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Page 12
"Oh, is she as bright and funny as Kitty?" demanded Dorene. "If she is
we certainly shall lay siege to you two for our sorority. We ought to
have first claim, for all the other Lloydsboro Valley girls belong to
us. Come over and see Cornie."
Conscious that as a friend of the Valley girls she had gone up many
degrees in Dorene's estimation, Mary put away her scissors and
plaster-case, and followed her newfound acquaintance across the hall.
Her cordial reception gave her what she had been longing for all
morning, the sense of being in intimate touch with things in the inner
circle of school life. Because she knew Lloyd and Betty so well, they
took her in as one of themselves, gave her a seat on a suit-case, the
chairs all being full, and climbed over her and around her as they went
on with their unpacking. Mary was in her element, and blossomed out into
such an interesting visitor, that Dorene was glad that she had
discovered her. This was the beginning of the fourth year that she and
Cornie had roomed together, and to Mary their companionship seemed
ideal.
"I hope my room-mate will prove as congenial as you two," she said,
after listening half an hour to their laughing repartee and their
ridiculous discussions as to the arrangement of their pictures and
bric-a-brac. "I've been looking forward all morning to her coming. Every
time I think of her I have the same excited, creepy feeling that I used
to have when I opened a prize pop-corn box. My little brother and I used
to save all our pennies for them when we were little tots back in
Kansas. We didn't eat the pop-corn, that is _I_ didn't. It was the
flutter and thrill I wanted, that comes when you've almost reached the
bottom of the box, and know the next grab will bring the prize into your
fingers. I was always hoping I might find one of those little rings with
a red setting that I could pretend was a real garnet. No matter if it
did always turn out to be nothing but a toy soldier or a tin whistle,
there was always some kind of a surprise, and that delicious uncertain
creepy feeling first."
"Well, you don't always draw a prize in your pop-corn when you're
drawing room-mates, I can tell you _that_!" announced Cornie
emphatically.
"I was at a school the year before I came here, where I had to room with
a girl who almost drove me to distraction. She was a mild, modest little
thing, who, as Cowper says:
"'Would not with a peremptory tone
Assert the nose upon her face her own.'
Yet she'd do things that would provoke me beyond endurance. Sometimes I
could hardly keep from choking her."
"What kind of things for instance?" asked Mary.
"Well, for one thing, and it does seem a little one when you tell it, we
had about a thousand photographs, more or less, perched around on the
mantel and walls. Essie was so painfully modest that she couldn't bear
to undress with them looking at her, so she'd turn their faces to the
wall, and then next morning she'd be so slow about getting down to
breakfast that there wouldn't be time to turn them back. There my poor
family and friends would have to stay with their faces to the wall all
day as if they were in disgrace, unless I went around and turned them
all back myself.
"Then she was such a queer little mouse; didn't really come out of her
hole and get sociable until after dark. As soon as the lights were out
and we were in bed, she'd want to talk. No matter how sleepy I was, that
was the time to tell all her troubles. She was so humble and respectful
in asking my advice that I couldn't throw a pillow at her and shut her
up, so there she'd lie and talk in a stage whisper till after midnight.
Then it was like pulling teeth to get her up in the morning. She took to
setting an alarm clock for awhile, to rouse her early and give her half
an hour to wake up in. It never made the slightest difference to her,
but always wakened me. Finally I unscrewed the alarm key and hid it. She
was so sensitive that I couldn't scold and fuss about things. Now with
Dorene here, I simply gag her when she talks too much, shut her in the
closet when she gets in my way, and scalp her when she doesn't do as she
is bid."
Without any reason for forming such a mental picture of her prospective
room-mate, Mary had imagined her to be a blue-eyed, golden-haired little
creature, with a sort of wax-doll prettiness: a girl made to be petted
and considered and shielded like a delicate flower. The type appealed to
her. Independent and capable herself, she was prepared to be almost
motherly in her care for Ethelinda's comfort. With this preconceived
notion it was somewhat of a shock when she went back to her room and
found the real Ethelinda being ushered into it.
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