No one had had any very exciting vacation adventures except Rachel, who was delayed on her way home by a freight wreck and obliged to spend Christmas eve on a windswept siding with only a ham sandwich between her and starvation, and Eleanor, whose vacation had been one mad whirl of metropolitan gaiety. Her young aunt, who sympathized with her niece's distaste for college life, and couldn't imagine why on earth Judge Watson had insisted upon his only daughter's trying it for a year at least, did her utmost to make Eleanor enjoy her visit. So she had dined at the Waldorf, sat in a box at the theatre and the opera, danced and shopped to her heart's content, and had seen all the sights of New York. And at all the festivities Paul West, a friend of the family and also of Eleanor's, was present as Eleanor's special escort and avowed admirer. Naturally she had come back in an ill humor. Between late hours and excitement she was completely worn out. She wanted to be in New York, and failing that she wanted Paul West to come and talk New York to her, and bring her roses for the big brass bowl that she had found in a dingy little shop in the Russian quarter. She threw her good resolutions to the winds, received Miss Hale's thanks for the violets very coldly, and begged Betty to forget the sentimental letter that she had written before Christmas.