I believe I understand something of the situation now." They tramped along in silence for a time.

Grace was thinking almost resentfully that even in her senior year she seemed unable to free herself from a sense of responsibility toward Kathleen West.

Her great affection for Mabel Ashe had undoubtedly been at the bottom of it, but, deep in her heart, Grace knew that had there been no Mabel to pave the way for Kathleen, she would have done whatever lay in her power to help this strange girl, who had no conception of, and was not likely ever to imbibe, that intangible and yet wholly necessary principle, college spirit.

She wondered a little sadly why Mabel Ashe had not written her.
Could it be possible that Mabel had heard unkind, untruthful tales of her from the newspaper girl?
Grace impatiently accused herself of being suspicious and tried to shake off the impression.
While she was pursuing this uncomfortable train of thought, Patience Eliot was covertly watching her companion's face.

The expression she saw there evidently did not please her, and with a slightly determined set of her lips and a gleam of sudden purpose in her frank eyes, she promised herself that, beginning that very day, she would try to study Kathleen from an entirely different standpoint than heretofore.