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 her the utter lack of privacy that put her at the mercy of laundress, sophomore, and expressman. She regretted that she had not put up the little sign whose “Please do not disturb” was her only means of defence.

“Come!” she called shortly, and the tall girl in the green dress stood in the open door. A strange sense of long acquaintance, a vague feeling of familiarity, surprised the older woman. Her expression changed.

“Come in,” she said cordially.

“I—am I disturbing you?” asked the girl doubtfully. She had a pile of books on her arm; her trim jacket and hat, and something in the way she held her armful, seemed curiously at variance with her tam-o’-shantered, golf-caped friends.

“I couldn’t find out whether you had an office hour, and I didn’t know whether I ought to have sent in my name—it seemed so formal, when it is only a moment I need to see you—”