Helen was a dear little thing and a very considerate roommate, but she was "different." She didn't fit in somehow, and it was a bother always to be planning to have her have a good time. She would be lonely in the Belden; she loved college and was very happy now, but she needed to have somebody who understood her and could appreciate her efforts, to encourage her and keep her in touch with the lighter side of college life. She didn't know a soul in the Belden--but then neither did lots of other freshmen when they moved on to the campus. She need never hear anything about the registrar's plan, and she could come over to the Hilton as much as she liked.
Nita Reese would be at the Belden, and Marion Lawrence; and Mary Brooks was going there if she could get an assignment. It was a splendid house, the next best to the Hilton. But those girls were not Dorothy King, and Miss Andrews was not Miss Ferris. It would have been lovely to be in the house with Miss Ferris.
Would have been! Betty caught herself suddenly. It wasn't settled yet. Then she got up from her seat with quick determination. "I'll stop in and see Miss Ferris for just a minute, and then I shall go back and tell Miss Stuart right off, for I must finish packing to-night, whatever happens."
Miss Ferris was in, and she and her darkened, flower-scented room wore an air of coolness and settled repose that was a poignant relief after the glaring sunshine outside and the confusion of "last days."
"So you go to-morrow," said Miss Ferris pleasantly. "I don't get off till next week, of course. Are you satisfied?"
"Satisfied?" repeated Betty. She had heard of Miss Ferris's habit of flashing irrelevant questions at her puzzled auditors, but this was her first experience of it.
"With your first year at Harding," explained Miss Ferris.
"Oh!" said Betty, relieved that it was no worse. "Why, y-es--no, I'm not. I've had a splendid time, but I haven't accomplished half that I ought. Next year I'm going to work harder from the very beginning, and----" Betty stopped abruptly, realizing that all this could not possibly interest Miss Ferris.
"I didn't want to bore you," apologized Betty. "Why, I'm going to try to--I don't know how to say it--try not scatter my thoughts so. Nan says that I am so awfully interested in every one's else business that I haven't any business of my own."