It was carried at once to her room, and she followed to unpack and arrange her clothes in the drawers of the bureau and wash-stand.

There was no closet, and she found herself much cramped for room.  It was very disheartening, for she loved neatness and order, and perceived that it would be no easy matter to maintain them here, where it was so difficult to find a place for everything and keep it there.

The supper-bell rang, but she delayed obeying the summons in order to finish the work in hand.  She was hardly more than five minutes behind time, yet received a sharp reprimand from Professor Manton, and a black mark.

Of course she was angry and indignant, and plainly showed that she was; not mending matters in the least thereby.

In sullen displeasure she took the seat assigned her, and glancing over the table, was tempted to turn away in disgust.

The food provided was of the plainest, scant in quantity, inferior in quality, and neither well prepared nor daintily served; in all which it presented a striking contrast to the meals that Lulu had been accustomed to sit down to at Ion and Viamede.

She ate but little; in fact, homesickness had nearly destroyed her appetite.

“What a miserable supper!” she remarked to a school-mate, when they had gone from the dining-room and were gathered on the veranda for the short half-hour that intervened between the meal and the evening study-hour.

“It was quite as good as usual,” was the rejoinder in a sneering tone.  “What did you expect?  Do you suppose the Mantons don’t want to make anything off us as boarders?”

“I hadn’t thought about that at all,” Lulu said, with a look of surprise and perplexity.  Then after a moment’s cogitation, “I suppose they do want to make all they can out of us, and that would be the reason there was so little on the table; but would it have cost any more to have it cooked properly?  The bread was both sour and heavy, and the butter so strong that I’d rather go without than eat it.”

“Rancid butter is cheaper than sweet, both as costing less and going farther,” answered her companion, “and good cooks are apt to be able to command higher wages than poor ones; also, like butter, bread goes farther if it is unpalatable.”

“But it makes people sick?” Lulu said, half in assertion, half in inquiry.

“Of course; but the Mantons don’t pay our doctor bills, or support us in invalidism if it comes to that.”

The girl walked away, and Lulu stood leaning against a pillar, lost in thought, and feeling more homesick than ever.

The boarding-scholars were all some years older than herself, and did not seem to desire her companionship; in fact, they looked upon and treated her as one in disgrace, shunned her society, and almost ignored her existence.

The study-hour over, they gathered in groups, chatting together on such themes as school-girls find most interesting, one or another now and then looking askance at Lulu, who sat at a distance, lonely and forlorn, watching them and half-envying their apparent gayety and lightheartedness.