Mary interrupted hurriedly, blushing again in her confusion.  “No, no! they were not mistaken!  You’re exactly as they described you, only they didn’t tell me how—­how—­er,” she groped frantically for the word and finished lamely, “how human you are.”

She had started to say “how adorable you are,” but checked herself, afraid it would sound too gushing on first acquaintance, although that was exactly what she felt.

“I mean,” she continued, in her effort to be understood, “it seems from the way you put yourself in my place so quickly, that once upon a time you must have been the same kind of girl that I am.  But of course I know you were not.  You were Lloyd Sherman’s kind.  She just naturally does the right thing in the right place, and there’s no occasion for her being a copy-cat.  That’s what Jack calls me.  Jack is my brother.”

Madam laughed again, such an appreciative, friendly laugh, that Mary joined in, wondering how the other girls could think her cold and unapproachable.  It seemed to her that Madam was one of the most responsive and sympathetic listeners she had ever had, and it moved her to go on with her confidences.

“Jack says I am not built on the same lines as the Princess.  Princess Winsome is one of our names for Lloyd.  And he says it is ridiculous for me to try to do things the way she does.  He is always quoting Epictetus to me:  ’Were I a nightingale I would act the part of a nightingale; were I a swan, the part of a swan.’  He says that trying to copy her is what makes me just plain goose so much of the time.”

Madam Chartley, long accustomed to reading girls, knew that it was not vanity or egotism which prompted these confessions, only a girlish eagerness to be measured by her highest ideals and not by appearances.  She saw at a glance the possibilities of the material that lay here at her hand.  Out of it might be wrought a strong, helpful character such as the world always needs, and such as she longed to send out with every graduate who passed through her doors.  Many things were awaiting her attention elsewhere, but she lingered to extend their acquaintance a trifle further.

“You know Lloyd Sherman well, I believe,” she said.  “I remember that you gave Mrs. Sherman as one of your references when you applied for admission to the school, and I had a highly satisfactory letter from her about you in reply to my inquiry.  Now that we speak of it I am reminded that Lloyd added a most enthusiastic post-script concerning you.”

Mary’s face flushed with a pleasure so intense it was almost painful.  “Oh, did she?” she cried eagerly.  “We’ve been friends always, even with half a continent between us.  Our mothers were school-mates.  Lloyd was more Joyce’s friend than mine at first, because they are nearer of an age. (Joyce is my sister.  She’s an artist now in New York City, and we think she’s going to be famous some day.  She does such beautiful