"You are just in-fa-tu-a-ted." Cecily constantly and severely reminded herself with this rather abstract word whenever she thought of Ernie afterwards. "You and Ernie just don't suit each other. Willy suits you better."
With this in mind Cecily managed not to go into any more scrapes when Ernie was around. She mostly just avoided him, and was somewhat cold to him when they met, but her heart still yearned to look at his charming face. She felt uncomfortable over this; she didn't think it right for her not to regard Ernie as a friend, since he was not at fault, but she could not trust herself to. And the first speck of doubt had also come between her and Willy, making her feel guilty.
But eventually the guilt faded, and everything went back—mostly—to normal. Yet when Mary one day jokingly asked her about her opinion on the handsomest boy in the class, she honestly said Ernie, turning back her head to hide her flushed face.
After a month Cecily had pretty much settled to her daily routine between her boarding house and the campus of Queen's, and it turned out that the lessons did not trouble her overly much. She was pretty interested in mathematics, so algebra and trignometry was a breeze to her. Geometry was a little difficult, but it was even more difficult to most other students. She also liked History and Geography well enough. She liked Latin, for she found its grammar intricate and beautiful, and it was a fascinating thing to be able to understand old, old texts that seemed like incomprehensible gibberish before, but she did not like the others nearly as much. One foreign language was enough to satisfy her curiosity, and anything more was "just turning myself into a dictionary", as she would say. Nevertheless, she had a good memory and plenty of time to study, so she did not find the lectures too hard for her. Writing was the only thing she really wasn't good at, for being a true Ward she was not especially artistic or creative. Her essays did not have logical or structural problems, but the professors always found them dry and dull to read. She wished she could be as good a master of words as Mary was—even Molly's essays were more delightful to read than hers, in spite of the spelling and grammatical errors abound there; but then, God does not bless anyone with all sorts of talents, and she soon became resigned to it. After all, there was no problem of passing.
And Cecily was quite satisfied with her roommates and classmates as well. It seemed that most of them regarded her as a clever, sweet little girl and was pretty nice to her, and even the less nice ones did not play mean tricks to her, which were done to many of the others, as some of Mary's horror stories suggested. Cecily was terrified and a bit incredulous when she saw that students can sometimes do such malicious things to each other; she even hated Mary a little for telling her such mean gossip. But anyway, Mary had been a victim in one of these incidents, so it was understandable—and Mary was a brick.
Cecily sometimes found it incredible that there could be a girl as omnipotent as Mary seemed to be. She had organized four parties in two months, which included not only her classmates but often many second-year students as well—she had made a flag and rallied for the football team of the class—she had been an active member of the Dramatic Club—she could play violin beautifully—she was said to have beaten a few boys in tennis—and it was even rumored that she had "saved the day" when a boy got her ankle broken in a football match! Cecily felt just like a little insignificant mouse beside her, and her little academic achievements did not seem to mean much when she had been doing nothing but studying, while Mary seemed to get on just as well even if no one knew how she got time for studying. Yet Mary befriended her and often nicely asked her to help prepare the flags and various decorations.
"You are so good at handiwork." she would say in her beautiful voice, and Cecily felt immensely delighted, just as if the Queen had praised her.
Despite all these kind words, however, there were still times when Cecily felt "left out". In the Carlisle school Cecily was reasonably popular among the girls (and for that matter, boys), and she had had quite a few close chums such as Kitty Marr and Emmeline Frewen, with whom she could share her wildest dreams and deepest secrets. Now, at Queen's, she had yet to find any such kindred spirits. Sometimes, especially in parties, she felt as if she were the ugly little duck in a crowd of swans—while everybody seemed to like her, she was still not regarded as "one of them". Mary she admired, but through some strange instinct she could not truly open her timid little heart to her. Molly often asked her questions about her lessons, which she answered dutifully, but she often doubted whether she had made herself understood. The girls frequently gathered to chat about fashions and dresses and dances, on which she was now hopelessly out of date and had no desire to know more—"I think my Carlisle clothes look just fine." The boys were more interested in sports, and they sometimes dragged girls to play with them, but Cecily was never good at sports. Once Mary dragged her to the Dramatic Club, but while Cecily found some enjoyment in their performances, she felt very inferior in front of these talented boys and girls. Everybody else seemed to have some sort of talent, yet she was only a little bookworm of little use anywhere—and maybe not a good bookworm at that either, thought Cecily unhappily. Then she picked up her Latin book. Whatever happens, she must learn her lessons well and get her license first of all.
She had also finally seen Mrs. Campbell. A well-dressed lady in her fifties, she looked quite imposing to Cecily. Mary was on very good terms with her, frequently exchanging jokes, but Cecily was a little afraid of her. Her original imagination about landladies had not totally vanished, and she could not help thinking of Mrs. Ray, whom she always feared a bit, when standing in front of Mrs. Campbell.
Once every few weeks Cecily paid some visits to Willy in his boarding house, where they would have a companionable chat, but most of all they talked about their lessons. Willy had decided to finish her courses in one year and proceed immediately to study mechanical engineering in college, and his pressure was enormous. Cecily wanted to see him more often, but Willy must be busy enough as it is, and she dreaded to take any more of his time. Getting a license in two years was hard enough, and one year was almost unthinkable. Why couldn't they always stay together? It was time like this that she wondered if God ever meant for them to stay together. Then she fervently tried to convince herself that it was so. What would happen otherwise? She felt sure that Willy would be broken-hearted if she had deserted him for Ernie or whomever, and she couldn't allow herself to turn out to be so fickle!
She did not go home often. Carlisle was quite far from Charlottetown, and even though she had had several spells of homesickness by now, she did not like travelling, especially after her first train ride to Queen's which was still an unpleasant memory for her. And there was the matter of money, too. It must be very hard for Father to allocate such a lot of money for her education, and she must be as economical as possible.