Page:Fidelia, (IA fidelia00balm).pdf/21

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NEW FRIENDS AND FOES
9

square, honest look and with a self-confidence of bearing which made Fidelia know that he was a leader of this particular three. "What he starts thinking about me, they'll start thinking and they'll start the other men," Fidelia reckoned; and knowing the amazing values of first impressions, she considered whether she would ask him for more information about the university neighborhood or whether she would do better with complete formality. She decided on the latter and got into the cab.

It took her quickly through a narrow fringe of the one and two story shops and business buildings which flank the railroad on the university side, crossed a street car line and hurried her by a couple of blocks of residences and vacant lots toward a large, tall brick structure with many lighted windows which loomed far back from the streets in the center of a wide, level lawn. Fidelia recognized immediately the familiar marks of a dormitory and of that particularly famous, old-fashioned, high-windowed, austere "hall" which was one of the first in the country to invite women to college with men.

"Hello, old Willard!" she hailed it to herself, and turned to the newer, less obtrusive building opposite. "I suppose that's Pearson Hall and Chapin is over there." She knew the names of the main dormitories for girls.

Her car passed them and hastened north and now, off to the right and beyond the intervening block of houses, lay the campus, she guessed; she did not think much about it. Here she was penetrating the most immediately significant section of the uni-