“Why don’t you introduce me to your friends, Judy?” asked a handsome girl next to her, who had quantities of light-brown hair piled on top of her head.
“I haven’t been introduced myself,” replied Judy; “but I never could see why people should stop for introductions at teas and times like this. We all know we’re all right, or else we wouldn’t be here.”
“Of course,” said Frances Andrews, who had just come in, “why all this formality, when we are to be a family party for the next eight months? Why not become friends at once, without any preliminaries?”
Sally Marks, who had given them the vague yet meaningful warning the night before, appeared to be absorbed in her coffee cup, and the other two sophomores at the table were engaged in a whispered conversation.
“Nevertheless, I will perform the introductions,” announced Judy Kean. “This is Miss Margaret Wakefield, of Washington, D. C.; Miss Edith Coles, of Rhode Island; Miss Jessie Lynch, of Wisconsin, and Miss Mabel Hinton, of Illinois. As for me, my name is Julia Kean, and I come from—nowhere in particular.”
“You must have had a birthplace,” insisted that accurate young person, Nance Oldham.
“If you could call a ship a birthplace, I did,” replied Judy. “I was born in mid-ocean on a stormy night. Hence my stormy, restless nature.”
“But how did it happen?” asked Molly.
“Oh, it was all simple enough. Papa and mamma were on their way back from Japan, and I arrived a bit prematurely on board ship. I began life traveling, and I’ve been traveling ever since.”
“You’ll have to stay put here; awhile, at least,” said Sally Marks.