"Who is she?" Marie asked, seeing that she must yield to the inevitable.
"Her name is Esther Jones. She is a very quiet little girl, inclined to be nervous. I hope you will do all you can to make her happy and to keep her from being homesick. She will come to-night."
Marie was much vexed at the intrusion, as she chose to consider it. It was so much nicer to room alone.
How provoking that just as she was "getting into" a better circle, and had succeeded in dropping her commonplace room-mate of last year, she should have this nervous little Esther Jones forced upon her.
The new girl was as plain as her name. She wore a woolen dress, heavy shoes and an ordinary sailor hat.
"Very countrified," was Marie's mental verdict, as she watched her unpacking her trunk.
She did not offer to assist the little stranger, who seemed much in awe of her.
A new girl who enters a boarding-school a month after the term has begun is always to be pitied.
The other girls all have their homesickness over by that time, and are not apt to be so sympathetic with the newcomer as they would have been earlier. They have formed their little coteries, and the new girl feels herself "outside."
With Esther this was especially true. Marie neglected her utterly, and she had not confidence in herself to try to make other friends. She went about with a dejected, homesick look that moved Mrs. Hosmer's heart.