In a few days Beth was settled again at Mrs. Owen’s, on St. Mary’s Street, and tripping to her lectures as usual.  Marie was not there, of course, and Beth knew nothing of her whereabouts.  In fact, there had been a complete change of boarders.  The house was filled with ’Varsity girls this year, with the exception of Marie’s old room, a change which Beth appreciated.  One of the girls was a special friend of hers, a plump, dignified little creature whom most people called pretty.  Hers was certainly a jolly face, with those rosy cheeks and laughing brown eyes, and no one could help loving Mabel Clayton.  She belonged to the Students’ Volunteer Movement, and as this was her last year at college, Beth thought sometimes a little sorrowfully of the following autumn when she was to leave for India.

Beth meant to have her spend a few days at Briarsfield with her next summer.  But a good many things were to happen to Beth before the next summer passed.  A Victoria student was occupying Marie’s old room, but as he took his meals out of the house Beth never even saw him.  One of the girls who saw him in the hall one day described him as “just too nice looking for anything,” but Beth’s interest was not aroused in the stranger.

That was a golden autumn for Beth, the happiest by far she had ever known.  She was living life under that sweet plan of beginning every day afresh, and thinking of some little act of kindness to be done.  Beth soon began to believe the girls of University College were the very kindest in the world; but she would have been surprised, to hear how often they remarked, “Beth Woodburn is always so kind!” There was another treat that she was enjoying this year, and that was Dr. Tracy’s lectures.

“I think he is an ideal man,” she remarked once to Mabel Clayton.  “I’m not in love with him, but I think he’s an ideal man.”

Mabel was an ardent admirer of Dr. Tracy’s, too, but she could not help laughing at Beth’s statement.

“You are such a hero-worshipper, Beth!” she said.  “You put a person up on a pedestal, and then endow him with all the virtues under the sun.”

A peculiar look crossed Beth’s face.  She remembered one whom she had placed on the pedestal of genius, and the idol had fallen, shattered at her feet.

She was still the same emotional Beth.  There were times when without any outward cause, seemingly from a mere overflow of happiness, she almost cried out, “Oh stay, happy moment, till I drink to the full my draught of joy!”

Arthur’s painting hung above Beth’s study table, and sometimes a shadow crossed her face as she looked at it.  She missed the old friendship, and she wondered, too, that she never met him anywhere.