Her cousins were already busy with their books when Dorothy came into the room; and, careful not to disturb them, she sat quietly down to study her own lessons, but she could not fix her mind upon them. Marion alone down-stairs, homesick, with no one to say a kind word to her, or to tell her about the school, “a stranger in a strange land,” she kept repeating to herself; “and such a sweet-looking girl. It’s too bad!”
Try her best not to, she still found herself watching the hands of the clock. For a wonder she was anxious to have study hours over; she wanted to tell her cousins about Marion.
As it proved, they were quite as anxious to hear; for no sooner had the clock struck nine, and the gong struck again for the close, as it had for the opening of study hours, than they shut their books, and Gladys said,—
“Tell us about Two Hundred? What a way you have, Dorothy, of always finding out people who want you!”
“She was all alone,” said Dorothy, by way of answer; “and she looked so lonely.”
“Tell us about her,” said Susan. “Never mind 18 the lonely; new scholars always are; that’s a part of their education, Miss Ashton says. We should have been if we hadn’t been all together. What is she like?”
“She’s lovely,” said Dorothy. “She is pretty, and she isn’t. Her hair just waves all over her head; and her eyes were blue, and they were hazel, and they were—”
“Gray!” put in Gladys.
“Yes, I suppose they were gray; but they were all colors, but cat colors, until it grew too dark for me to see her.”
“We shall like her. I wish she could have a room near us. Her eyes tell true tales.”