Miss Day’s small eyes began to dance.

“You know I am interested in that subject,” she said.  She flopped down on the floor by Rosalind Merton’s side.  “Go on, my love,” she murmured; “describe the development of the enmity.”

“Little things show the way the wind is blowing,” pursued Rose.  “I was coming along the corridor just now, and I met the angelic and unworldly Priscilla.  Her eyelids were red as if she had been crying.  She passed me without a word.”

“Well?”

“That’s all.”

“Rose, you really are too provoking.  I thought you had something very fine to tell.”

“The feud grows,” pursued Rose.  “I know it by many signs.  Prissie is not half so often with Maggie as she used to be.  Maggie means to get out of this friendship, but she is too proud not to do it gradually.  There is not a more jealous girl in this college than Maggie, but neither is there a prouder.  Do you suppose that anything under the sun would allow her to show her feelings because that little upstart dared to raise her eyes to Maggie’s adorable beau, Mr. Hammond?  But oh, she feels it; she feels it down in her secret soul.  She hates Prissie; she hates this beautiful, handsome lover of hers for being civil to so commonplace a person.  She is only waiting for a decent pretext to drop Prissie altogether.  I wish with all my heart I could give her one.”

As she spoke Rosalind shaded her eyes with her hand; her face looked full of sweet and thoughtful contemplation.

“Get your charming Prissie to flirt a little bit more,” said Miss Day with her harsh laugh.

“I don’t know that I can.  I must not carry that brilliant idea to extremities, or I shall be found out.”

“Well, what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.  Bide my time.”

Miss Day gave a listless sort of yawn.

“Let’s talk of something else,” she said impatiently.  “What are you going to wear at the Elliot-Smith’s party next week, Rose?”

“I have got a new white dress,” said Rose in that voice of strong animation and interest which the mere mention of dress always arouses in certain people.

“Have you?  What a lot of dresses you get!”

“Indeed, you are mistaken, Annie.  I have the greatest difficulty in managing my wardrobe at all.”

“Why is that?  I thought your people not only belonged to the county, but were as rich as Jews.”

“We are county people, of course,” said Rose in her most affected manner, “but county people need not invariably be rich.  The fact is my father has had some losses lately, and mother says she must be careful.  I wanted a great many things, and she said she simply could not give them.  Oh, if only that spiteful Miss Oliphant had not prevented my getting the sealskin jacket, and if she had not raised the price of Polly’s pink coral!”

“Don’t begin that old story again, Rose.  When all is said and done, you have got the lovely coral.  By the way, it will come in beautifully for the Elliot-Smith’s party.  You’ll wear it, of course?”