Anne took the first of many rambles in Old St. John’s the next afternoon.  She and Priscilla had gone to Redmond in the forenoon and registered as students, after which there was nothing more to do that day.  The girls gladly made their escape, for it was not exhilarating to be surrounded by crowds of strangers, most of whom had a rather alien appearance, as if not quite sure where they belonged.

The “freshettes” stood about in detached groups of two or three, looking askance at each other; the “freshies,” wiser in their day and generation, had banded themselves together on the big staircase of the entrance hall, where they were shouting out glees with all the vigor of youthful lungs, as a species of defiance to their traditional enemies, the Sophomores, a few of whom were prowling loftily about, looking properly disdainful of the “unlicked cubs” on the stairs.  Gilbert and Charlie were nowhere to be seen.

“Little did I think the day would ever come when I’d be glad of the sight of a Sloane,” said Priscilla, as they crossed the campus, “but I’d welcome Charlie’s goggle eyes almost ecstatically.  At least, they’d be familiar eyes.”

“Oh,” sighed Anne.  “I can’t describe how I felt when I was standing there, waiting my turn to be registered—­as insignificant as the teeniest drop in a most enormous bucket.  It’s bad enough to feel insignificant, but it’s unbearable to have it grained into your soul that you will never, can never, be anything but insignificant, and that is how I did feel—­as if I were invisible to the naked eye and some of those Sophs might step on me.  I knew I would go down to my grave unwept, unhonored and unsung.”

“Wait till next year,” comforted Priscilla.  “Then we’ll be able to look as bored and sophisticated as any Sophomore of them all.  No doubt it is rather dreadful to feel insignificant; but I think it’s better than to feel as big and awkward as I did—­as if I were sprawled all over Redmond.  That’s how I felt—­I suppose because I was a good two inches taller than any one else in the crowd.  I wasn’t afraid a Soph might walk over me; I was afraid they’d take me for an elephant, or an overgrown sample of a potato-fed Islander.”

“I suppose the trouble is we can’t forgive big Redmond for not being little Queen’s,” said Anne, gathering about her the shreds of her old cheerful philosophy to cover her nakedness of spirit.  “When we left Queen’s we knew everybody and had a place of our own.  I suppose we have been unconsciously expecting to take life up at Redmond just where we left off at Queen’s, and now we feel as if the ground had slipped from under our feet.  I’m thankful that neither Mrs. Lynde nor Mrs. Elisha Wright know, or ever will know, my state of mind at present.  They would exult in saying ‘I told you so,’ and be convinced it was the beginning of the end.  Whereas it is just the end of the beginning.”

“Exactly.  That sounds more Anneish.  In a little while we’ll be acclimated and acquainted, and all will be well.  Anne, did you notice the girl who stood alone just outside the door of the coeds’ dressing room all the morning—­the pretty one with the brown eyes and crooked mouth?”