Ulyth Stanton was a decided personality in the Lower Fifth. If not exactly pretty, she was a dainty little damsel, and knew how to make the best of herself. Her fair hair was glossy and waved in the most becoming fashion, her clothes were well cut, her gloves and shoes immaculate. She had an artistic temperament, and loved to be surrounded by pretty things. She was rather a favourite at The Woodlands, for she had few sharp angles and possessed a fair share of tact. If the girls laughed sometimes at what they called her “high-falutin’ notions” they nevertheless respected her opinions and admired her more than they always chose to admit.
It was an accepted fact that Ulyth stuck to her word and generally carried through anything that she once undertook. She alone of six members of her form who had begun to correspond with girls abroad, at the instigation of the magazine editor, had written regularly, and had cultivated the overseas friendship with enthusiasm. The element of romance about the affair had appealed to Ulyth. It was so strange to receive letters from someone you had never seen. To be sure, Rona had only given a somewhat bald account of her home and her doings, but even this outline was so different from English life that Ulyth’s imagination filled the gaps, and pictured her unknown correspondent among scenes of unrivalled interest and excitement.
Ulyth had once seen a most wonderful film entitled “Rose of the Wilderness”, and though the scenes depicted were supposed to be in the region of the Wild West, she decided that they would equally well represent the backwoods of New Zealand, and that the beautiful, dashing, daring heroine, so aptly called “the Prairie Flower”, was probably a speaking likeness of Rona Mitchell. When she learnt that owing to her letters Rona’s father had determined to send his daughter to school at The Woodlands, her excitement was immense. She had at once petitioned Miss Bowes to have her as a room-mate, and was now awaiting her advent with the very keenest anticipation.
One moment more, and the neat school hats of the new-comers had swelled the group of similar school hats already collected on the platform; ecstatic greetings were exchanged, urgent questions asked and hasty answers given, and items of choice information poured forth with the utmost volubility of which the English tongue is capable.