“I finished last spring at Brushwood school, district number nine,” said Elnora.  “I have been studying all summer.  I am quite sure I can do the first year work, if I have a few days to get started.”

“Of course, of course,” assented the superintendent.  “Almost invariably country pupils do good work.  You may enter first year, and if it is too difficult, we will find it out speedily.  Your teachers will tell you the list of books you must have, and if you will come with me I will show you the way to the auditorium.  It is now time for opening exercises.  Take any seat you find vacant.”

Elnora stood before the entrance and stared into the largest room she ever had seen.  The floor sloped to a yawning stage on which a band of musicians, grouped around a grand piano, were tuning their instruments.  She had two fleeting impressions.  That it was all a mistake; this was no school, but a grand display of enormous ribbon bows; and the second, that she was sinking, and had forgotten how to walk.  Then a burst from the orchestra nerved her while a bevy of daintily clad, sweet-smelling things that might have been birds, or flowers, or possibly gaily dressed, happy young girls, pushed her forward.  She found herself plodding across the back of the auditorium, praying for guidance, to an empty seat.

As the girls passed her, vacancies seemed to open to meet them.  Their friends were moving over, beckoning and whispering invitations.  Every one else was seated, but no one paid any attention to the white-faced girl stumbling half-blindly down the aisle next the farthest wall.  So she went on to the very end facing the stage.  No one moved, and she could not summon courage to crowd past others to several empty seats she saw.  At the end of the aisle she paused in desperation, while she stared back at the whole forest of faces most of which were now turned upon her.

In a flash came the full realization of her scanty dress, her pitiful little hat and ribbon, her big, heavy shoes, her ignorance of where to go or what to do; and from a sickening wave which crept over her, she felt she was going to become very ill.  Then out of the mass she saw a pair of big, brown boy eyes, three seats from her, and there was a message in them.  Without moving his body he reached forward and with a pencil touched the back of the seat before him.  Instantly Elnora took another step which brought her to a row of vacant front seats.

She heard laughter behind her; the knowledge that she wore the only hat in the room burned her; every matter of moment, and some of none at all, cut and stung.  She had no books.  Where should she go when this was over?  What would she give to be on the trail going home!  She was shaking with a nervous chill when the music ceased, and the superintendent arose, and coming down to the front of the flower-decked platform, opened a Bible and began to read.  Elnora did not know what he was reading, and she felt that she did not care.  Wildly she was racking her brain to decide whether she should sit still when the others left the room or follow, and ask some one where the Freshmen went first.