name was Dorothy Hess, had moved into Miss Lacey's chair.
"I asked Edith to change with me," Dorothy whispered. "You and I will be in the same classes, you see." And Dorothy took from the bowl of fruit the finest orange and laid it upon Fidelia's plate.
Fidelia warmed and she thanked Dorothy and cut the orange; she wanted to give it back but she realized she must accept it. Dorothy was the girl who had rapped at her door and Fidelia guessed that last night, in the discussion at this house over Fidelia Netley, this thin, intense, unattractive girl had come forward as her especial protector; and, probably, Edith Lacey had sided against her. Fidelia never knew why a girl like Dorothy Hess would suddenly, and without any reason, become fanatically her friend; but she knew that a girl like Dorothy always would. At every school which Fidelia had attended, this had been so.
Dorothy was trembling a little with excitement and Fidelia wanted to clasp her thin, quivering hand; but instead she said:
"Are you a senior? Why, you must be the youngest senior in college!"
She brought a flush of pleasure to Dorothy's pale cheek.
"No, there's a boy in our class who's only eighteen," Dorothy told modestly. "I'm nineteen this spring."
"She's going through in three years; and she's just about at the top of every course she takes," a girl opposite put in.
"Why!" said Fidelia.
