“Either is bad,” Elizabeth said decisively. “Why, oh, why, were we not put together? You could have had your things then in peace, and it would have saved me all the bother I am having now. I didn’t think about my room before I came, and now that Miss Ainsworth has nothing to liven us up with either, we look as prim as a Quaker meeting-house. I have ordered some things, however, that will make us gorgeous. What do you say to a yellow room?”
“I say that it will be handsome if your room-mate leaves the arrangement in your hands.”
“I made sure of that before I ordered anything,” Elizabeth said, with a wise nod. “She was very willing that I should do all I wished, and on that understanding I went ahead.”
The girls had reached the lecture-room by this time, and further discussion was impossible; but all through Professor Randall’s talk, Dolly’s thoughts roamed to the room she had left. How could she stand it? Dolly was exceedingly susceptible by nature to all artistic effects, and anything inharmonious grated on her.
She acknowledged to herself that Miss Sutherland did not seem aggressive, and apparently she had not acted as she had done through any petty spirit. As far as Dolly could judge, she was merely tactless and tasteless.
She and Elizabeth talked the matter over a little more as they walked back to their rooms, but Elizabeth abstained from offering any advice. “I’ll go in and see how the place looks. I’m curious to meet Miss Sutherland anyway.”
They found her sitting on the easiest rocking-chair, studying the college catalogue. She rose quickly as the girls came in, and Dolly introduced her friend. They tried to make the conversation general, but it was no easy matter. Mary Sutherland would answer questions, and occasionally ask one herself, but when the conversation took a wider range, she sat by, looking out of place and constrained.
There was a knock at the door, and Charlotte Graves entered, followed by Winifred Paterson and Ada Rummel. They were all Sophomores, and had been among the fifteen who had called on Dolly the first evening.
They had swallowed the red pepper which Dolly had hid in the fudge as best they could, and none of them bore any malice. “All things were fair in love and college,” as Charlotte Graves tersely remarked.