in the class-room.
"Oh, do! I wish you would!" cried Peggy, eagerly. "I am so glad to see you! Sit down! I wanted to tell you—you were awfully kind to let me know she meant me. You see, I never was called Miss Montfort in my life before."
The girl sat down, and looked kindly at Peggy. She was a singular-looking girl, short and dark, with a curious effect of squareness in her thickset figure. Her face was plain, but one forgot that when one met the bright, intelligent gaze of her dark eyes.
"I ought to introduce myself!" she said. "My name is Bertha Haughton. I'm a neighbour of yours. No!" she added, laughing, as Peggy glanced involuntarily across the way. "That is Vanity Fair. I don't live there; I live in the Owls' Nest, some way down the corridor."
"Are all the rooms named?" asked Peggy, wondering.
"Most of them, on this corridor, at least. There's Vanity Fair and Rag Fair and the Smithsonian Institute on the other side—oh! and the China Shop and the Corner Grocery, too. And on this side is ours, the Owls' Nest, and Bedlam, and the Soap Factory, and the Nursery, and this room of yours."
"Oh, how interesting!" cried Peggy. "Do tell me what the names mean! Why Owls' Nest?"
"Oh, well, we got the name of studying hard, that's all. We don't study harder than ever so many others, but in our freshman year we—my chum and I—passed an examination that a good many failed in, and so we got the name of owls. That's really all! And the China Shop—well! Ada Bull had it last year, and she had a mania for china-painting; and that with the name, together, you see! Then there is the Soap Factory,—that is quite a story! you really want to hear it? well!
"You know we are not allowed to buy candy, or to have it sent to us. This girl's mother—I won't tell her name, she's in college now—was a very silly person, and she sent her a great box of chocolate, five or six pounds (though she knew the rules, mind you!), all done up like soap."
"Like soap!" repeated Peggy.