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 abominably vain, but I’m not. There really isn’t one spark of vanity in me. And I’m never a bit grudging about paying compliments to other girls when they deserve them. I’m so glad I know you folks. I came up on Saturday and I’ve nearly died of homesickness ever since. It’s a horrible feeling, isn’t it? In Bolingbroke I’m an important personage, and in Kingsport I’m just nobody! There were times when I could feel my soul turning a delicate blue. Where do you hang out?”

“Thirty-eight St. John’s Street.”

“Better and better. Why, I’m just around the corner on Wallace Street. I don’t like my boardinghouse, though. It’s bleak and lonesome, and my room looks out on such an unholy back yard. It’s the ugliest place in the world. As for cats—well, surely ALL the Kingsport cats can’t congregate there at night, but half of them must. I adore cats on hearth rugs, snoozing before nice, friendly fires, but cats in back yards at midnight are totally different animals. The first night I was here I cried all night, and so did the cats. You should have seen my nose in the morning. How I wished I had never left home!”

“I don’t know how you managed to make up your mind to come to Redmond at all, if you are really such an undecided person,” said amused Priscilla.

“Bless your heart, honey, I didn’t. It was father who wanted me to come here. His heart was set on it—why, I don’t know. It seems perfectly ridiculous to think of me studying for a B.A. degree, doesn’t it?