Miss Monroe has promised to come in too . She says she has a weakness for fruit cake . '' `` Oh ! '' breathed all the girls . Miss Monroe was their idol , whom they had to be content to worship at a distance as a general thing . She was a clever journalist , who worked on a paper , and was reputed to be writing a book . The girls felt they were highly privileged to be boarding in the same house , and counted that day lost on which they did not receive a businesslike nod or an absent-minded smile from Miss Monroe . If she ever had time to speak to one of them about the weather , that fortunate one put on airs for a week . And now to think that she had actually promised to drop into Ida 's room on New Year 's Eve and eat fruit cake ! `` There goes that funny little namesake of yours , Ida , '' said Josie , who was sitting by the window . `` She seems to be staying in town over the holidays too . Wonder why . Perhaps she does n't belong anywhere . She really is a most forlorn-appearing little mortal . '' There were two Ida Mitchells attending the Clifton Academy . The other Ida was a plain , quiet , pale-faced little girl of fifteen who was in the second year . Beyond that , none of the third-year Ida Mitchell 's set knew anything about her , or tried to find out . `` She must be very poor , '' said Ida carelessly . `` She dresses so shabbily , and she always looks so pinched and subdued . She boards in a little house out on Marlboro Road , and I pity her if she has to spend her holidays there , for a more dismal place I never saw .
I was there once XXXXX the trail of a book I had lost .
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