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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Betty Wales Freshman, by Edith K. Dunton
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Betty Wales Freshman
+
+
+Author: Edith K. Dunton
+
+
+
+Release Date: February 24, 2010  [eBook #31387]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BETTY WALES FRESHMAN***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Project Gutenberg Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
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+      See 31387-h.htm or 31387-h.zip:
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31387/31387-h/31387-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31387/31387-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+BETTY WALES
+
+FRESHMAN
+
+by
+
+MARGARET WARDE
+
+Author of
+
+  Betty Wales, Sophomore
+  Betty Wales, Junior
+  Betty Wales, Senior
+  Betty Wales, B. A.
+  Betty Wales & Co.
+  Betty Wales on the Campus
+  Betty Wales Decides
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "I'M IN A DREADFUL FIX"]
+
+
+
+The Penn Publishing
+Company Philadelphia
+1921
+
+Copyright 1904
+by
+The Penn Publishing Company
+
+Betty Wales, Freshman
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+        I First Impressions                                      7
+       II Beginnings                                            21
+      III Dancing Lessons and a Class-Meeting                   35
+       IV Whose Photograph?                                     50
+        V Up Hill--and Down                                     63
+       VI Letters Home                                          80
+      VII A Dramatic Chapter                                    95
+     VIII After the Play                                       112
+       IX Paying the Piper                                     128
+        X A Rumor                                              146
+       XI Mid-years and a Dust-Pan                             166
+      XII A Triumph for Democracy                              185
+     XIII Saint Valentine's Assistants                         208
+      XIV A Beginning and a Sequel                             233
+       XV At the Great Game                                    255
+      XVI A Chance to Help                                     279
+     XVII An Ounce of Prevention                               299
+    XVIII Into Paradise--and Out                               321
+      XIX A Last Chance                                        337
+       XX Loose Threads                                        355
+
+
+
+
+BETTY WALES
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+FIRST IMPRESSIONS
+
+
+"Oh, dear, what if she shouldn't meet me!" sighed Betty Wales for the
+hundredth time at least, as she gathered up her bags and umbrella, and
+followed the crowd of noisy, chattering girls off the train.
+
+"So long, Mary. See you to-morrow."
+
+"Get a carriage, Nellie, that's a dear. You're so little you can always
+break through the crowd."
+
+"Hello, Susanna! Did you get on the campus too?"
+
+"Thanks awfully, but I can't to-night. My freshman cousin's up, you
+know, and homesick and----"
+
+"Oh, girls, isn't it fun to be back?"
+
+It all sounded so jolly and familiar. Weren't any of them freshmen? Did
+they guess that she was a freshman "and homesick"? Betty straightened
+proudly and resolved that they should not. If only the registrar had got
+father's telegram. As she stood hesitating on the station platform,
+amazed at the wilderness of trunks and certain that no one could
+possibly find her until that shouting, rushing mob in front of her had
+dispersed, a pretty girl in immaculate white duck hurried up to her.
+
+"Pardon me," she said, reaching out a hand for Betty's golf clubs, "but
+aren't you a stranger here? Could I help you, perhaps, about getting
+your luggage up?"
+
+Betty looked at her doubtfully. "I don't know," she said. "Yes, I'm
+going to enter college, and my elder sister couldn't get here until a
+later train. But father telegraphed the registrar to meet me. Do you
+know her? Could you point her out?"
+
+The pretty girl's lips curved into the faint suggestion of a smile.
+"Yes," she said, "I know her--only too well for my peace of mind
+occasionally. But I'm afraid she hasn't come to meet you. You see she's
+very busy these first days--there are a great many of you freshman, all
+wanting different things. So she sends us down instead."
+
+"Oh, I see." Betty's face brightened. "Then if you would tell me how to
+get to Mrs. Chapin's on Meriden Place."
+
+"Mrs. Chapin's!" exclaimed the pretty girl. "That's easy. Most of you
+want such outlandish streets. But that's close to the campus, where I'm
+going myself. My time is just up, I'm happy to say. Give me your checks
+and your house number, and then we'll take a car, unless you wouldn't
+mind walking. It's not far."
+
+On the way to Mrs. Chapin's Betty learned that her new friend's name was
+Dorothy King, that she was a junior and roomed in the Hilton House, that
+she went in for science, but was fond of music and was a member of the
+Glee Club; that she was back a day early for the express purpose of
+meeting freshmen at the trains. In return Betty explained how she had
+been obliged at the last moment to come east alone; how sister Nan, who
+was nine years older than she and five years out of college, was coming
+down from a house party at Kittery Point, but couldn't get in till eight
+that night; and father had insisted that Betty be sure to arrive by
+daylight.
+
+"Wales--Wales----" repeated the pretty junior. "Why, your sister must
+have been the clever Miss Wales in '9-, the one who wrote so well and
+all. She is? How fine! I'm sorry, but I leave you here. Mrs. Chapin's is
+that big yellow house, the second on the left side--yes. I know you'll
+like it there. And Miss Wales, you mustn't mind if the sophomores get
+hold of that joke about your asking the registrar to meet you. I won't
+tell, but it will be sure to leak out somehow. You see it's really
+awfully funny. The registrar is almost as important as the president,
+and a lot more dignified and unapproachable, until you get to know
+her. She'll think it too good to keep, and the sophomores will be
+sure to get hold of it and put it in the book of grinds for their
+reception--souvenirs they give you, you know. Now good-bye. May I call
+later? Thank you so much. Good-bye."
+
+Betty was blushing hotly as she climbed Mrs. Chapin's steps. But her
+chagrin at having proved herself so "verdant" a freshman was tempered
+with elation at the junior's cordiality. "Nan said I wasn't to run into
+friendships," she reflected. "But she must be nice. She knows the Clays.
+Oh, I hope she won't forget to come!"
+
+Betty Wales had come to college without any particular enthusiasm for
+it, though she was naturally an enthusiastic person. She loved Nan
+dearly, but didn't approve of her scheme of life, and wasn't at all
+prepared to like college just because Nan had. Being so much younger
+than her sister, she had never visited her at Harding, but she had met a
+good many of her friends; and comparing their stories of life at Harding
+with the experiences of one or two of her own mates who were at the
+boarding-school, she had decided that of two evils she should prefer
+college, because there seemed to be more freedom and variety about it.
+Being of a philosophical turn of mind, she was now determined to enjoy
+herself, if possible. She pinned her faith to a remark that her favorite
+among all Nan's friends had made to her that summer. "Oh, you'll like
+college, Betty," she had said. "Not just as Nan or I did, of course.
+Every girl has her own reasons for liking college--but every nice girl
+likes it."
+
+Betty decided that she had already found two of her reasons: the pretty
+Miss King and Mrs. Chapin's piazza, which was exceedingly attractive for
+a boarding-house. A girl was lounging in a hammock behind the vines, and
+another in a big piazza chair was reading aloud to her. "They must be
+old girls," thought Betty, "to seem so much at home." Then she
+remembered that Mrs. Chapin had said hers would probably be an "all
+freshman house," and decided that they were friends from the same town.
+
+Mrs. Chapin presently appeared, to show Betty to her room and explain
+that her roommate would not arrive till the next morning. Betty dressed
+and then sat down to study for her French examination, which came next
+day; but before she had finished deciding which couch she preferred or
+where they could possibly put two desks and a tea-table, the bell rang
+for dinner.
+
+This bid fair to be a silent and dismal meal. All the girls had come
+except Betty's roommate, and most of them, being freshmen, were in the
+depths of examinations and homesickness. But there was one shining
+exception, a very lively sophomore, who had waited till the last moment
+hoping to get an assignment on the campus, and then had come to Mrs.
+Chapin's in the place of a freshman who had failed in her examinations.
+
+"She had six, poor thing!" explained the sophomore to Betty, who sat
+beside her. "And just think! She'd had a riding horse and a mahogany
+desk with a secret drawer sent on from home. Wish I could inherit them
+along with her room. Now, my name is Mary Brooks. Tell me yours, and
+I'll ask the girl on the other side and introduce you; and that will
+start the ball rolling."
+
+These energetic measures succeeded much better than Mrs. Chapin's
+somewhat perfunctory remarks about the dry weather, and the whole table
+was soon talking busily. The two piazza girls proved to be sisters, Mary
+and Adelaide Rich, from Haddam, Connecticut. Betty decided that they
+were rather stupid and too inclined to stick together to be much fun. A
+tall, homely girl at the end of the table created a laugh by introducing
+herself as Miss Katherine Kittredge of Kankakee.
+
+"The state is Illinois," she added, "but that spoils the alliteration."
+
+"The what?" whispered Betty to the sophomore.
+
+But Miss Brooks only laughed and said, "Wait till you've finished
+freshman English."
+
+Betty's other neighbor was a pale, quiet little girl, with short hair
+and a drawl. Betty couldn't decide whether she meant to be "snippy" or
+was only shy and offish. After she had said that her name was Roberta
+Lewis and her home Philadelphia, Betty inquired politely whether she
+expected to like college.
+
+"I expect to detest it," replied Miss Lewis slowly and distinctly, and
+spoke not another word during dinner. But though she ate busily and kept
+her eyes on her plate, Betty was sure that she heard all that was said,
+and would have liked to join in, only she didn't know how.
+
+The one really beautiful girl at the table was Miss Eleanor Watson. Her
+complexion was the daintiest pink and white, her black hair waved softly
+under the big hat which she had not stopped to take off, and her hazel
+eyes were plaintive one moment and sparkling the next, as her mood
+changed. She talked a good deal and very well, and it was hard to
+realize that she was only sixteen and a freshman. She had fitted for
+college at a big preparatory school in the east, and so, although she
+happened to be the only Denver girl in college, she had a great many
+friends in the upper classes and appeared to know quite as much about
+college customs as Miss Brooks. All this impressed Betty, who admired
+beauty and pretty clothes immensely. She resolved to have Eleanor Watson
+for a friend if she could, and was pleased when Miss Watson inquired how
+many examinations she had, and suggested that they would probably be in
+the same divisions, since their names both began with W.
+
+The remaining girl at Mrs. Chapin's table was not particularly striking.
+She had a great mass of golden brown hair, which she wore coiled loosely
+in her neck. Her keen grey eyes looked the world straight in the face,
+and her turned-up nose and the dimple in her chin gave her a merry,
+cheerful air. She did not talk much, and not at all about herself, but
+she gave the impression of being a thoroughly nice, bright, capable
+girl. Her name was Rachel Morrison.
+
+After dinner Betty was starting up-stairs when Mary Brooks called her
+back. "Won't you walk over to the campus with me, little girl?" she
+asked. "I have one or two errands. Oh no, you don't need a hat. You
+never do here."
+
+So they wandered off bareheaded in the moonlight, which made the
+elm-shaded streets look prettier than ever. On the dusky campus girls
+strolled about in devoted pairs and sociable quartettes. On the piazza
+of one of the dwelling-houses somebody was singing a fascinating little
+Scotch ballad with a tinkling mandolin accompaniment.
+
+"Must be Dorothy King," said the sophomore. "I thought she wouldn't come
+till eight. Most people don't."
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Betty, "I know her!" And she related her adventure at
+the station.
+
+"That's so," said Miss Brooks. "I'd forgotten. She's awfully popular,
+you know, and very prominent,--belongs to no end of societies. But
+whatever the Young Women's Christian Association wants of her she does.
+You know they appoint girls to meet freshmen and help them find
+boarding-places and so on. She's evidently on that committee. Let's stop
+and say hello to her."
+
+Betty, hanging behind, was amazed to see the commotion caused by Miss
+Brooks's arrival. The song stopped abruptly, the mandolin slammed to the
+floor, and performers and audience fell as one woman upon the newcomer.
+
+"Why, Mary Brooks! When did you come?"
+
+"Did you get a room, honey?"
+
+"Oh, Mary, where did you put on that lovely tan?"
+
+"Mary, is Sarah coming back, do you know?"
+
+"Hush up, girls, and let her tell us!"
+
+It was like the station, only more so, and oh, it was nice--if you were
+in it. Mary answered some of their questions and then looked around for
+Betty. "I've lost a freshman," she said, "Here, Miss Wales, come up and
+sit on the railing. She knows you, Dottie, and she wants to hear you
+sing. These others are some of the Hilton House, Miss Wales. Please
+consider yourselves introduced. Now, Dottie."
+
+So the little Scotch ballad began again. Presently some one else came
+up, there were more effusive greetings, and then another song or two,
+after which Miss King and "some of the Hilton House" declared that they
+simply must go and unpack. Betty, suddenly remembering her trunk and her
+sister, decided to let Miss Brooks do her other "errands" alone, and
+found her way back to Mrs. Chapin's. Sure enough, Nan was sitting on the
+piazza.
+
+"Hello, little sister," she called gaily as Betty hurried up the walk.
+"Don't say you're sorry to be late. It's the worst possible thing for
+little freshmen to mope round waiting for people, and I'm glad you had
+the sense not to. Your trunk's come, but if you're not too tired let's
+go up and see Ethel Hale before we unpack it."
+
+Ethel Hale had spent a whole summer with Nan, and Betty beat her at
+tennis and called her Ethel, and she called Betty little sister, just as
+Nan did. But here she was a member of the faculty. "I shall never dare
+come near her after you leave," said Betty. Just as she said it the door
+of the room opened--Nan had explained that it was a freshman trick to
+ring front door-bells--and Ethel rushed out and dragged them in.
+
+"Miss Blaine and Miss Mills are here," she said.
+
+Betty gathered from the subsequent conversation that Miss Blaine and
+Miss Mills were also members of the faculty; and they were. But they had
+just come in from a horseback ride, and they sat in rather disheveled
+attitudes, eating taffy out of a paper bag, and their conversation was
+very amusing and perfectly intelligible, even to a freshman who had
+still an examination to pass.
+
+"I didn't suppose the faculty ever acted like that. Why, they're just
+like other people," declared Betty, as she tumbled into bed a little
+later.
+
+"They're exactly like other people," returned Nan sagely, from the
+closet where she was hanging up skirts. "Just remember that and you'll
+have a lot nicer time with them."
+
+So ended Betty's first day at college. Nan finished unpacking, and then
+sat for a long time by the window. Betty loved Nan, but Nan in return
+worshiped Betty. They might call her the clever Miss Wales if they
+liked; she would gladly have given all her vaunted brains for the
+fascinating little ways that made Betty friends so quickly and for the
+power to take life in Betty's free-and-easy fashion. "Oh, I hope she'll
+like it!" she thought. "I hope she'll be popular with the girls. I don't
+want her to have to work so hard for all she gets. I wouldn't exchange
+my course for hers, but I want hers to be the other kind."
+
+Betty was sound asleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+BEGINNINGS
+
+
+The next morning it poured.
+
+"Of course," said Eleanor Watson impressively at breakfast. "It always
+does the first day of college. They call it the freshman rain."
+
+"Let's all go down to chapel together," suggested Rachel Morrison.
+
+"You're going to order carriages, of course?" inquired Roberta Lewis
+stiffly.
+
+"Hurrah! Another joke for the grind-book," shrieked Mary Brooks. Then
+she noticed Roberta's expression of abject terror. "Never mind, Miss
+Lewis," she said kindly. "It's really an honor to be in the grind-book,
+but I promise not to tell if you'd rather I wouldn't. Won't you show
+that you forgive me by coming down to college under my umbrella?"
+
+"She can't. She's coming with me," answered Nan promptly. "I demand the
+right to first choice."
+
+"Very well, I yield," said Mary, "because when you go my sovereignty
+will be undisputed. You'll have to hurry, children."
+
+So the little procession of rain-coats flapping out from under dripping
+umbrellas started briskly off to join the longer procession that was
+converging from every direction toward College Hall. Roberta and Nan
+were ahead under one umbrella, chatting like old friends.
+
+"I suppose she doesn't think we're worth talking to," said Rachel
+Morrison, who came next with Betty.
+
+"Probably she's one of the kind that's always been around with grown
+people and isn't used to girls," suggested Betty.
+
+"Perhaps," agreed Rachel. "Anyhow, I can't get a word out of her. She
+just sits by her window and reads magazines and looks bored to death
+when Katherine or I go in to speak to her. Isn't Katherine jolly? I'm so
+glad I don't room alone."
+
+"Are you?" asked Betty. "I can tell better after my roommate comes. Her
+name sounds quite nice. It's Helen Chase Adams, and she lives somewhere
+up in New Hampshire. Did you ever see so many girls?"
+
+There seemed to be no end to them. They jostled one another
+good-naturedly in the narrow halls, swarmed, chattering, up the stairs,
+and filled the chapel to overflowing. It was very exciting to see the
+whole college together. Even Roberta Lewis condescended to look
+interested when Mary Brooks showed her the faculty rows, and pointed out
+the college beauty, the captain of the sophomore basket-ball team, and
+other local celebrities.
+
+"That's evidently a freshman," declared Eleanor Watson, who was in the
+row behind with Katherine and the Riches. "Doesn't she look lost and
+unhappy?" And she pointed out a tall, near-sighted girl who was stalking
+dejectedly down the middle aisle.
+
+A vivacious little brunette was sitting next Eleanor. "Pardon me," she
+said sweetly, "but did you mean the girl who's gone around to the side
+and is now being received with open arms by most of the faculty? She's a
+senior, the brightest girl in the class, we think, and she's sad because
+she's lost her trunk and broken her glasses. You're a freshman, I
+judge?"
+
+"Thank you, yes," gasped Eleanor with as much dignity as she could
+muster, and resolved to keep her guesses to herself in future.
+
+The chapel service was short but very beautiful. The president's kindly
+welcome to the entering class, "which bids fair to be the largest in the
+history of the institution," completely upset the composure of some of
+the aforesaid class, and a good many moist handkerchiefs grew moister,
+and red eyes redder during the prayer. But on the whole the class of
+190- conducted itself with commendable propriety and discretion on this
+its first official appearance in the college world.
+
+"I'm glad I don't have that French exam.," said Katherine, as she and
+Betty picked out their umbrellas from a great, moist heap in the corner
+of the hall. "Come down with me and have a soda."
+
+Betty shook her head. "I can't. Nan asked me to go with her and Eth--I
+mean Miss Hale, but I simply must study." And she hurried off to begin.
+
+At the entrance to the campus Eleanor Watson overtook her. "Let's go
+home and study together," she proposed. "I can't see why they left this
+French till so late in the week, when everybody has it. What did you
+come to college for?" she asked abruptly.
+
+Betty thought a minute. "Why, for the fun of it, I guess," she said.
+
+"So did I. I think we've stumbled into a pretty serious-minded crowd at
+Mrs. Chapin's, don't you?"
+
+"I like Miss Morrison awfully well," objected Betty, "and I shouldn't
+call Katherine Kittredge of Kankakee serious-minded, but----"
+
+"Oh, perhaps not," interrupted Eleanor. "Anyhow I know a lot of fine
+girls outside, and you must meet them. It's very important to have a lot
+of friends up here. If you want to amount to anything, you can't just
+stick with the girls in your own house."
+
+"Oh, no," said Betty meekly, awed by the display of worldly wisdom. "It
+will be lovely to meet your friends. Let's study on the piazza. I'll get
+my books."
+
+"Wait a minute," said Eleanor quickly. "I want to tell you something. I
+have at least two conditions already, and if I don't pass this French I
+don't suppose I can possibly stay."
+
+"But you don't act frightened a bit," protested Betty in awestruck
+tones.
+
+"I am," returned Eleanor in a queer, husky voice. "I could never show my
+face again if I failed." She brushed the tears out of her eyes. "Now go
+and get your books," she said calmly, "and don't ever mention the
+subject again. I had to tell somebody."
+
+Betty was back in a moment, looking as if she had seen a ghost. "She's
+come," she gasped, "and she's crying like everything."
+
+"Who?" inquired Eleanor coolly.
+
+"My roommate--Helen Chase Adams."
+
+"What did you do?"
+
+"I didn't say a word--just grabbed up my books and ran. Let's study till
+Nan comes and then she'll settle it."
+
+It was almost one o'clock before Nan appeared. She tossed a box of candy
+to the weary students, and gave a lively account of her morning, which
+had included a second breakfast, three strawberry-ices, a walk to the
+bridge, half a dozen calls on the campus, and a plunge in the
+swimming-tank.
+
+"I didn't dream I knew so many people here," she said. "But now I've
+seen them all and they've promised to call on you, Betty, and I must go
+to-night."
+
+"Not unless she stops crying," said Betty firmly, and told her story.
+
+"Go up and ask her to come down-town with us and have a lunch at
+Holmes's," suggested Nan.
+
+"Oh you come too," begged Betty, and Nan, amused at the distress of her
+usually self-reliant sister, obediently led the way up-stairs.
+
+"Come in," called a tremulous voice.
+
+Helen Chase Adams had stopped crying, at least temporarily, and was
+sitting in a pale and forlorn heap on one of the beds. She jumped up
+when she saw her visitors. "I thought it was the man with my trunk," she
+said. "Is one of you my roommate? Which one?"
+
+"What a nice speech, Miss Adams!" said Nan heartily. "I've been hoping
+ever since I came that somebody would take me for a freshman. But this
+is Betty, who's to room with you. Now will you come down-town to lunch
+with us?"
+
+Betty was very quiet on the way down-town. Her roommate was a bitter
+disappointment. She had imagined a pretty girl like Eleanor Watson, or a
+jolly one like Katherine and Rachel; and here was this homely little
+thing with an awkward walk, a piping voice, and short skirts. "She'll
+just spoil everything," thought Betty resentfully, "and it's a mean,
+hateful shame." Over the creamed chicken, which Nan ordered because it
+was Holmes's "specialty," just as strawberry-ice was Cuyler's, the
+situation began to look a little more cheerful. Helen Chase Adams would
+certainly be an obliging roommate.
+
+"Oh, I wouldn't think of touching the room till you get back from your
+French," she said eagerly. "Won't it be fun to fix it? Have you a lot of
+pretty things? I haven't much, I'm afraid. Oh, no, I don't care a bit
+which bed I have." Her shy, appealing manner and her evident desire to
+please would have disarmed a far more critical person than Betty, who,
+in spite of her love of "fine feathers" and a sort of superficial
+snobbishness, was at heart absolutely unworldly, and who took a naive
+interest in all badly dressed people because it was such fun to "plan
+them over." She applied this process immediately to her roommate.
+
+"Her hat's on crooked," she reflected, "and her pug's in just the wrong
+place. Her shirt-waist needs pulling down in front and she sticks her
+head out when she talks. Otherwise she'd be rather cute. I hope she's
+the kind that will take suggestions without getting mad." And she
+hurried off to her French in a very amiable frame of mind.
+
+Helen Chase Adams thanked Nan shyly for the luncheon, escaped from the
+terrors of a tete-a-tete with an unfamiliar grown-up on the plea of
+having to unpack, and curled up on the couch that Betty had not chosen,
+to think it over. The day had been full of surprises, but Betty was the
+culmination. Why had she come to college? She was distinctly pretty, she
+dressed well, and evidently liked what pretty girls call "a good time."
+In Helen Chase Adams's limited experience all pretty girls were stupid.
+The idea of seeing crowds of them in the college chapel, much less of
+rooming with one, had never entered her head. A college was a place for
+students. Would Miss Wales pass her examination? Would she learn her
+lessons? What would it be like to live with her day in and day out?
+Helen could not imagine--but she did not feel in the least like crying.
+
+Just as the dinner-bell rang, Betty appeared, looking rather tired and
+pale. "Nan's gone," she announced. "She found she couldn't make
+connections except by leaving at half past five, so she met me down at
+the college. And just at the last minute she gave me the money to buy a
+chafing-dish. Wasn't that lovely? I know I should have cried and made a
+goose of myself, but after tha--I beg your pardon--I haven't any sense."
+She stopped in confusion.
+
+But Helen only laughed. "Go on," she said. "I don't mind now. I don't
+believe I'm going to be homesick any more, and if I am I'll do my best
+not to cry."
+
+How the rest of that first week flew! Next day the freshman class list
+was read, and fortunately it included all the girls at Mrs. Chapin's.
+Then there were electives to choose, complicated schedules to see
+through, first recitations to find, books to buy or rent, rooms to
+arrange, and all sorts of bewildering odds and ends to attend to.
+Saturday came before any one was ready for it, bringing in its wake the
+freshman frolic, a jolly, informal dance in the gymnasium, at which the
+whole college appears, tagged with its name, and tries to get accustomed
+to the size of the entering class, preparatory to becoming acquainted
+with parts of it later on. To Betty's great delight Dorothy King met her
+in the hall of the Administration Building the day before and asked
+permission to take her to the frolic. At the gymnasium Miss King turned
+her over to a bewildering succession of partners, who asked her the
+stereotyped questions about liking college, having a pleasant
+boarding-place, and so on, tried more or less effectively to lead her
+through the crowd to the rather erratic music of one piano, and assured
+her that the freshman frolic was not at all like the other college
+dances. They all seemed very pleasant, but Betty felt sure she should
+never know them again. Nevertheless she enjoyed it all immensely and was
+almost sorry when the frolic was over and they adjourned to Dorothy's
+pretty single room in the Hilton House, where a few other upper-class
+girls had been invited to bring their freshmen for refreshments.
+
+"Wasn't it fun?" said Betty to a fluffy-haired, dainty little girl who
+sat next her on Dorothy's couch.
+
+"I don't think I should call it exactly fun," said the girl critically.
+
+"Oh, I like meeting new people, and getting into a crowd of girls, and
+trying to dance with them," explained Betty.
+
+"Yes, I liked it too," said the girl. She had an odd trick of lingering
+over the word she wished to distinguish. "I liked it because it was so
+queer. Everything's queer here, particularly roommates. Do you have
+one?"
+
+Betty nodded. "Well, mine never made up her bed in her life before, and
+first she thought she couldn't, but her mother told her to take hold and
+see what a Madison could do with a bed--they're awfully proud of their
+old family--so she did; but it looks dreadfully messy yet, and it makes
+her late for chapel every single morning. Is yours anything like that?"
+
+Betty laughed. "Oh, no," she said. "She's very orderly. Won't you come
+and see us?"
+
+The little freshman promised. By that time the "plowed field" was
+ready--an obliging friend had stayed at home from the frolic to give it
+an early start--and they ate the creamy brown squares of candy with a
+marshmallow stuffed into each, and praised the cook and her wares until
+a bell rang and everybody jumped up and began saying good-bye at once
+except Betty, who had to be enlightened by the campus girls as to the
+dire meaning of the twenty-minutes-to-ten bell.
+
+"Don't you keep the ten o'clock rule?" asked the fluffy-haired freshman
+curiously.
+
+"Oh, yes," said Betty. "Why, we couldn't come to college if we didn't,
+could we?" And she wondered why some of the girls laughed.
+
+"I've had a beautiful time," she said, when Miss King, who had come part
+way home with her, explained that she must turn back. "I hope that when
+I'm a junior I can do half as much for some little freshman as you have
+for me."
+
+"That's a nice way to put it, Miss Wales," said Dorothy. "But don't wait
+till you're a junior to begin."
+
+As Betty ran home, she reflected that she had not seen Helen dancing
+that evening. "Oh, Helen," she called, as she dashed into the room,
+"wasn't it fun? How many minutes before our light goes out? Do you know
+how to dance?"
+
+Helen hesitated. "I--well--I know how, but I can't do it in a crowd.
+It's ten minutes of ten."
+
+"Teach you before the sophomore reception," said Betty laconically,
+throwing a slipper into the closet with one hand and pulling out
+hairpins with the other. "What a pity that to-morrow's Sunday. We shall
+have to wait a whole day to begin."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+DANCING LESSONS AND A CLASS-MEETING
+
+
+The next morning Helen had gone for a walk with Katherine, and Betty was
+dressing for church, when Eleanor Watson knocked at the door. She looked
+prettier than ever in her long silk kimono, with its ruffles of soft
+lace and the great knot of pink ribbon at her throat.
+
+"So you're going to church too," she said, dropping down among Betty's
+pillows. "I was hoping you'd stay and talk to me. Did you enjoy your
+frolic?"
+
+"Yes, didn't you?" inquired Betty.
+
+"I didn't go," returned Eleanor shortly.
+
+"Oh, why not?" asked Betty so seriously that Eleanor laughed.
+
+"Because the girl who asked me first was ill; and I wouldn't tag along
+with the little Brooks and the Riches and your fascinating roommate. Now
+don't say 'why not?' again, or I may hurt your feelings. Do you really
+like Miss Brooks?"
+
+Betty hesitated. As a matter of fact she liked Mary Brooks very much,
+but she also admired Eleanor Watson and coveted her approval. "I like
+her well enough," she said slowly, and disappeared into the closet to
+get something she did not want and change the subject.
+
+Eleanor laughed. "You're so polite," she said. "I wish I were. That is,
+I wish I could make people think I was, without my taking the trouble.
+Don't go to church."
+
+"Helen and Katherine are coming back for me. You'd better go with us,"
+urged Betty.
+
+"Now that Kankakee person----" began Eleanor. The door opened suddenly
+and Katherine and Helen came in. Katherine, who had heard Eleanor's last
+remark, flushed but said nothing. Eleanor rose deliberately, smoothed
+the pillows she had been lying on, and walked slowly off, remarking over
+her shoulder, "In common politeness, knock before you come in."
+
+"Or you may hear what I think of you," added Katherine wickedly, as
+Eleanor shut the door.
+
+Helen looked perplexed. "Should I, Betty?" she asked, "when it's my own
+room."
+
+"It's nicer," said Betty. "Nan and I do. How do you like our room,
+Katherine?"
+
+"It's a beaut," said Katherine, taking the hint promptly. "I don't see
+how you ever fixed your desks and couches, and left so much space in the
+middle. Our room is like the aisle in a Chicago theatre. That Japanese
+screen is a peach and the water-color over your desk is another. Did you
+buy back the chafing-dish?"
+
+Betty laughed. She had amused the house by getting up before breakfast
+on the day after Nan left, in her haste to buy a chafing-dish. In the
+afternoon Rachel had suggested that a teakettle was really more
+essential to a college establishment, and they had gone down together to
+change it. But then had come Miss King's invitation to eat "plowed
+field" after the frolic; and the chafing-dish, appearing once more the
+be-all and end-all of existence, had finally replaced the teakettle.
+
+"But we're going to have both," ventured Helen shyly.
+
+"Oh yes," broke in Betty. "Isn't it fine of Helen to get it and make our
+tea-table so complete?" As a matter of fact Betty much preferred that
+the tea-table should be all her own; but Helen was so delighted with the
+idea of having a part in it, and so sure that she wanted a teakettle
+more than pillows for her couch, that Betty resolved not to mind the
+bare-looking bed, which marred the cozy effect of the room, and above
+all never to let Helen guess how she felt about the tea-table. "But next
+year you better believe I'm hoping for a single room," she confided to
+the little green lizard who sat on her inkstand and ogled her while she
+worked.
+
+When church was over Katherine proposed a stroll around the campus
+before dinner. "I haven't found my bearings at all yet," she said. "Now
+which building is which?"
+
+Betty pointed out the Hilton House proudly. "That's all I know," she
+said, "except these up here in front of course--the Main Building and
+Chapel, and Science and Music Halls."
+
+"We know the gymnasium," suggested Helen, "and the Belden House, where
+we bought our screen, is one of the four in that row."
+
+They found the Belden House, and picked out the Westcott by its
+name-plate, which, being new and shiny, was easy to read from a
+distance. Then Helen made a discovery. "Girls, there's water down
+there," she cried. Sure enough, behind the back fence and across a road
+was a pretty pond, with wooded banks and an island, which hid its
+further side from view.
+
+"That must be the place they call Paradise," said Betty. "I've heard Nan
+speak of it. I thought it was this," and she pointed to a slimy pool
+about four yards across, below them on the back campus. "That's the only
+pond I'd noticed."
+
+"Oh, no," declared Katherine. "I've heard my scientific roommate speak
+of that. It's called the Frog Pond and 'of it more anon,' as my already
+beloved Latin teacher occasionally remarks. To speak plainly, she has
+promised to let me help her catch her first frog."
+
+They walked home through the apple orchard that occupied one corner of
+the back campus.
+
+"It's not a very big campus, and not a bit dignified or imposing, but I
+like it," said Betty, as they came out on to the main drive again, and
+started toward the gateway.
+
+"Nice and cozy to live with every day," added Katherine. Helen was too
+busy comparing the red-brick, homely reality with the shaded marble
+cloisters of her dreams, to say what she thought.
+
+Betty's dancing class was a great success. With characteristic energy
+she organized it Monday morning. It appeared that while all the Chapin
+house girls could dance except Helen and Adelaide Rich, none of them
+could "lead" but Eleanor.
+
+"And Miss King's friends said we freshmen ought to learn before the
+sophomore reception, particularly the tall ones; and most of us are
+tall," explained Betty.
+
+"That's all right," interposed Eleanor, "but take my advice and don't
+learn. If you can't lead, the other girl always will; and the men say it
+ruins a girl's dancing."
+
+"Who cares?" demanded Katherine boldly. "Imagine Betty or Miss Brooks
+trying to see over me and pull me around! I want to learn, for one--men
+or no men."
+
+"So do I," said Rachel and Mary Rich together. "And I," drawled Roberta
+languidly.
+
+"Oh well, if you're all set upon it, I'll play for you," said Eleanor
+graciously. She was secretly ashamed of the speech that Katherine had
+overheard the day before and bitterly regretted having antagonized the
+girls in the house, when she had meant only to keep them--all but
+Betty--at a respectful distance. She liked most of them personally, but
+she wished her friends to be of another type--girls from large schools
+like her own, who would have influence and a following from the first;
+girls with the qualities of leadership, who could control votes in
+class-meetings and push their little set to first place in all the
+organized activities of the college. Eleanor had said that she came to
+college for "fun," but "fun" to her meant power and prominence. She was
+a born politician, with a keen love of manoeuvring and considerable
+tact and insight when she chose to exercise it. But inexperience and the
+ease with which she had "run" boarding-school affairs had made her
+over-confident. She saw now that she had indulged her fondness for
+sarcasm too far, and was ready to do a good deal to win back the
+admiration which she was sure the Chapin house girls had felt for her at
+first. She was particularly anxious to do this, as the freshman
+class-meeting was only a week off, and she wanted the votes of the house
+for the Hill School candidate for class-president.
+
+So three evenings that week, in spite of her distaste for minor parts
+and bad pianos, she meekly drummed out waltzes and two-steps on Mrs.
+Chapin's rickety instrument for a long half hour after dinner, while
+Betty and Roberta--who danced beautifully and showed an unexpected
+aptitude in imparting her accomplishment--acted as head-masters, and the
+rest of the girls furnished the novices with the necessary variety of
+partners, practiced "leading," and incidentally got better acquainted.
+On Friday evening, as they sat in the parlor resting and discussing the
+progress of their pupils and the appalling length of the Livy lesson for
+the next day, Eleanor broached the subject of the class-meeting.
+
+"You know it's to-morrow at two," she said. "Aren't you excited?"
+
+"It will be fun to see our class together," said Rachel. Nobody else
+seemed to take much interest in the subject.
+
+"Well, of course," pursued Eleanor, "I'm particularly anxious about it
+because a dear friend of mine is going to be proposed for class
+president--Jean Eastman--you know her, Betty."
+
+"Oh yes," cried Betty, enthusiastically. "She's that tall, dark girl who
+was with you yesterday at Cuyler's. She seemed lovely."
+
+Eleanor nodded and got up from the piano stool. "I must go to work," she
+said, smiling cordially round the little group. "Tell them what a good
+president Jean will make, Betty. And don't one of you forget to come."
+
+"She can be very nice when she wants to," said Katherine bluntly when
+Eleanor was well out of hearing.
+
+"I think she's trying to make up for Sunday," said Betty. "Let's all
+vote for her friend."
+
+The first class-meeting of 190- passed off with unwonted smoothness. The
+class before had forgotten that it is considered necessary for a
+corporate body to have a constitution; and the class before that had
+made itself famous by suggesting the addition of the "Woman's Home
+Monthly" to the magazines in the college reading-room. 190- avoided
+these and other absurdities. A constitution mysteriously appeared, drawn
+up in good and regular form, and was read and promptly adopted. Then
+Eleanor Watson nominated Jean Eastman for president. After she and the
+other nominees had stood in a blushing row on the platform to be
+inspected by their class, the voting began. Miss Eastman was declared
+elected on the first ballot, with exactly four votes more than the
+number necessary for a choice.
+
+"I hope she'll remember that we did that," Katherine Kittredge leaned
+forward to say to Betty, who sat in the row ahead of her with the
+fluffy-haired freshman from the Hilton and her "queer" roommate.
+
+That night there was a supper in Jean's honor at Holmes's, so Eleanor
+did not appear at Mrs. Chapin's dinner-table to be duly impressed with a
+sense of her obligations. "How did you like the class-meeting?" inquired
+Rachel, who had been for a long walk with a girl from her home town, and
+so had not seen the others.
+
+"I thought it was all right myself," said Adelaide Rich, "but I walked
+home with a girl named Alford who was dreadfully disgusted. She said it
+was all cut and dried, and wanted to know who asked Eleanor Watson to
+write us a constitution. She said she hoped that hereafter we wouldn't
+sit around tamely and be run by any clique."
+
+"Well, somebody must run us," said Betty consolingly. "Those girls know
+one another and the rest of us don't know any one well. I think it will
+all work around in time. They will have their turns first, that's all."
+
+"Perhaps," admitted Adelaide doubtfully. Her pessimistic acquaintance
+had obtained a strong hold on her.
+
+"And the next thing is the sophomore reception," said Rachel.
+
+"And Mountain Day right after that," added Betty.
+
+"What?" asked Helen and Roberta together.
+
+"Is it possible that you don't know about Mountain Day, children?" asked
+Mary Brooks soberly. "Well, you've heard about the physical tests for
+the army and navy, haven't you? This is like those. If you pass your
+entrance examinations you are allowed a few weeks to recuperate, and
+then if you can climb the required mountain you can stay on in college."
+
+"How very interesting!" drawled Roberta, who had some idea now how to
+take Mary's jibes. "Now, Betty, please tell us about it."
+
+Betty explained that the day after the sophomore reception was a
+holiday, and that most of the girls seized the opportunity to take an
+all-day walk or drive into the country around Harding.
+
+"Let's all ask our junior and senior friends about the nicest places to
+go," said Rachel, emphasizing "junior and senior" and looking at Mary.
+"Then we can make our plans, and engage a carriage if we want one. I
+should think there might be quite a rush."
+
+"You should, should you?" jeered Mary. "My dear, every horse that can
+stand alone and every respectable vehicle was engaged weeks ago."
+
+"No one has engaged our lower appendages," returned Katherine. "So if
+worse comes to worst, we are quite independent of liveries. Which of us
+are you going to take to the sophomore reception?"
+
+"Roberta, of course," said Mary. "Didn't you know that Roberta and I
+have a crush on each other? A crush, my dears, in case you are wanting
+to know, is a warm and adoring friendship. Sorry, but I'm going out this
+evening."
+
+"Has she really asked you, Roberta?" asked Betty.
+
+"Yes," said Roberta.
+
+"How nice! I'm going with a sophomore whose sister is a friend of
+Nan's."
+
+"And Hester Gulick is going to take me--she's my friend from home,"
+volunteered Rachel.
+
+"I was asked to-day," added Helen. "After the class-meeting an awfully
+nice girl, a junior, came up here. She said there were so many of us
+that some of the juniors were going to help take us. Isn't it nice of
+them?"
+
+Nobody spoke for a moment; then Katherine went on gaily. "And we other
+three have not yet been called and chosen, but I happen to know that
+it's because so many people want us, and nobody will give up. So don't
+the rest of you indulge in any crowing."
+
+"By the way, Betty," said Rachel Morrison, "will you take some more
+dancing pupils? I was telling two girls who board down the street about
+our class and they said they wanted to learn before the reception and
+would much rather come here than go to that big class that two seniors
+have in the gym. But as they don't know you, they would insist on
+paying, just as they would at the other class."
+
+Betty looked doubtfully at Roberta. "Shall we?" she said.
+
+"I don't mind," answered Roberta, "if only you all promise not to tell
+my father. He wouldn't understand. Do you suppose Miss Watson would
+play?"
+
+"If not, I will," said Mary Rich.
+
+"And we could use the money for a house spread," added Betty, "since we
+all help to earn it."
+
+"And christen the chafing-dish," put in Katherine.
+
+"Good. Then I'll tell them--Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays," said Rachel;
+and the dinner-table dissolved.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+WHOSE PHOTOGRAPH?
+
+
+The dancing class went briskly on; so did the Livy class and the
+geometry, the English 1, the French required and the history elective.
+The freshmen were getting acquainted with one another now, and seldom
+confused their classmates with seniors or youthful members of the
+faculty. They no longer attempted to go out of chapel ahead of the
+seniors, or invaded the president's house in their frantic search for
+Science Hall or the Art Gallery. For October was fast wearing away. The
+hills about Harding showed flaming patches of scarlet, and it was time
+for the sophomore reception and Mountain Day. Betty was very much
+excited about the reception, but she felt also that a load would slip
+off her shoulders when it was over. She was anxious about the progress
+of the dancing pupils, who had increased to five, besides Helen and
+Adelaide, and for whom she felt a personal responsibility, because the
+Chapin house girls persisted in calling the class hers. And what would
+father say if they didn't get their money's worth? Then there was
+Helen's dress for the reception, which she was sure was a fright, but
+couldn't get up the courage to inquire about. And last and worst of all
+was the mysterious grind-book and Dorothy King's warning about father's
+telegram to the registrar. She had never mentioned the incident to
+anybody, but from certain annoying remarks that Mary Brooks let fall she
+was sure that Mary knew all about it and that the sophomores were
+planning to make telling use of it.
+
+"How's your friend the registrar?" Mary would inquire solemnly every few
+days. And if Betty refused to answer she would say slyly, "Who met you
+at the station, did you tell me? Oh, only Dottie King?" until Betty
+almost decided to stop her by telling the whole story.
+
+Two days before the reception she took Rachel and Katherine into her
+confidence about Helen's dress.
+
+"You see if I could only look at it, maybe I could show her how to fix
+it up," she explained, "but I'm afraid to ask. I'm pretty sure she's
+sensitive about her looks and her clothes. I should want to be told if I
+was such a fright, but maybe she's happier without knowing."
+
+"She can't help knowing if she stays here long," said Rachel.
+
+"Why don't you get out your dress, and then perhaps she'll show hers,"
+suggested Katherine.
+
+"I could do that," assented Betty doubtfully. "I could find a place to
+mend, I guess. Chiffon tears so easily."
+
+"Good idea," said Rachel heartily. "Try that, and then if she doesn't
+bite you'd better let things take their course. But it is too bad to
+have her go looking like a frump, after all the trouble we've taken with
+her dancing."
+
+Betty went back to her room, sat down at her desk and began again at her
+Livy. "For I might as well finish this first," she thought; and it was
+half an hour before she shut the scarlet-covered book with a slam and
+announced somewhat ostentatiously that she had finished her Latin
+lesson.
+
+"And now I must mend my dress for the reception," she went on
+consciously. "Mother is always cautioning me not to wait till the last
+minute to fix things."
+
+"Did you look up all the constructions in the Livy?" asked Helen. Betty
+was so annoyingly quick about everything.
+
+"No," returned Betty cheerfully from the closet, where she was rummaging
+for her dress. "I shall guess at those. Why don't you try it? Oh, dear!
+This is dreadfully mussed," and she appeared in the closet door with a
+fluffy white skirt over her arm.
+
+"How pretty!" exclaimed Helen, deserting her Livy to examine it. "Is it
+long?"
+
+"Um-um," said Betty taking a pin out of her mouth and hunting
+frantically for a microscopic rip. "Yes, it's long, and it has a train.
+My brother Will persuaded mother to let me have one. Wasn't he a brick?"
+
+"Yes," said Helen shortly, going back to her desk and opening her book
+again. Presently she hitched her chair around to face Betty. "Mine's
+awfully short," she said.
+
+"Is it?" asked Betty politely.
+
+There was a pause. Then, "Would you care to see it?" asked Helen.
+
+Betty winked at the green lizard. "Yes indeed," she said cordially. "Why
+don't you try it on to be sure it's all right? I'm going to put on mine
+in just a minute."
+
+She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the dress. It was a simple
+white muslin. The sleeves were queer, the neck too high to be low and
+too low to be high, and the skirt ridiculously short. "But it might have
+been a lot worse," reflected Betty. "If she'll only fix it!"
+
+"Wait a minute," she said after she had duly admired it. "I'll put mine
+on, and we'll see how we both look dressed up."
+
+"You look like a regular princess out of a story-book," said Helen
+solemnly, when Betty turned to her for inspection.
+
+Betty laughed. "Oh, wait till to-morrow night," she said. "My hair's all
+mussed now. I wonder how you'd look with your hair low, Helen."
+
+Helen flushed and bit her lip. "I shan't look anyhow in this horrid
+short dress," she said.
+
+"Then why don't you make it longer, and lower in the neck?" inquired
+Betty impatiently. Helen was as conscientiously slow about making up her
+mind as she was about learning her Livy. "It's hemmed, isn't it? Anyhow
+you could piece it under the ruffle."
+
+"Do you suppose mamma would care?" said Helen dubiously. "Anyway I don't
+believe I have time--only till to-morrow night."
+
+"Oh I'll show you how," Betty broke in eagerly. "And if your mother
+should object you could put it back, you know. You begin ripping out the
+hem, and then we'll hang it."
+
+Helen Chase Adams proved to be a pains-taking and extremely slow sewer.
+Besides, she insisted on taking time off to learn her history and
+geometry, instead of "risking" them as Betty did and urged her to do.
+The result was that Betty had to refuse Mary Brooks's invitation to
+"come down to the gym and dance the wax into that blooming floor" the
+next afternoon, and was tired and cross by the time she had done Helen's
+hair low, hooked her into the transformed dress, and finished her own
+toilette. She had never thought to ask the name of Helen's junior, and
+was surprised and pleased when Dorothy King appeared at their door.
+Dorothy's amazement was undisguised.
+
+"You'll have to be costumer for our house plays next year, Miss Wales,"
+she said, while Betty blushed and contradicted all Helen's explanations.
+"You're coming on the campus, of course."
+
+"So virtue isn't its only reward after all," said Eleanor Watson, who
+had come in just in time to hear Miss King's remark. "Helen Chase Adams
+isn't exactly a vision of loveliness yet. She won't be mistaken for the
+college beauty, but she's vastly improved. I only wish anybody cared to
+take as much trouble for me."
+
+"Oh, Eleanor!" said Betty reproachfully. "As if any one could improve
+you!"
+
+Eleanor's evening dress was a pale yellow satin that brought out the
+brown lights in her hair and eyes and the gleaming whiteness of her
+shoulders. There were violets in her hair, which was piled high on her
+head, and more violets at her waist; and as she stood full in the light,
+smiling at Betty's earnestness, Betty was sure she had never seen any
+one half so lovely.
+
+"But I wish you wouldn't be so sarcastic over Helen," she went on
+stoutly. "She can't help being such a freak."
+
+Eleanor yawned. "I was born sarcastic," she said. "I wish Lil Day would
+hurry. Did you happen to notice that I cut three classes straight this
+morning?"
+
+"No," said Betty aghast. "Oh, Eleanor, how dare you when--" She stopped
+suddenly, remembering that Eleanor had asked her not to speak of the
+entrance conditions.
+
+"When I have so much to make up already, you mean," Eleanor went on
+complacently. "Oh, I shall manage somehow. Here they come."
+
+A few moments later the freshman and sophomore classes, with a
+sprinkling of juniors to make the numbers even, were gathered _en
+masse_ in the big gymnasium. All the afternoon loyal sophomores had
+toiled thither from the various campus houses, lugging palms, screens,
+portieres and pillows. Inside another contingent had arranged these
+contributions, festooned the running-track with red and green bunting,
+risked their lives to fasten Japanese lanterns to the cross-beams, and
+disguised the apparatus against the walls with great branches of spruce
+and cedar, which still other merry, wind-blown damsels, driving a
+long-suffering horse, had deposited at intervals near the back door. By
+five o'clock it was finished and everybody, having assured everybody
+else that the gym never looked so well before, had gone home to dress
+for the evening. Now the lights softened what Mary Brooks called the
+"hidjous" greens of the freshman bunting, a band played sweet music
+behind the palms, and pretty girls in pretty gowns sat in couples on the
+divans that lined the walls, or waited in line to speak to the receiving
+party. This consisted of Jean Eastman and the sophomore president, who
+stood in front of the fireplace, where a line of ropes intended to be
+used in gym practice had been looped back and made the best sort of
+foundation for a green canopy over their heads. Ten of the prettiest
+sophomores acted as ushers, and four popular and much envied seniors
+presided at the frappe bowls in the four corners of the room.
+
+"There's not much excitement about a manless dance, but it's a
+fascinating thing to watch," said Eleanor to her partner, as they stood
+in the running-track looking down at the dancers.
+
+"I'm afraid you're blase, Miss Watson," returned the sophomore. "Only
+seniors are allowed to dislike girl dances."
+
+Eleanor laughed. "Well, I seem to be the only heretic present," she
+said. "They're certainly having a good time down there."
+
+They certainly were. The novelty of the occasion appealed to the
+freshmen, and the more sophisticated sophomores were bound to make a
+reputation as gallant beaux. So although only half the freshman could
+dance at once and even then the floor was dreadfully crowded, and in
+spite of the fact that the only refreshment was the rather watery frappe
+which gave out early in the evening, 190-'s reception to 190- was voted
+a great success.
+
+At nine o'clock the sophomore ushers began arranging the couples in a
+long line leading to the grind table, and Betty knew that her hour had
+come. The orchestra played a march, and as the girls walked past the
+table the sophomore officers presented each freshman with a small
+booklet bound in the freshman green, on the front cover of which, in
+letters of sophomore scarlet, was the cryptic legend: "Puzzle--name the
+girl." This was explained, however, by the inside, where appeared a
+small and rather cloudy blue-print, showing the back view of a girl in
+shirt-waist and short skirt, with a pile of books under her arm, and the
+inevitable "tam" on her head. On the opposite page was a facsimile
+telegraph blank, filled out to the registrar,
+
+"Please meet my dear young daughter, who will arrive on Thursday by the
+6:15, and oblige,
+
+                                                        "Thomas ----."
+
+Everybody laughed, pushed her neighbors around for a back view, and
+asked the sophomores if the telegram had truly been sent, and if this
+was the real girl's picture. So no one noticed Betty's blushes except
+Mary Brooks, upon whom she vowed eternal vengeance. For she remembered
+how one afternoon the week before, she and Mary had started from the
+house together, and Mary, who said she was taking her camera down-town
+for a new film, had dropped behind on some pretext. Betty had been sure
+she heard the camera click, but Mary had grinned and told her not to be
+so vain of her back.
+
+However, nobody recognized the picture. The few sophomores who knew
+anything about it were pledged to secrecy, as the grinds were never
+allowed to become too personal, and the freshmen treated the telegram as
+an amusing myth. In a few minutes every one was dancing again, and only
+too soon it was ten o'clock.
+
+"Wasn't it fun?" said Betty enthusiastically, as she and Helen
+undressed.
+
+"Oh yes," agreed Helen. "I never had such a good time in my life. But,
+do you know, Miss Watson says she was bored, and Roberta thought it was
+tiresome and the grind-book silly and impossible."
+
+"Truth is stranger than fiction sometimes," said Betty sagely,
+smothering a laugh in the pillows.
+
+She was asleep in five minutes, but Helen lay for a long while thinking
+over the exciting events of the evening. How she had dreaded it! At home
+she hated dances and never went if she could help it, because she was
+such a wall-flower. She had been afraid it would be the same here, but
+it wasn't. What a lovely time she had had! She could dance so well now,
+and Miss King's friends were so nice, and college was such a beautiful
+place, though it was so different from what she had expected.
+
+Across the hall Roberta had lighted her student lamp and was sitting up
+to write an appreciative and very clever account of the evening to her
+cousin, who was reporter on a Boston paper and had made her promise to
+send him an occasional college item.
+
+And Eleanor, still in the yellow satin, sat at her desk scribbling
+aimlessly on a pad of paper or staring at a clean sheet, which began,
+"My dear father." She had meant to write him that she was tired of
+college and wanted to come home at once; but somehow she couldn't begin.
+For she thought, "I can see him raise his eyebrows and smile and say,
+'so you want to throw up the sponge, do you? I was under the impression
+that you had promised to stay out the year,' as he did to the private
+secretary who wouldn't sit up with him till three in the morning to
+write letters."
+
+Finally she tore up "My dear father," and went to bed in the dark.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+UP HILL--AND DOWN
+
+
+The next day was just the sort that everybody had been hoping for on
+Mountain Day,--crisp and clear and cool, with the inspiriting tang in
+the air, the delicious warmth in the sunshine, and the soft haze over
+the hills, that belong to nothing but a New England October at its best.
+The Chapin house breakfast-table was unusually lively, for each girl
+wanted to tell what she thought about the reception and how she was
+going to spend Mountain Day; and nobody seemed anxious to listen to
+anybody's else story.
+
+"Sh--sh," demanded Mary Brooks at last. "Now children, you've talked
+long enough. Run and get your lunch boxes and begin making your
+sandwiches. Mrs. Chapin wants us to finish by ten o'clock."
+
+"Ten o'clock!" repeated Katherine. "Well, I should hope so. Our horse is
+ordered for nine."
+
+"Going to be gone all day?" inquired Mary sweetly.
+
+"Of course," answered Katherine with dignity.
+
+"Well, don't kill the poor beast," called Mary as she ran up-stairs for
+her box.
+
+Mary was going off in a barge with the sophomore decorating committee,
+who wanted a good chance to congratulate and condole with one another
+over their Herculean labors and ultimate triumph of the day before. The
+Rich sisters had decided to spend the holiday with an aunt who lived
+twenty miles down the river; Eleanor had promised early in the fall to
+go out with a party of horseback riders; and Helen, whose pocketbook had
+been prematurely flattened to buy her teakettle, had decided to accept
+the invitation of a girl in her geometry division to join an economical
+walking party. This left Rachel, Katherine, Roberta and Betty, who had
+hired a horse and two-seated trap for the day, invited Alice Waite,
+Betty's little friend from the Hilton House, to join them, and were
+going to drive "over the notch."
+
+"I haven't the least idea what a notch is like," said Katherine. "We
+don't have such things where I come from. But it sounds interesting."
+
+"Doesn't it?" assented Rachel absently, counting the ham sandwiches. "Do
+you suppose the hills are very steep, Betty?"
+
+"Oh, I guess not. Anyhow Katherine and I told the man we were going
+there and wanted a sure-footed horse."
+
+"Who's going to drive?" asked Roberta.
+
+"Why, you, of course," said Katherine quickly. "You said you were used
+to driving."
+
+"Oh, yes, I am," conceded Roberta hastily and wondered if she would
+better tell them any more. It was true that she was used to horses, but
+she had never conquered her fear of them, and they always found her out.
+It was a standing joke in the Lewis family that the steadiest horse put
+on airs and pranced for Roberta. Even old Tom, that her little cousins
+drove out alone--Roberta blushed as she remembered her experience with
+old Tom. But if the girls were depending on her--"Betty drives too," she
+said aloud. "She and I can take turns. Are you sure we have enough
+gingersnaps?"
+
+Everybody laughed, for Roberta's fondness for gingersnaps had become
+proverbial. "Half a box apiece," said Rachel, "and it is understood that
+you are to have all you want even if the rest of us don't get any."
+
+When the horse arrived Roberta's last fear vanished. He was meekness
+personified. His head drooped sadly and his eyes were half shut. His
+fuzzy nose and large feet bespoke docile endurance, while the heavy trap
+to which he was harnessed would certainly discourage all latent
+tendencies to undue speed. Alice Waite, Rachel and Katherine climbed in
+behind, Betty and Roberta took the front seat, and they started at a jog
+trot down Meriden Place.
+
+"Shall we go through Main Street?" asked Roberta. "He might be afraid of
+the electric cars."
+
+"Afraid of nothing," said Betty decidedly. "Besides, Alice wants to stop
+at the grocery."
+
+The "beastie," as Katherine called him, stood like a statue before Mr.
+Phelps's grocery and never so much as moved an eyelash when three
+trolley cars dashed by him in quick succession.
+
+"What did you get?" asked Katherine, when Alice came out laden with
+bundles.
+
+"Olives----"
+
+"Good! We forgot those."
+
+"And bananas----"
+
+"The very thing! We have grapes."
+
+"And wafers and gingersnaps----"
+
+Everybody laughed riotously. "What's the matter now?" inquired Alice,
+looking a little offended. Rachel explained.
+
+"Well, if you have enough for the lunch," said Alice, "let's keep these
+out to eat when we feel hungry." And the box was accordingly stuffed
+between Betty and Roberta for safe keeping.
+
+Down on the meadow road it was very warm. By the time they reached the
+ferry, the "beastie's" thick coat was dripping wet and he breathed hard.
+
+"Ben drivin' pretty fast, hain't you?" asked the ferryman, patting the
+horse's hairy nose.
+
+"I should think not," said Katherine indignantly. "Why, he walked most
+of the way."
+
+"Wall, remember that there trap's very heavy," said the ferryman
+solemnly, as he shoved off.
+
+Beyond the river the hills began. The "beastie" trailed slowly up them.
+Several times Roberta pulled him out to the side of the road to let more
+ambitious animals pass him.
+
+"Do you suppose he's really tired?" she whispered to Betty, as they
+approached a particularly steep pitch. "He might back down."
+
+"Girls," said Betty hastily, "I'm sick of sitting still, so I'm going to
+walk up this next hill. Any of you want to come?"
+
+Relieved of his four passengers the horse still hung his head and lifted
+each clumsy foot with an effort.
+
+"Oh, Roberta, there's a watering trough up here," called Betty from the
+top of the hill. "I'm sure that'll revive him."
+
+By their united efforts they got the "beastie" up to the trough, which
+was most inconveniently located on a steep bank beside the road; and
+while Betty and Alice kept the back wheels of the trap level, Katherine
+unfastened the check-rein. To her horror, as the check dropped the bits
+came out of the horse's mouth.
+
+"How funny," said Alice, "just like everything up here. Did you ever see
+a harness like that, Betty?" Betty left her post at the hind wheel and
+came around to investigate.
+
+"Why he has two bits," she said. "Of course he couldn't go, poor
+creature. And see how thirsty he is!"
+
+"Well, he's drunk enough now," said Roberta, "and you'll have to put the
+extra bits in again--that is, if you can. He'd trail his nose on the
+ground if he wasn't checked."
+
+The "beastie" stood submissively while the bits were replaced and the
+check fastened. Then he chewed a handful of clover with avidity and went
+on again as dejectedly as ever. Presently they reached a long, level
+stretch of road and stopped in the shade of a big pine-tree for a
+consultation.
+
+"Do you suppose this is the top?" asked Rachel.
+
+Just then a merry tally-ho party of freshmen, tooting horns and singing,
+drew up beside them. "Is this the top of the notch?" asked Betty, waving
+her hand to some girls she knew.
+
+"No, it's three miles further on," they called back. "Hurrah for 190-!"
+
+"Well?" said Betty, who felt in no mood for cheering.
+
+"Let's go back to that pretty grove two hills down and tie this apology
+for a horse to the fence and spend the rest of the day there," suggested
+Katherine.
+
+Everybody agreed to this, and Roberta backed her steed round with a
+flourish.
+
+"Now let's each have a gingersnap before we start down," she said. So
+the box was opened and passed. Roberta gathered the reins in one hand,
+clucked to the horse, and put her gingersnap into her mouth for the
+first bite. But she never got it, for without the slightest provocation
+the "beastie" gave a sudden spring forward, flopped his long tail over
+the reins, and started at a gallop down the road. Betty clung to the
+dashboard with one hand and tried to pluck off the obstructing tail with
+the other. Roberta, with the gingersnap still in her mouth, tugged
+desperately at the lines, and the back seat yelled "Whoa!" lustily,
+until Betty, having rearranged the tail and regained her seat, advised
+them to help pull instead. They had long since left the little grove
+behind, had dashed past half a dozen carriages, and were down on the
+level road near the ferry, when the "beastie" stopped as suddenly as he
+had started. Roberta deliberately removed the gingersnap from her mouth,
+handed the reins to Betty to avoid further interruption, and began to
+eat, while the rest of the party indulged in unseemly laughter at her
+expense.
+
+"We've found out what that extra bit was for," said Rachel when the
+mirth had subsided, "and we can advise the liveryman that it doesn't
+work. But what are we going to do now?"
+
+"Murder the liveryman," suggested Katherine.
+
+"But the horse is sure-footed; he didn't lie," objected Alice so
+seriously that everybody burst out laughing again.
+
+"He told the truth, but not the whole truth," said Rachel. "Next time
+we'll ask how many bits the horse has to wear and how it takes to hills.
+Now what can we do?"
+
+"We can't go back to the woods, that's sure," said Katherine. "And it's
+too hot to stay down here. Let's go home and get rid of this sure-footed
+incubus, and then we can decide what to do next."
+
+The ferryman greeted them cheerfully. "Back so soon?" he said. "Had your
+dinner?"
+
+"Of course not," replied Katherine severely. "It's only twelve o'clock.
+We're just out for a morning drive. Do you remember saying that this
+horse was tired? Well, he brought us down the hills at about a mile a
+minute."
+
+"Is that so!" declared the ferryman with a chuckle. "Scairt, were you?
+Why didn't you git them young Winsted fellers, that jest started up, to
+rescue yer? Might a ben quite a story."
+
+"We didn't need rescuing, thank you," said Katherine. "Did you see any
+men?" she whispered to Betty.
+
+Betty nodded. "Four, driving a span. They were awfully amused. Miss King
+was in another of the carriages," she added sadly. Then she caught sight
+of Roberta and began to laugh again. "You were so funny with that cookie
+in your mouth," she said. "Were you dreadfully frightened?"
+
+"No," said Roberta, with a guilty blush. "I always expect something to
+happen. Horses are such uncertain creatures."
+
+They drove back through the meadows at a moderate pace, deposited the
+horse and a certified opinion of him with an apologetic liveryman, and
+carried their lunch down to Paradise. "For it's as pretty as any place
+and near, and we're all hungry," Alice said.
+
+Paradise was deserted, for the girls had preferred to range further
+afield on Mountain Day. So the five freshmen chose two boats, rowed up
+stream without misadventure, spread out their luncheon on a grassy
+knoll, and ate, talked, and read till dinner time. As they crossed the
+campus, they met parties of dusty, disheveled pedestrians, laden with
+purple asters and autumn branches. A barge stopped at the gateway to
+deposit the campus contingent of the sophomore decorating committee, and
+in front of the various dwelling-houses empty buckboards, surreys and
+express wagons, waiting to be called for, showed that the holiday was
+over.
+
+"I don't think our first Mountain Day has been so bad after all, in
+spite of that dreadful horse," said Rachel.
+
+"So much pleasant variety about it," added Katherine.
+
+"Let's not tell about the runaway," said Alice who hated to be teased.
+
+"But Miss King saw us," expostulated Betty, "and you can trust Mary
+Brooks to know all about it."
+
+When Mary, who was late in dressing, entered the dining-room, she gave a
+theatrical cry of joy. "I'm so glad you're all safe," she said. "And how
+about that cookie, Roberta?"
+
+"I'm sorry, but it's gone. They're all gone," said Roberta coolly. "Now
+you might as well tell us how you knew."
+
+"Knew!" repeated Mary scornfully. "The whole college knows by this time.
+We were lunching on the notch road, near the top, when four Winsted men
+came up, and asked if they might join us. They knew most of us. So we
+said yes, if they'd brought any candy, and they told us a strange story
+about five girls--very young girls, they said," interpolated Mary
+emphatically, "that they'd seen dashing down the notch. One was trying
+to eat a cookie, and another was pulling the horse's tail, and the rest
+were screaming at the top of their lungs, so naturally the horse was
+frightened to death. Pretty soon three carriage loads of juniors came
+along and they confirmed the awful news and gave us the names of the
+victims, and you can imagine how I felt. The men want to meet you, but I
+told them they couldn't because of course you'd be drowned in the
+river."
+
+"I hope you'll relieve their minds the next time they come to see you,"
+said Katherine. "Are they the youths who monopolize our piazza every
+Wednesday and Saturday afternoon?"
+
+"Two of them help occasionally."
+
+Katherine winked meaningly at the rest of the Mountain Day party. "We'll
+be there," she said, "though it goes against my conscience to receive
+calls from such untruthful young gentlemen."
+
+The next Saturday afternoon Betty and Katherine established themselves
+ostentatiously on the front piazza to await the arrival of Mary's
+callers, Rachel had gone to play basket-ball, and Roberta had refused to
+conspire against Mary's peace of mind, particularly since the plot might
+involve having to talk to a man. Promptly at three o'clock two gentlemen
+arrived.
+
+"Miss Brooks is that sorry, but she had to go out," announced the maid
+in tones plainly audible to the two eavesdroppers. "Would you please to
+come back at four?"
+
+Katherine and Betty exchanged disappointed glances. "Checked again.
+She's too much for us," murmured Katherine. "Shall we wait?"
+
+"And is Miss Wales in--Miss Betty Wales?" pursued the spokesman, after a
+slight pause.
+
+The maid looked severely at the occupants of the piazza. "Yes, sor, you
+can see that yoursilf," she said and abruptly withdrew.
+
+The man laughed and came quickly toward Betty, who had risen to meet
+him. "I'm John Parsons," he said. "I roomed with your brother at
+Andover. He told me you were here and asked me to call. Didn't he write
+to you too? Miss Brooks promised to present me, but as she isn't in----"
+
+"Oh, yes, Will wrote, and I'm very glad to meet you, Mr. Parsons," Betty
+broke in. "Only I didn't know you were--I mean I didn't know that Miss
+Brooks's caller was you. Miss Kittredge, Mr. Parsons. Wasn't your friend
+going to wait?"
+
+"Bob," called Mr. Parsons after the retreating figure of his companion,
+"come back and hear about the runaway. You're wanted."
+
+It was fully half-past four when Messrs. Parsons and Hughes,
+remembering that they had another engagement, left their escorts by
+request at the gymnasium and returned from a pleasant walk through
+Paradise and the campus to Meriden Place, where a rather frigid
+reception awaited them. Betty and Katherine, having watched the finish
+of the basket-ball game, followed them, and spent the time before
+dinner in painting a poster which they hung conspicuously on Mary's
+door. On it a green dragon, recently adopted as freshman class animal,
+charged the sophomores' purple cow and waved a long and very curly
+tail in triumph. Underneath was written in large letters, "Quits. Who
+is going to the Kappa Phi dance at Winsted?"
+
+"I'm dreadfully afraid mother won't let me go though," said Betty as
+they hammered in the pins with Helen's paper-weight. "And anyhow it's
+not for three whole weeks."
+
+When the drawing was securely fastened, Betty surveyed it doubtfully. "I
+wonder if we'd better take it down," she said at last. "I don't believe
+it's very dignified. I'm afraid I oughtn't to have asked Mr. Parsons to
+call his friend back, but I did so want to meet both of them and crow
+over Mary. And it was they who suggested the walk. Katherine, do you
+mind if we take this down?"
+
+"Why, no, if you don't want to leave it," said Katherine looking
+puzzled. "I'm afraid Mr. Hughes didn't have a very good time. Men aren't
+my long suit. But otherwise I think we did this up brown."
+
+Just then Eleanor came up, and Katherine gave her an enthusiastic
+account of the afternoon's adventure. Betty was silent. Presently she
+asked, "Girls, what is a back row reputation?"
+
+"I don't know. Why?" asked Eleanor.
+
+"Well, you know I stopped at the college, Katherine, to get my history
+paper back. Miss Ellis looked hard at me when I went in and stammered
+out what I wanted. She hunted up the paper and gave it to me and then
+she said, 'With which division do you recite, Miss Wales?' I told her at
+ten, and she looked at me hard again and said, 'You have been present in
+class twelve times and I've never noticed you. Don't acquire a back row
+reputation, Miss Wales. Good-day,' and I can tell you I backed out in a
+hurry."
+
+"I suppose she means that we sit on the back rows when we don't know the
+lesson," said Helen who had joined the group.
+
+"I see," said Betty. "And do you suppose the faculty notice such things
+as that and comment on them to one another?"
+
+"Of course," said Eleanor wisely. "They size us up right off. So does
+our class, and the upper class girls."
+
+"Gracious!" said Betty. "I wish I hadn't promised to go to a spread on
+the campus to-night. I wish---- What a nuisance so many reputations
+are!" And she crumpled the purple cow and the green dragon into a
+shapeless wad and threw it at Rachel, who was coming up-stairs swinging
+her gym shoes by their strings.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+LETTERS HOME
+
+
+Betty was cross and "just a tiny speck homesick," so she confided to the
+green lizard. Nothing interesting had happened since she could remember,
+and it had rained steadily for four days. Mr. Parsons, who played right
+tackle on the Winsted team, had written that he was laid up with a lame
+shoulder, which, greatly to his regret, would prevent his taking Betty
+to his fraternity dance. Helen was toiling on a "lit." paper with a
+zealous industry which got her up at distressingly early hours in the
+morning, and was "enough to mad a saint," according to her exasperated
+roommate, whose own brief effusion on the same subject had been hastily
+composed in one evening and lay neatly copied in her desk, ready to be
+handed in at the proper time. Moreover, "gym" had begun and Betty had
+had the misfortune to be assigned to a class that came right in the
+middle of the afternoon.
+
+"It's a shame," she grumbled, fishing out her fountain pen which had
+fallen off her desk and rolled under the bureau. "I shall change my lit.
+to afternoon--that's only two afternoons spoiled instead of four--and
+then tell Miss Andrews that I have a conflict. Haven't you finished that
+everlasting paper?"
+
+"No," said Helen meekly. "I'm sorry that I'm so slow. I'll go out if you
+want to have the girls in here."
+
+"Oh no," called Betty savagely, dashing out into the hall. Eleanor's
+door was ornamented with a large sign which read, "Busy. Don't disturb."
+But the door was half-way open, and in the dusky room, lighted, as
+Eleanor liked to have it, by candles in old-fashioned brass sticks,
+Eleanor sat on a pile of cushions in the corner, strumming softly on her
+guitar.
+
+"Come in," she called. "I put that up in case I wanted to study later.
+Finished your lit. paper?"
+
+Betty nodded. "It's awfully short."
+
+"I'm going to do mine to-night--that and a little matter of Livy and
+French and--let me see--Bible--no, elocution."
+
+"Can you?" asked Betty admiringly.
+
+"I'm not sure till I've tried. I've been meditating asking your roommate
+to do the paper. Would you?"
+
+"No," said Betty so emphatically that Eleanor stopped playing and looked
+at her curiously.
+
+"Why not? Do you think it's wrong to exchange her industry for my
+dollars?"
+
+Betty considered. She still admired Eleanor, but she had learned her
+limitations. Her beauty wove a spell about all that she did, and she was
+very clever and phenomenally quick when she cared to apply herself. But
+she cared so seldom, roused herself only when she could gain prestige,
+when there was something to manipulate, to manage. And apparently she
+was not even to be trusted. Still, what was the use of quarreling with
+her about honor and fair play? To Betty in her present mood it seemed a
+mere waste of time and energy.
+
+"Well, for one reason," she said at last, "Helen hasn't her own paper
+done yet, and for another I don't think she writes as well as you
+probably do;" and she rose to go.
+
+"That was a joke, Bettina," Eleanor called after her. "I am truly going
+to work now--this very instant. Come back at ten and have black coffee
+with me."
+
+Betty went on without answering to Rachel's room. "Come in," chorused
+three cheerful voices.
+
+"No, go get your lit. paper first. We're reading choice selections,"
+added Katherine.
+
+"She means she is," corrected Rachel, handing Betty a pillow. "You look
+cross, Betty."
+
+"I am," said Betty savagely, recounting a few of her woes. "What can we
+do? I came to be amused."
+
+"In a Miracle play of this type----" began Katherine, and stopped to
+dodge a pillow. "But it is amusing, Betty."
+
+"I'm afraid it will amuse Miss Mills, if the rest is anything like what
+you read," said Rachel with a reminiscent smile. "What are you doing,
+Roberta?"
+
+"Writing home," drawled Roberta, without looking up from her paper.
+
+"Well, you needn't shake your fountain pen over me, if you are," said
+Katherine. "I also owe my honored parents a letter, but I've about made
+up my mind never to write to them again. Listen to this, will you." She
+rummaged in her desk for a minute. "Here it is.
+
+"'My dear daughter'--he only begins that way when he's fussed. I always
+know how he's feeling when I see whether it's 'daughter' or 'K.' 'My
+dear daughter:--Your interesting letter of the 12th inst. was received
+and I enclose a check, which I hope will last for some weeks.' ("I'm
+sorry to say it's nearly gone already," interpolated Katherine.) "'Your
+mother and I enjoyed the account of the dance you attended in the
+gymnasium, of the candy pull which Mrs. Chapin so kindly arranged for
+her roomers, and the game of hockey that ended so disastrously for one
+of your friends. We are glad that you attended the Morality play of
+"Everyman," though we are at a loss to know what you mean by the "peanut
+gallery." However it occurs to us that with your afternoon gymnasium
+class, your recitations, which, as I understand it, fully engage your
+mornings, and all these diversions in one week, you could have spent but
+little time in the study of your lessons. Do not forget that these years
+should be devoted to a serious preparation for the multifarious duties
+of life, and do not neglect the rich opportunities which I am proud to
+be able to give you. The Wetherbees have----' Oh well, the rest of it is
+just Kankakee news," said Katherine, folding the letter and putting it
+back in her desk. "But isn't that first bit lovely? Why, I racked my
+brain till it ached, positively ached, thinking of interesting things to
+say in that letter, and now because I didn't mention that I'd worked
+three solid hours on my German every day that week and stood in line at
+the library for an hour to get hold of Bryce's American Commonwealth, I
+receive this pathetic appeal to my better self."
+
+"How poetic you're getting," laughed Betty. "Do you know it's awfully
+funny, but I got a letter something like that too. Only mine was from
+Nan, and it just said she hoped I was remembering to avoid low grades
+and conditions, as they were a great bother. She said she wanted me to
+have a good time, but as there would be even more to do when I got on
+the campus, I ought not to fall into the habit of neglecting my work
+this year."
+
+"Mine was from Aunt Susan," chimed in Rachel. "She said she didn't see
+when I could do any studying except late at night, and she hoped I
+wasn't being so foolish as to undermine my health and ruin my complexion
+for the sake of a few girlish pleasures. Isn't that nice--girlish
+pleasures? She put in a five dollar bill, though I couldn't see why she
+should, considering her sentiments."
+
+Roberta put the cap on to her fountain pen and propped it carefully
+against an adjacent pillow. "I've just answered mine," she said, sorting
+the sheets in her lap with a satisfied smile.
+
+"Did you get one, too? What did you say?" demanded Betty.
+
+"The whole truth," replied Roberta languidly. "It took eight pages and I
+hope he'll enjoy it."
+
+"I say," cried Katherine excitedly. "That's a great idea. Let's try it."
+
+"And read them to one another afterward," added Rachel. "They might be
+more entertaining than your lit. paper."
+
+"May I borrow some paper?" asked Betty. "I'm hoping Helen will finish
+to-night if I let her alone."
+
+Roberta helped herself to a book from the shelves and an apple from the
+table, and the rest settled themselves to their epistolary labors.
+Except for the scratching of Betty's pen, and an occasional exclamation
+of pleasure or perplexity from one of the scribes, the room was
+perfectly still. Betty had just asked for an envelope and Katherine was
+numbering her pages when Mary Brooks knocked at the door.
+
+"What on earth are you girls doing?" she inquired blandly, selecting the
+biggest apple in the dish and appropriating the Morris chair, which
+Katherine had temporarily vacated. "I haven't heard a sound in here
+since nine o'clock. I began to think that Helen had come in and blown
+out the gas again by mistake and you were all asphyxiated."
+
+Everybody laughed at the remembrance of a recent occasion when Helen had
+absent-mindedly blown out the gas while Betty was saying her prayers.
+
+"It wasn't so funny at the time," said Betty ruefully. "Suppose she'd
+gone to sleep without remembering. We've been writing home, Mary," she
+said, turning to the newcomer, "and now we're going to read the letters,
+and we've got to hurry, for it's almost ten. Roberta, you begin."
+
+"Oh no," said Roberta, looking distressed.
+
+"I wish somebody would tell me what this is all about first," put in
+Mary. Rachel explained, while Katherine and Betty persuaded Roberta to
+read her letter.
+
+"It isn't fair," she protested, "when I wrote a real letter and you
+others were just doing it for fun."
+
+"Go on, Roberta!" commanded Mary, and Roberta in sheer desperation
+seized her letter and began to read.
+
+"DEAR PAPA:--I have been studying hard all the evening and it
+is now nearly bedtime, but I can at least begin a letter to you. To-day
+has been the fourth rainy day in succession and we have thoroughly
+appreciated the splendid opportunity for uninterrupted work. Yesterday
+morning--I think enough has happened in these two days to fill my
+letter--I was up at seven as usual. I stuck a selection from Browning
+into my mirror, as it was the basis of our elocution lesson, and nearly
+learned it while I dressed. Before chapel I completed my geometry
+preparation. This was fortunate, as I was called on to recite, the sixth
+proposition in book third being my assignment. The next hour I had no
+recitation, so I went to the library to do some reference work for my
+English class. Ten girls were already waiting for the same volume of the
+Century Dictionary that I wanted, so I couldn't get hold of it till
+nearly the end of the hour. I spent the intervening time on the
+Browning. I had Livy the next hour and was called on to translate. As I
+had spent several hours on the lesson the day before, I could do so.
+After the elocution recitation I went home to lunch. At quarter before
+two I began studying my history. At quarter before four I started for
+the gymnasium. At five I went to a tea which one of the girls was giving
+for her mother, so I felt obliged to go. I stayed only half an hour and
+cannot remember how I spent the half hour till dinner, so I presume it
+was wasted. I am afraid I am too much given to describing such
+unimportant pauses in the day's occupation and magnifying their length
+and the frivolous pleasure which we thoughtlessly derive from them.
+
+"In the evening---- Oh it all goes on like that," cried Roberta. "Just
+dull and stuffy and true to the facts. Some one else read."
+
+"It's convincing," chuckled Mary. "Now Katherine."
+
+Katherine's letter was an absurd mixture of sense and nonsense, in which
+she proved that she studied at least twelve hours out of the
+twenty-four. Rachel's was a sensible explanation of just how much time,
+or rather how little, a spread, a dance or a basket-ball game takes.
+
+"That's what they don't understand," she said, "and they don't know
+either how fast we can go from one thing to another up here. Why, energy
+is in the air!"
+
+Betty's letter, like her literature paper, was extremely short. "I
+couldn't think of much to say, if I told the truth," she explained,
+blushing. "I don't suppose I do study as much as I ought."
+
+Mary had listened with an air of respectful attention to all the
+letters. When the last one was finished she rose hastily. "I must go
+back," she said. "I have a theme to write. I only dropped in to ask if
+that famous spread wasn't coming off soon."
+
+"Oh, yes," said Betty. "Let's have it next week Wednesday. Is anything
+else going on then? I'll ask Eleanor and you see the Riches and Helen."
+
+A few days later Mary appeared at the lunch table fairly bursting with
+importance. "Well," she said, beaming around the table. "What do you
+suppose has happened now? Really, Mrs. Chapin, you ought to be proud of
+us. We began to be famous before college opened----"
+
+"What?" interrupted Eleanor.
+
+"Is it possible you didn't know that?" inquired Mary. "Well, it's true
+nevertheless. And we were the heroines of Mountain Day, and now we're
+famous again."
+
+"How?" demanded the table in a chorus.
+
+Mary smiled enigmatically. "This time it is a literary sensation," she
+said.
+
+"Is it Helen's paper?" hazarded Betty.
+
+"Mine, of course," said Katherine. "Strange Miss Mills didn't mention it
+this morning when I met her at Cuyler's."
+
+Mary waited until it was quiet again. "If you've quite finished
+guessing," she said, "I'll tell you. You remember the evening when I
+found four of you in Rachel and Katherine's room writing deceitful
+letters to your fond parents. Well, I had been racking my brains for
+weeks for a pleasing and original theme subject. You know you are
+supposed to spend two hours a week on this theme course, and I had spent
+two hours for four weeks in just thinking what to write. I'm not sure
+whether that counts at all and I didn't like to ask--it would have been
+so conspicuous. So I was in despair when I chanced upon your happy
+gathering and was saved. Miss Raymond read it in class to-day,"
+concluded Mary triumphantly.
+
+"You didn't put us into it--our letters!" gasped Roberta.
+
+"Indeed I did," said Mary. "I put them all in, as nearly as I could
+remember them, and Miss Raymond read it in class, and made all sorts of
+clever comments about college customs and ideals and so on. I felt
+guilty, because I never had anything read before, and of course I didn't
+exactly write this because the letters were the main part of it. So
+after class I waited for Miss Raymond and explained how it was. She
+laughed and said that she was glad I had an eye for good material and
+that she supposed all authors made more or less use of their
+acquaintance, and when I went off she actually asked me to come and see
+her. My junior friends are hoping it will pull me into a society and I'm
+hoping it will avert a condition."
+
+"Where is the theme?" asked Eleanor. "Won't you read it to us?"
+
+"It's--why, I forgot the very best part of the whole story. Sallie Hill
+has it for the 'Argus.' She's the literary editor, you know, and she
+wants it for the next number. So you see you are famous.
+
+"Why don't some of you elect this work?" asked Mary, when the excitement
+had somewhat subsided. "It's open to freshmen, and it's really great
+fun."
+
+"I thought you said that you spent eight hours and were in despair----"
+began Eleanor.
+
+"So I was," said Mary. "I declare I'd forgotten that. Well, anyhow I'm
+sure I shan't have any trouble now. I think I've learned how to go at
+it. Why, do you know, girls, I have an idea already. Not for a
+theme--something else. It concerns all of you--or most of you anyway."
+
+"I should think you'd made enough use of us for the present," said
+Betty. "Why don't you try to make a few sophomores famous?"
+
+"Oh it doesn't concern you that way. You are to---- Oh wait till I get
+it started," said Mary vaguely; and absolutely refused to be more
+explicit.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+A DRAMATIC CHAPTER
+
+
+The Chapin house girls decided not to spend the proceeds of the dancing
+class for an elaborate supper, as they had first intended, but to turn
+their "spread" into the common college type, where "plowed field" and
+chocolate made with condensed milk and boiling water are the chief
+refreshments, and light-hearted sociability ensures a good time for
+everybody.
+
+"But do let's have tea too," Betty had proposed. "I hate the chocolate
+that the girls make, and I don't believe tea keeps many of us awake. Did
+I tell you that mother sent a big box of cheese crackers?"
+
+The spread was to be in Betty's room, partly because she owned the only
+chafing-dish in the house, and partly because eighteen girls--the nine
+hostesses and the one guest asked by each--could get into it without
+uncomfortable crowding. Eleanor had lent her pile of floor cushions and
+her beloved candlesticks for the occasion, everybody had contributed
+cups and saucers. Betty and Helen had spent the afternoon "fixing up,"
+and the room wore a very festive air when the girls dropped in after
+dinner to see if the preparations were complete.
+
+"I think we ought to start the fudge before they come," said Betty,
+remembering the procedure at Miss King's party.
+
+"Oh, no," protested Eleanor. "Half-past eight is early enough. Why, most
+of the fun of a spread is mixing the things together and taking turns
+tasting and stirring."
+
+"It would be awkward to finish eating too early, when that's the only
+entertainment," suggested Rachel.
+
+"Or the candy might give out before ten," added Mary Rich.
+
+The majority ruled, and as some of the girls were late, and one had some
+very amusing blue-prints to exhibit, it was considerably after half-past
+eight before the fudge was started. At first it furnished plenty of
+excitement. Betty, who had been appointed chief fudge-maker, left it for
+a moment, and it took the opportunity to boil over. When it had settled
+down after this exploit, it refused to do anything but simmer. No amount
+of alcohol or of vigorous and persistent stirring had any effect upon
+it, and Betty was in despair. But Eleanor, who happened to be in a
+gracious mood, came gallantly to the rescue. She quietly disappeared and
+returned in a moment, transformed into a gypsy street singer. She had
+pulled down her black hair and twisted a gay scarf around it. Over her
+shirt-waist she wore a little velvet jacket; and a short black skirt, a
+big red sash, an armful of bangles and bracelets, and the guitar hung
+over her shoulder, completed her disguise.
+
+"Sing a lil'?" she asked, smiling persuasively and kissing her hand to
+the party.
+
+Then she sat down on the pile of cushions and played and sang, first a
+quaint little folk-song suited to her part, and then one or two dashing
+popular airs, until the unaccommodating fudge was quite forgotten,
+except by Betty, who stirred and frowned, and examined the flame and
+tested the thickness of the rich brown liquid, quite unnoticed. Eleanor
+had just shrugged her shoulders and announced, "I no more sing, now,"
+when somebody else knocked on the door, or rather pushed it open, and a
+grotesque figure slouched in.
+
+At least half of it was head, black and awful, with gruesome green
+features. Short, unjointed arms came out of its waist, with green claws
+dangling where the hands should have been; and below its short skirt
+flapped the tails of a swallow-tail coat. The girls were too much
+astonished to speak, as the creature advanced silently into the room,
+and without a word began dancing something that, as Katherine expressed
+it afterward, was a cross between a double-shuffle and a skirt-dance.
+When it had succeeded in reducing its audience to a state of abject and
+tearful mirth, the creature stopped suddenly, announced, "You've seen
+the Jabberwock," in sepulchral tones, and flopped on to the end of a
+couch, saying breathlessly, "Mary Brooks, please help me out of this.
+I'm suffocating."
+
+"How did you do it, Miss Lewis?" inquired the stately senior, who was
+Mary's guest, wiping her eyes and gasping for breath as she spoke.
+
+"It's perfectly simple," drawled Roberta indifferently. "The head is my
+black silk petticoat. I painted on the features, because the children
+like to have me do it at home, and it's convenient to be ready. The arms
+are a broom-handle, stuck through the sleeves of this old coat, which is
+buttoned around my waist."
+
+"And now you're going to do the Bandersnatch, aren't you?" inquired the
+senior craftily, perceiving that the other side of the petticoat was
+decorated with curious red spots.
+
+"I--how did you--oh, no," said Roberta, blushing furiously, and stuffing
+the telltale petticoat under a convenient pillow. "I don't know why I
+brought the things for this. I never meant to do it up here. I--I hope
+you weren't bored. I just happened to think of it, and Eleanor couldn't
+sing forever, and that fudge----"
+
+"That fudge won't cook," broke in Betty in tragic tones. "It doesn't
+thicken at all, and it's half-past nine this minute. What shall I do?"
+
+Everybody crowded around the chafing-dish, giving advice and suggesting
+unfailing remedies. But none of them worked.
+
+"And there's nothing else but tea and chocolate," wailed Adelaide.
+
+"But you can all have both," said Betty bravely, "and you've forgotten
+the crackers, Adelaide. I'll pass them while you and Katherine go for
+more cups."
+
+"And you can send the fudge round to-morrow," suggested Mary Brooks
+consolingly. "It's quite the thing, you know. Don't imagine that your
+chafing-dish is the only one that's too slow for the ten-o'clock rule."
+
+Betty insisted upon sitting up to finish the fudge, but she ended by
+getting up before breakfast the next morning to cook it on Mrs. Chapin's
+stove.
+
+"Nobody seemed to care much about its being so slow, except me," she
+said to Helen, as they did it up in neat little bundles to be handed to
+the guests of the evening at chapel. "Weren't Eleanor and Roberta fine?"
+
+"Yes," agreed Helen enthusiastically. "But isn't it queer that Roberta
+won't let us praise her? She seems to be ashamed of being able to be so
+funny."
+
+Betty laughed. "That's Roberta," she said. "It will be months before
+she'll do it again, I'm afraid. I suppose she felt last night as if she
+had to do what she could for the honor of the house, so she came out of
+her shell."
+
+"She told Rachel that she did it on your account. She said you looked as
+if you wanted to cry."
+
+Betty flushed prettily. "How nice of her! I did want to cry. I felt as
+if I was to blame about the fudge. I wish I had a nice stunt like that
+of Eleanor's to come to people's rescue with."
+
+"Were those what you call stunts?" inquired Helen earnestly. "I didn't
+know what they were, but they were fine."
+
+"Why, Helen Chase Adams, do you mean that you've been in college two
+months and don't know what a stunt is----" began Betty, and stopped,
+blushing furiously and fearing that she had hurt Helen's feelings. For
+the reason why she did not know about stunts was obvious.
+
+Helen took it very simply. "You know I'm not asked to things outside,"
+she said, "and I don't seem to be around when the girls do things here.
+So why should I know?"
+
+"No reason at all," said Betty decidedly. "They are just silly little
+parlor tricks anyway--most of them--not worth wasting time over. Do you
+know Miss Willis told us in English class that a great deal of slang
+originated in college, and she gave 'stunt' as an example. She said it
+had been used here ever so long and only a few years outside, in quite a
+different meaning. Isn't that queer?"
+
+"Yes," said Helen indifferently. "She told my division too, but she
+didn't say what it meant here. I suppose she thought we'd all know."
+
+Betty, stealing a glance at her, saw her wink back the tears. "She does
+care about the fun," thought Betty. "She cares as much as Rachel or I,
+or Eleanor even. And she is left out. It isn't a bit fair, but what's to
+be done about it?"
+
+Being young and very happy herself, she speedily forgot all about the
+knotty problem of the unequal distribution of this world's goods,
+whether they be potatoes or fudge parties. Occasionally she remembered
+again, and gave Helen a helping hand, as she had done several times
+already. But college is much like the bigger world outside. The fittest
+survive on their own merits, and these must be obvious and well
+advertised, or they are in great danger of being overlooked. And it is
+safer in the long run to do one's own advertising and to begin early.
+Eleanor understood this, but she forgot or ignored the other rules of
+the game. Betty practiced it unconsciously, which is the proper method.
+Helen never mastered its application and succeeded in spite of it.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Several evenings after that one on which the fudge had refused to cook,
+Alice Waite was trying to learn her history lesson, and her "queer"
+roommate, who loved to get into her bed as well as she hated to make it,
+was trying to go to sleep--an operation rendered difficult by the fact
+that the girl next door was cracking butternuts with a marble
+paper-weight--when there was a soft tap on the door.
+
+"Don't answer," begged the sleepy roommate.
+
+"May be important," objected Alice, "but I won't let her stay. Come in!"
+
+The door opened and a young gentleman in correct evening dress, with an
+ulster folded neatly over his arm, entered the room and gazed, smiling
+and silent, about him. He was under average height, slightly built, and
+had a boyish, pleasant face that fitted ill with his apparent occupation
+as house-breaker and disturber of damsels.
+
+The roommate, who had sat up in bed with the intention of repelling
+whatever intruder threatened her rest, gave a shriek of mingled terror
+and indignation and disappeared under the bedclothes. Alice rose, with
+as much dignity as the three heavy volumes which she held in her lap,
+and which had to be untangled from her kimono, would permit. She moved
+the screen around her now hysterical roommate and turned fiercely upon
+the young gentleman.
+
+"How dare you!" she demanded sternly. "Go!" And she stamped her foot
+somewhat ineffectively, since she had on her worsted bedroom slippers.
+
+At this the young gentleman's smile broke into an unmistakably feminine
+giggle.
+
+"Oh, you are so lovely!" he gurgled. "Don't cry, Miss Madison. It's not
+a real man. It's only I--Betty Wales."
+
+"Betty!" gasped Alice. "Betty Wales, what are you doing? Is it really
+you?"
+
+"Of course," said Betty calmly, pulling off her wig by way of further
+evidence, and sitting down with careful regard for her coattails in the
+nearest chair. "I hope," she added, "that I haven't really worried Miss
+Madison. Take the screen away, Alice, and see what she's doing."
+
+"Oh, I'm all right now, thank you," said Miss Madison, pushing back the
+screen herself. "But you gave me an awful fright. What are you doing?"
+
+"Why, we're going to give a play at our house Saturday," explained
+Betty, "and to-night was a dress rehearsal. I wanted to bring Alice a
+ticket, and I thought it would be fun to come in these clothes and
+frighten her; so I put on a skirt and a rain-coat and came along. I left
+my skirt in your entrance-way. Get it for me please, Alice, and I'll put
+it on before I send any one else into hysterics."
+
+"Oh, not yet," begged Miss Madison. "I want to look at you. Please stand
+up and turn around, so I can have a back view."
+
+Betty readjusted her wig and stood up for inspection.
+
+"What's the play?" asked Alice.
+
+Betty considered. "It's a secret, but I'll tell you to pay for giving
+you both such a scare. It's 'Sherlock Holmes.' Mary Brooks saw the real
+play in New York, and she wrote this, something like the real one, but
+different so we could do it. She could think up the plot beautifully but
+she wasn't good at conversation, so Katherine helped her, and it's
+fine."
+
+"Is there a robbery?" inquired Alice.
+
+"Oh, yes, diamonds."
+
+"And a murder?"
+
+"Well, a supposed murder. The audience thinks it is, but it isn't
+really. And there's a pretend fire too, just as there is in the real
+play."
+
+"And who are you?"
+
+"I'm the villain," said Betty. "I'm to have curling black mustaches and
+a fierce frown, and then you'd know without asking."
+
+"I should think they'd have wanted you for the heroine," said Alice, who
+admired Betty immensely.
+
+"Oh, no," demurred the villain. "Eleanor is leading lady, of course. She
+has three different costumes, and she looks like a queen in every one of
+them. Katherine is going to be Sherlock Holmes, and Adelaide Rich is Dr.
+Watson and--oh, I mustn't tell you any more, or Alice won't enjoy it
+Saturday."
+
+"We had a little play here," said Miss Madison, "but it was tame beside
+this. Where did you get all the men's costumes?"
+
+"Rented them, and the wigs and mustaches and pistols," and Betty
+explained about the dancing-school money which the house had voted to
+Roberta's project instead of to the spread.
+
+"I wish I could act," said Alice. "I should love to be a man. But my
+mother wouldn't let me, so it's just as well that I'm a perfect stick at
+it."
+
+"Roberta's father wouldn't let her either," said Betty, "but mother
+didn't mind, as long as it's only before a few girls. I presume she
+wouldn't like my coming over here and frightening you. But I honestly
+didn't think you'd be deceived."
+
+"I'm so glad you came," said Miss Madison lying back luxuriously among
+her pillows. "Does the story of the play take place in the evening?"
+
+"Yes, all of it. I'm dressed for the theatre, but I'm detained by the
+robbery."
+
+"Then I have something I want to lend you. Alice, open the washstand
+drawer, please--no, the middle one--in that flat green box. Thank you.
+Your hat, sir villain," she went on, snapping open an opera hat and
+handing it to Betty with a flourish.
+
+"How perfectly lovely!" exclaimed Betty. "But how in the world did you
+happen to have it?"
+
+"Why, I stayed with my cousins for two weeks just before I came up here,
+and I found it in their guest-chamber bureau. It wasn't Cousin Tom's nor
+Uncle Dick's, and they didn't know whose it was; so they gave it to me,
+because I liked to play with it. Should you really like to use it?"
+
+"Like it!" repeated Betty, shutting the hat and opening it again with a
+low bow. "Why it will be the cream of the whole performance. It would
+make the play go just of itself," and she put it on and studied the
+effect attentively in the mirror.
+
+"It's rather large," said Alice. "If I were you, I'd just carry it."
+
+"It is big," admitted Betty regretfully, "or at least it makes me look
+very small. But I can snap it a lot, and then put it on as I exit. Miss
+Madison, you'll come to the play of course. I hadn't but one ticket
+left, but after lending us this you're a privileged person."
+
+"I hoped you'd ask me," said Miss Madison gratefully. "The play does
+sound so exciting. But that wasn't why I offered you the hat."
+
+"Of course not, and it's only one reason why you are coming," said Betty
+tactfully. "Now Alice, you must bring in my skirt. I have to walk so
+slowly in all these things, and it must be almost ten."
+
+When Sir Archibald Ames, villain, had been transformed into a demure
+little maiden with rumpled hair and a high, stiff collar showing above
+her rain-coat, Betty took her departure. A wave of literary and dramatic
+enthusiasm had inundated the Chapin house. The girls were constantly
+suggesting theme topics to one another--which unfortunately no one but
+Mary Brooks could use, at least until the next semester; for in the
+regular freshman English classes, subjects were always assigned. And
+they were planning theatre parties galore, to see Jefferson, Maude
+Adams, and half a dozen others if they came to Harding. Betty, who had a
+happy faculty of keeping her head just above such passing waves, smiled
+to herself as she hurried across the dark campus.
+
+"Next week, when our play is over it will be something else," she
+thought. Rachel was already interested in basket-ball and had prospects
+of being chosen for the freshman class team. Eleanor had been practicing
+hard on her guitar, hoping to "make" the mandolin club; and was
+dreadfully disappointed at finding that according to a new rule freshmen
+were ineligible and that her entrance conditions would have excluded her
+in any case.
+
+"So many things to do," sighed Betty, who had given up a hockey game
+that afternoon to study history. "I suppose we've got to choose," she
+added philosophically. "But I choose to be an all-around girl, like
+Dorothy King. I can't sing though. I wonder what my one talent is.
+
+"Helen," she said, as she opened her door, "have you noticed that all
+college girls have one particular talent? I wonder what ours will turn
+out to be. See what I have for the play."
+
+Helen, who looked tired and heavy-eyed, inspected the opera hat
+listlessly. "I think your talent is getting the things you want," she
+said, "and I guess I haven't any. It's quarter of ten."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+AFTER THE PLAY
+
+
+"Sherlock Holmes" was quite as exciting as Miss Madison had anticipated.
+Most college plays, except the elaborate ones given in the gymnasium,
+which are carefully learned, costumed and rehearsed, and supervised by a
+committee from the faculty--are amusing little farces in one or two
+short scenes. "Sherlock Holmes," on the other hand, was a four act,
+blood-curdling melodrama, with three different stage settings, an
+abundance of pistol shots, a flash-light fire, shrieks and a fainting
+fit on the part of the heroine, the raiding of a robbers' den in the
+denouement, and "a lot more excitement all through than there is in Mr.
+Gillette's play," as Mary modestly informed her caste. It was
+necessarily cruder, as it was far more ambitious, than the commoner sort
+of amateur play; but the audience, whether little freshmen who had seen
+few similar performances, or upper class girls who had seen a great many
+and so fully appreciated the novelty of this one, were wildly
+enthusiastic. Every actress, down to Helen, who made a very stiff and
+stilted "Buttons," and Rachel and Mary Rich who appeared in the robbers'
+den scene as Betty's female accomplices, and in the heroine's
+drawing-room as her wicked mother and her stupid maid respectively, was
+rapturously received; and Dr. Holmes and Sir Archibald, whose hat was
+decidedly the hit of the evening, were forced to come before the
+curtain. Finally, in response to repeated shouts for "author," Mary
+Brooks appeared, flushed and panting from her vigorous exertions as
+prompter, stage manager, and assistant dresser, and informed the
+audience that owing to the kindness of Mrs. Chapin there was lemon-ice
+in the dining-room, and would every one please go out there, so that
+this awful mess,--with a comprehensive wave of her hand toward the ruins
+of the robbers' den piled on top of the heroine's drawing-room
+furniture, which in turn had been a rearrangment of Dr. Holmes's
+study,--could be cleared up, and they could dance there later?
+
+At this the audience again applauded, sighed to think that the play was
+over, and then joyfully adjourned to the dining-room to eat Mrs.
+Chapin's ice and examine the actors at close range. All these speedily
+appeared, except Helen, who had crept up-stairs quite unnoticed the
+moment her part was finished, and Eleanor, who, hunting up Betty,
+explained that she had a dreadful headache and begged Betty to look
+after her guests and not for anything to let them come up-stairs to find
+her. Betty, who was busily washing off her "fierce frown" at the time,
+sputtered a promise through the mixture of soap, water and vaseline she
+was using, delivered the message, assured herself that the guests were
+enjoying themselves, and forgot all about Eleanor until half-past nine
+when every one had gone and she came up to her room to find Helen in bed
+and apparently fast asleep, with her face hidden in the pillows.
+
+"How queer," she thought. "She's had the blues for a week, but I thought
+she was all right this evening." Then, as her conjectures about Helen
+suggested Eleanor's headache, she tiptoed out to see if she could do
+anything for the prostrate heroine.
+
+Eleanor's transom was dark and her door evidently locked, for it would
+not yield when Betty, anxious at getting no answer to her knocks, tried
+to open it. But when she called softly, "Eleanor, are you there? Can I
+do anything?" Eleanor answered crossly, "Please go away. I'm better, but
+I want to be let alone."
+
+So, murmuring an apology, Betty went back to her own room, and as Helen
+seemed to be sound asleep, she saw no reason for making a nuisance of
+herself a second time, but considerately undressed in the dark and crept
+into bed as softly as possible.
+
+If she had turned on her light, she would have discovered two telltale
+bits of evidence, for Helen had left a very moist handkerchief on her
+desk and another rolled into a damp, vindictive little wad on the
+chiffonier. It was not because she knew she had done her part badly that
+she had gone sobbing to bed, while the others ate lemon-ice and danced
+merrily down-stairs. Billy was a hard part; Mary Brooks had said so
+herself, and she had only taken it because when Roberta positively
+refused to act, there was no one else. Helen couldn't act, knew she
+couldn't, and didn't much care. But not to have any friends in all this
+big, beautiful college--that was a thing to make any one cry. It was bad
+enough not to be asked anywhere, but not to have any friends to invite
+oneself, that was worse--it was dreadful! If she went right off
+up-stairs perhaps no one would notice; they would think at first that
+somebody else was looking after her guests while she dressed, and then
+they would forget all about her and never know the dreadful truth that
+nobody she had asked to the play would come.
+
+When it had first been decided to present "Sherlock Holmes" and the
+girls had begun giving out their invitations, Helen, who felt more and
+more keenly her isolation in the college, resolved to see just how the
+others managed and then do as they did. She heard Rachel say, "I think
+Christy Mason is a dear. I don't know her much if any, but I'm going to
+ask her all the same, and perhaps we shall get better acquainted after
+awhile."
+
+That made Helen, who took the speech more literally than it was meant,
+think of Caroline Barnes. One afternoon she and Betty had been down-town
+together, and on the way back Miss Barnes overtook them, and came up
+with them to see Eleanor, who was an old friend of hers. Betty
+introduced her to Helen and she walked between them up the hill and
+necessarily included both of them in her conversation. She was a homely
+girl, with dull, inexpressive features; but she was tall and
+well-proportioned and strikingly well dressed. Betty had taken an
+instant dislike to her at the time of their first meeting and greatly to
+Eleanor's disgust had resisted all her advances. Eleanor had accused her
+frankly of not liking Caroline.
+
+"No," returned Betty with equal frankness, "I don't. I think all your
+other friends are lovely, but Miss Barnes rubs me the wrong way."
+
+Helen knew nothing of all this, and Miss Barnes's lively, slangy
+conversation and stylish, showy clothes appealed to her unsophisticated
+taste.
+
+When the three parted at the head of the stairs, Miss Barnes turned back
+to say, "Aren't you coming to see me? You owe me a call, you know."
+
+Helen and Betty were standing close together, and though part of the
+remark applied only to Betty, she looked at them both.
+
+Betty said formally, "Thank you, I should like to," and Helen, pleased
+and eager, chorused, "So should I."
+
+Later, in their own room, Betty said with apparent carelessness but with
+the covert intention of dropping Helen a useful hint, "You aren't going
+to see Miss Barnes, are you? I'm not."
+
+And Helen had flushed again, gave some stammering reply and then had had
+for the first time an unkind thought about her roommate. Betty wanted to
+keep all her nice friends to herself. It must be that. Why shouldn't she
+go to see Miss Barnes? She wasn't asked so often that she could afford
+to ignore the invitations she did get. And later she added, Why
+shouldn't she ask Miss Barnes to the play, since Eleanor wasn't going
+to?
+
+So one afternoon Helen, arrayed in her best clothes, went down to call
+and deliver her invitation. Miss Barnes was out, but her door was open
+and Helen slipped in, and writing a little note on her card, laid it
+conspicuously on the shining mahogany desk.
+
+That was one invitation. She had given the other to a quiet, brown-eyed
+girl who sat next her in geometry, not from preference, but because her
+name came next on the class roll. This girl declined politely, on the
+plea of another engagement.
+
+Next day Miss Barnes brushed unseeingly past her in the hall of the
+Science Building. The day after that they met at gym. Finally, when
+almost a week had gone by without a sign from her, Helen inquired
+timidly if she had found the note.
+
+"Oh, are you Miss Adams?" inquired Miss Barnes, staring past her with a
+weary air. "Thank you very much I'm sure, but I can't come," and she
+walked off.
+
+Any one but Helen Adams would have known that Caroline Barnes and
+Eleanor Watson had the reputation of being the worst "snobs" in their
+class, and that Miss Ashby, her neighbor in geometry, boarded with her
+mother and never went anywhere without her. But Helen knew no college
+gossip. She offered her invitation to two girls who had been in the
+dancing-class, read hypocrisy into their hearty regrets that they were
+going out of town for Sunday, and asked no one else to the play. If she
+had been less shy and reserved she would have told Rachel or Betty all
+about her ill-luck, have been laughed at and sympathized with, and then
+have forgotten all about it. But being Helen Chase Adams, she brooded
+over her trouble in secret, asked nobody's advice, and grew shyer and
+more sensitive in consequence, but not a whit less determined to make a
+place for herself in the college world.
+
+She would have attached less significance to Caroline Barnes's rudeness,
+had she known a little about the causes of Eleanor's headache. Eleanor
+had gone down to Caroline's on the afternoon of the play, knocked
+boldly, in spite of a "Don't disturb" sign posted on the door, and found
+the pretty rooms in great confusion and Caroline wearily overseeing the
+packing of her books and pictures.
+
+Eleanor waited patiently until the men had gone off with three huge
+boxes, and then insisted upon knowing what Caroline was doing.
+
+"Going home," said Caroline sullenly.
+
+"Why?" demanded Eleanor.
+
+"Public reason--trouble with my eyes; real reason--haven't touched my
+conditions yet and now I have been warned and told to tutor in three
+classes. I can't possibly do it all."
+
+"Why Caroline Barnes, do you mean you are sent home?"
+
+Caroline nodded. "It amounts to that. I was advised to go home now, and
+work off the entrance conditions and come again next fall. I thought
+maybe you'd be taking the same train," she added with a nervous laugh.
+
+Eleanor turned white. "Nonsense!" she said sharply. "What do you mean?"
+
+"Well, you said you hadn't done anything about your conditions, and
+you've cut and flunked and scraped along much as I have, I fancy."
+
+"I'm sorry, Caroline," said Eleanor, ignoring the digression. "I don't
+know that you care, though. You've said you were bored to death up
+here."
+
+"I--I say a great deal that I don't mean," gulped Caroline. "Good-bye,
+Eleanor. Shall I see you in New York at Christmas? And don't
+forget--trouble with my eyes. Oh, the family won't mind. They didn't
+like my coming up in the first place. I shall go abroad in the spring.
+Good-bye."
+
+Eleanor walked swiftly back through the campus. In the main building she
+consulted the official bulletin-board with anxious eyes, and fairly tore
+off a note addressed to "Miss Eleanor Watson, First Class." It had
+come--a "warning" in Latin. Once back in her own room, Eleanor sat down
+to consider the situation calmly. But the more she thought about it, the
+more frightened and ashamed she grew. Thanksgiving was next week, and
+she had been given only until Christmas to work off her entrance
+conditions. She had meant to leave them till the last moment, rush
+through the work with a tutor, and if she needed it get an extension of
+time by some specious excuse. Had the last minute passed? The Latin
+warning meant more extra work. There were other things too. She had
+"cut" classes recklessly--three on the day of the sophomore reception,
+and four on a Monday morning when she had promised to be back from
+Boston in time for chapel. Also, she had borrowed Lil Day's last year's
+literature paper and copied most of it verbatim. She could make a
+sophistical defence of her morals to Betty Wales, but she understood
+perfectly what the faculty would think about them. The only question
+was, how much did they know?
+
+When the dinner-bell rang, Eleanor pulled herself together and started
+down-stairs.
+
+"Did you get your note, Miss Watson?" asked Adelaide Rich from the
+dining-room door.
+
+"What note?" demanded Eleanor sharply.
+
+"I'm sure I can't describe it. It was on the hall table," said Adelaide,
+turning away wrathfully. Some people were so grateful if you tried to do
+them a favor!
+
+It was this incident which led Eleanor to hurry off after dinner, and
+again at the end of the play, bound to escape nerve-racking questions
+and congratulations. Later, when Betty knocked on her door, her first
+impulse was to let her in and ask her advice. But a second thought
+suggested that it was safer to confide in nobody. The next morning she
+was glad of the second thought, for things looked brighter, and it would
+have been humiliating indeed to be discovered making a mountain out of a
+mole-hill.
+
+"The trouble with Caroline was that she wasn't willing to work hard,"
+she told herself. "Now I care enough to do anything, and I must make
+them see it."
+
+She devoted her spare hours on Monday morning to "making them see it,"
+with that rare combination of tact and energy that was Eleanor Watson at
+her best. By noon her fears of being sent home were almost gone, and she
+was alert and exhilarated as she always was when there were difficulties
+to be surmounted.
+
+"Now that the play is over, I'm going to work hard," Betty announced at
+lunch, and Eleanor, who was still determined not to confide in anybody,
+added nonchalantly, "So am I." It was going to be the best of the fun to
+take in the Chapin house.
+
+But the Chapin house was not taken in for long.
+
+"What's come over Eleanor Watson?" inquired Katherine, a few days later,
+as the girls filed out from dinner.
+
+"She's working," said Mary Brooks with a grin. "And apparently she
+thinks work and dessert don't jibe."
+
+"I'm afraid it was time," said Rachel. "She's always cutting classes,
+and that puts a girl behind faster than anything else. I wonder if she
+could have had a warning in anything."
+
+"I think she could----" began Katherine, and then stopped, laughing. "I
+might as well own up to one in math.," she said.
+
+"Well, Miss Watson is going to stay here over Thanksgiving," said Mary
+Rich.
+
+Then plans for the two days' vacation were discussed, and Eleanor's
+affairs forgotten, much to the relief of Betty Wales, who feared every
+moment lest she should in some way betray Eleanor's confidence.
+
+On the Wednesday after Thanksgiving Eleanor burst in on her merrily, as
+she was dressing for dinner.
+
+"I just wanted to tell you that some of those conditions that worry you
+so are made up," she said. "I almost wore out my tutor, and I surprised
+the history department into a compliment, but I'm through. That is, I
+have only math., and one other little thing."
+
+"I don't see how you did it," sighed Betty. "I should never dare to get
+behind. I have all I want to do with the regular work."
+
+Eleanor leaned luxuriously back among the couch cushions. "Yes," she
+said loftily. "I suppose you haven't the faintest idea what real,
+downright hard work is, and neither can you appreciate the joys of
+downright idleness. I shall try that as soon as I've finished the math."
+
+"Why?" asked Betty. "Do you like making it up later?"
+
+"I shouldn't have to. You know I'm getting a reputation as an earnest,
+thorough student. That's what the history department called me. A
+reputation is a wonderful thing to lean back upon. I ought to have gone
+in for one in September. I was at the Hill School for three years, and I
+never studied after the first three months. There's everything in making
+people believe in you from the first."
+
+"What's the use in making people believe you're something that you're
+not?" demanded Betty.
+
+"What a question! It saves you the trouble of being that something. If
+the history department once gets into the habit of thinking me a
+thorough, earnest student, it won't condition me because I fail in a
+written recitation or two. It will suppose I had an off day."
+
+"But you'd have to do well sometimes."
+
+"Oh, yes, occasionally. That's easy."
+
+"Not for me," said Betty, "so I shall have to do respectable work all
+the time. But I shall tell Helen about your idea. She works all the
+time, and it makes her dull and cross. She must have secured a
+reputation by this time; and I shall insist upon her leaning back on it
+for a while and taking more walks."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+PAYING THE PIPER
+
+
+"I feel as if there were about three days between Thanksgiving and
+Christmas," said Rachel, coming up the stairs, to Betty, who stood in
+the door of her room half in and half out of her white evening dress.
+
+"That leaves one day and a half, then, before vacation," laughed Betty.
+"I'm sorry to bother you when you're so pressed for time, but could you
+hook me up? Helen is at the library, and every one else seems to be off
+somewhere."
+
+"Certainly," said Rachel, dropping her armful of bundles on the floor.
+"I'm only making Christmas presents. Is the Kappa Phi dance coming off
+at last?"
+
+"Yes--another one, that is; and Mr. Parsons asked me, to make up for the
+one I had to miss. Now, would you hold my coat?"
+
+"Betty! Betty Wales! Wait a minute," called somebody just as Betty
+reached the Main Street corner, and Eleanor Watson appeared, also
+dressed for the dance.
+
+"Why didn't you say you were going to Winsted?" she demanded
+breathlessly. "Good, here's a car."
+
+"Why didn't you say you were going?" demanded Betty in her turn as they
+scrambled on.
+
+"Because I didn't intend to until the last minute. Then I decided that
+I'd earned a little recreation, so I telegraphed Paul West that I'd come
+after all. Who is your chaperon?"
+
+"Miss Hale."
+
+"Well please introduce me when we get down-town, so that I can ask if I
+may join her party."
+
+Ethel Hale received Betty with enthusiasm, and Eleanor with a peculiar
+smile and a very formal permission to go to Winsted under her escort. As
+the two were starting off to buy their tickets, she called Betty back.
+
+"Aren't you going to sit with me on the way over, little sister?" she
+asked.
+
+"Of course," said Betty, and they settled themselves together a moment
+later for the short ride.
+
+"You never come to see me, Betty," Miss Hale began, when they were
+seated.
+
+"I'm afraid to," confessed Betty sheepishly. "When you're a faculty and
+I'm only a freshman."
+
+"Nonsense," laughed Miss Hale. Then she glanced at Eleanor, who sat
+several seats in front of them, and changed the subject abruptly. "What
+sort of girl is Miss Watson?" she asked.
+
+Betty laughed. "All sorts, I think," she said. "I never knew any one who
+could be so nice one minute and so trying the next."
+
+"How do you happen to know her well?" pursued Miss Hale seriously.
+
+Betty explained.
+
+"And you think that on the whole she's worth while?"
+
+"I'm afraid I don't understand----" Betty was beginning to feel as if
+she was taking an examination on Eleanor's characteristics.
+
+"You think that on the whole she's more good than bad; and that there's
+something to her, besides beauty. That's all I want to know. She is
+lovely, isn't she?"
+
+"Yes, indeed," agreed Betty enthusiastically. "But she's very bright
+too. She's done a lot of extra work lately and so quickly and well.
+She's very nice to me always, but she dislikes my roommate and she and I
+are always disagreeing about that or something else. I don't think--you
+know she wouldn't do a dishonorable thing for the world, but I don't
+approve of some of her ideas; they don't seem quite fair and square,
+Ethel."
+
+"Um," assented Ethel absently. "I'm glad you could tell me all this,
+Betty. I shouldn't have asked you, perhaps; it's rather taking advantage
+of our private friendship. But I really needed to know. Ah, here we
+are!"
+
+As she spoke, the train slowed down and a gay party of Winsted men
+sprang on to the platform, and jostled one another down the aisles,
+noisily greeting the girls they knew and each one hunting for his
+particular guest of the afternoon. They had brought a barge down to take
+the girls to the college, and in the confusion of crowding into it Betty
+found herself separated from Ethel. "I wish I'd asked her why she wanted
+to know all that," she thought, and then she forgot everything but the
+delicious excitement of actually being on the way to a dance at Winsted.
+
+Most of the fraternity house was thrown open to the visitors, and
+between the dances in the library, which was big enough to make an
+excellent ball-room also, they wandered through it, finding all sorts of
+interesting things to admire, and pleasantly retired nooks and corners
+to rest in. Mr. Parsons was a very attentive host, providing partners in
+plenty; and Betty, who was passionately fond of dancing and had been to
+only one "truly grown-up" dance before, was in her element. But every
+once in awhile she forgot her own pleasure to notice Eleanor and to
+wonder at her beauty and vivacity. She was easily belle of the ball. She
+seemed to know all the men, and they crowded eagerly around her, begging
+for dances and hanging on her every word. Eleanor's usually listless
+face was radiant. She had a smile and a gay sally for every one; there
+was never a hint of the studied coldness with which she received any
+advances from Helen or the Riches, nor of the scornful ennui with which
+she faced the social life of her own college.
+
+"Aren't you glad you came?" said Betty, when they met at the frappe
+table.
+
+"Rather," said Eleanor laconically. "This is life, and I've only existed
+for months and months. What would the world be like without men and
+music?"
+
+"Goodness! what a wise-sounding remark," laughed Betty.
+
+Just then Miss Hale came up in charge of a very young and callow
+freshman.
+
+"Please lend me your fan, Betty," she said. "I was afraid it would look
+forward for a chaperon to bring one, and I'm desperately warm."
+
+Eleanor, who had turned aside to speak to her partner, looked up quickly
+as Ethel spoke, and meeting Miss Hale's gray eyes she flushed suddenly
+and moved away.
+
+Betty handed Ethel the fan. "I wish----" she began, looking after
+Eleanor's retreating figure. But as she spoke the music started again
+and a vivacious youth hurried up and whisked her away before she had
+time to finish her sentence; and she could not get near Ethel again.
+
+"Men do make better partners than girls," she said to Mr. Parsons as
+they danced the last waltz together. "And I think their rooms are
+prettier than ours, if these are fair samples. But they can't have any
+better time at college than we do."
+
+"We certainly couldn't get on at all without you girls across the
+river," Mr. Parsons was saying gallantly, when the music stopped and
+Eleanor, followed by Mr. West, hurried up to Betty.
+
+"Excuse me one moment, Mr. Parsons," she said, as she drew Betty aside.
+"I've been trying to get at you for ever so long," she went on. "I'm in
+a dreadful fix. You know I told you I hadn't intended to come here
+to-day, but I didn't tell you the reason why. The reason was that to-day
+was the time set for my math. exam, with Miss Mansfield. I tried to get
+her to change it, but I couldn't, so finally I telephoned her that I was
+ill. Some one else answered the 'phone for her, saying that she was
+engaged and, Betty--I'm sure it was Miss Hale."
+
+Betty looked at her in blank amazement. "You said you were ill and then
+came here!" she began. "Oh, Eleanor, how could you! But what makes you
+think that Miss Hale knows?"
+
+"I'm sure I recognized her voice when she asked you for the fan, and
+then haven't you noticed her distant manner?" said Eleanor gloomily.
+"Are they friends, do you know?"
+
+"They live in the same house."
+
+"Then that settles it. You seem to be very chummy with Miss Hale, Betty.
+You couldn't reconcile it with your tender conscience to say a good word
+for me, I suppose?"
+
+"I--why, what could I say after that dreadful message?" Then she
+brightened suddenly. "Why, Eleanor, I did. We talked about you all the
+way over here. Ethel asked questions and I answered them. I told her a
+lot of nice things," added Betty reassuringly, "though of course I
+couldn't imagine why she wanted to know. What luck that you hadn't told
+me sooner!"
+
+Eleanor stared at her blankly. "I suppose," she said at last, "that it
+will serve me right if Miss Hale tells Miss Mansfield that I was here,
+and Miss Mansfield refuses me another examination; but do you think she
+will?"
+
+Betty glanced at Ethel. She was standing at the other end of the room,
+talking to two Winsted men, and she looked so young and pretty and so
+like one of the girls herself that Betty said impulsively, "She
+couldn't!" Then she remembered how different Ethel had seemed on the
+train, and that the girls in her classes stood very much in awe of her.
+"I don't know," she said slowly. "She just hates any sort of cheating.
+She might think it was her duty to tell. Oh, Eleanor, why did you do
+it?"
+
+Eleanor shrugged her shoulders expressively. Then she turned away with a
+radiant smile for Mr. West. "I am sorry to have kept you men waiting,"
+she said. "How much more time do we have before the barge comes?"
+
+Whatever Miss Hale meant to do, she kept her own counsel, deliberately
+avoiding intercourse with either Ethel or Betty. She bade the girls a
+gay good-bye at the station, and went off in state in the carriage they
+had provided for her.
+
+"I suppose it's no use asking if you had a good time," said Betty
+sympathetically, as she and Eleanor, having decided to go home in
+comfort, rolled away in another.
+
+"I had a lovely time until it flashed over me about that telephone
+message. After that of course I was worried almost to death, and I would
+give anything under the sun if I had stayed at home and passed off my
+math. like a person of sense."
+
+"Then why don't you tell Miss Mansfield so?" suggested Betty.
+
+"Oh, Betty, I couldn't. But I shan't probably have the chance," she
+added dryly. "Miss Hale will see her after dinner. I hope she'll tell
+her that I appeared to be enjoying life."
+
+The next morning when Eleanor presented herself at Miss Mansfield's
+class-room for the geometry lesson, another assistant occupied the desk.
+"Miss Mansfield is out of town for a few days," she announced. Eleanor
+gave Betty a despairing glance and tried to fix her attention on the
+"originals" which the new teacher was explaining. It seemed as if the
+class would never end. When it did she flew to the desk and inquired if
+Miss Mansfield would be back to-morrow.
+
+"To-morrow? Oh no," said the young assistant pleasantly. "She's in
+Boston for some days. No, not this week; next, I believe. You are Miss
+Watson? No, there was no message for you, I think."
+
+The next week was a longer and more harassing one than any that Eleanor
+could remember. She had not been blind to Betty's scorn of her action.
+Ever since she came to Harding she had noted with astonishment the high
+code of honor that held sway among the girls. They shirked when they
+could, assumed knowledge when they had it not, managed somehow to wear
+the air of leisurely go-as-you-please that Eleanor loved; but they did
+not cheat, and like Betty they despised those who did. So Eleanor, who a
+few months before would have boasted of having deceived Miss Mansfield,
+was now in equal fear lest Miss Hale should betray her and lest some of
+her mates should find her out. She wanted to ask Lil Day or Annette
+Gaynor what happened if you cut a special examination; but suppose they
+should ask why she cared to know? That would put another knot into the
+"tangled web" of her deception. It would have been some comfort to
+discuss the possibilities of the situation with Betty, but Eleanor
+denied herself even that outlet. No use reminding a girl that she
+despises you! If only Betty would not look so sad and sympathetic and
+inquiring when they met in the halls, in classes or at table. At other
+times Eleanor barricaded herself behind a "Don't disturb" sign and
+studied desperately and to much purpose. And every morning she hoped
+against hope that Miss Mansfield would hear the geometry class.
+
+The suspense lasted through the whole week. Then, just two days before
+the vacation, Miss Mansfield reappeared and Eleanor asked timidly for an
+appointment.
+
+"Come to-day at two," began Miss Mansfield.
+
+"Oh thank you! Thank you so much!" broke in Eleanor and stopped in
+confusion.
+
+But Miss Mansfield only smiled absently. "Most of my belated freshmen
+don't express such fervent gratitude for my firmness in pushing them
+through before the vacation. They try to put me off." She had evidently
+quite forgotten the other appointment.
+
+"I shall be so glad to have it over," Eleanor murmured.
+
+Miss Mansfield looked after her thoughtfully as she went down the hall.
+"Perhaps I've misjudged her," she told herself. "When a girl is so
+pretty, it's hard to take her seriously."
+
+She said as much to Ethel Hale when they walked home to lunch together,
+but Ethel was not at all enthusiastic over Miss Watson's earnestness.
+
+"She's very late in working off a condition, I should say," she observed
+coldly.
+
+"Yes, but I've been away, you know," explained Miss Mansfield. "Oh,
+Ethel, I wish you could meet him. You don't half appreciate how happy I
+am."
+
+Ethel, who had decided after much consideration to let Eleanor's affairs
+take their course, made a mental observation to the effect that an
+engagement induces shortness of memory and tenderness of heart. Then she
+said aloud that she also wished she might meet "him."
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Time flies between Thanksgiving and Christmas, particularly for freshmen
+who are looking forward to their first vacation at home. It flies faster
+after they get there, and when they are back at college it rushes on
+quite as swiftly but rather less merrily toward the fateful "mid-years."
+None of the Chapin house girls had been home at Thanksgiving time, but
+they were all going for Christmas, except Eleanor Watson, who intended
+to spend the vacation with an aunt in New York.
+
+They prepared for the flitting in characteristic ways. Rachel, who was
+very systematic, did all her Christmas shopping, so that she needn't
+hurry through it at home. Roberta made but one purchase, an illustrated
+"Alice in Wonderland," for her small cousins, and spent all her spare
+time in re-reading it herself. Helen, in spite of Betty's suggestions
+about leaning back on her reputation, studied harder than ever, so that
+she could go home with a clear conscience, while Katherine was too
+excited to study at all, and Mary Brooks jeered impartially at both of
+them. Betty conscientiously returned all her calls and began packing
+several days ahead, so as to make the time seem shorter. Then just as
+the expressman was driving off with her trunk, she remembered that she
+had packed her short skirt at the very bottom.
+
+"Thank you ever so much. If he'd got much further I should have had to
+go home either in this gray bath robe that I have on, or in a white duck
+suit," she said to Katherine who had gone to rescue the skirt and came
+back with it over her arm.
+
+She and Katherine started west together and Eleanor and Roberta went
+with them to the nearest junction. The jostling, excited crowd at the
+station, the "good-byes" and "Merry Christmases," were great fun. Betty,
+remembering a certain forlorn afternoon in early autumn, laughed happily
+to herself.
+
+"What's the joke?" asked Katherine.
+
+"I was thinking how much nicer things like this seem when you're in
+them," she said, waving her hand to Alice Waite.
+
+At the Cleveland station, mother and Will and Nan and the smallest
+sister were watching eagerly for the returning wanderer.
+
+"Why, Betty Wales, you haven't changed one bit," announced the smallest
+sister in tones of deepest wonder. "Why, I'd have known you anywhere,
+Betty, if I'd met you on the street."
+
+"Three months isn't quite as long as all that," said Betty, hugging the
+smallest sister, "but I was hoping I looked a little older. Nobody ever
+mistakes me for a senior, as they do Rachel Morrison. And I ought to
+look years and years wiser."
+
+"Nonsense," said Will with a lordly air. "Now a college girl----"
+
+Everybody laughed. "You see we all know your theories about intellectual
+women," said mother. "So suppose you take up the suit case and escort us
+home."
+
+The next morning a note arrived from Eleanor.
+
+"DEAREST BETTY," it ran:
+
+"As you always seem to be just around the corner when I get into a box,
+I want to tell you that I rode down to New York with Miss Hale. She
+asked me to sit with her and I couldn't well refuse, though I wanted to
+badly enough. She knew, Betty, but she will never tell. She said she was
+glad to know me on your account. She asked me how the term had gone with
+me, and I blushed and stammered and said that I was coming back in a
+different spirit. She said that college was the finest place in the
+world for a girl to get acquainted with herself--that cowardice and
+weakness of purpose and meanness and pettiness stood out so clearly
+against the background of fineness and squareness; and that four years
+was long enough to see all sorts of faults in oneself, and change them
+according to one's new theories. As she said it, it didn't sound a bit
+like preaching.
+
+"I didn't tell her that I was only in college for one year. I sent her a
+big bunch of violets to-day--she surely couldn't regard it as a bribe
+now--and after Christmas I'll try to show her that I'm worth while.
+
+                                "Merry Christmas, Betty.
+
+                                                      "Eleanor."
+
+Nan frowned when Betty told her about Eleanor. "But she isn't a nice
+girl, Betty. Did I meet her?"
+
+"Yes, she's the one you thought so pretty--the one with the lovely eyes
+and hair."
+
+"Betty," said Nan soberly, "you don't do things like this?"
+
+"I!" Betty flushed indignantly. "Weren't there all kinds of girls when
+you were in college, Nan? Didn't you ever know people who did 'things
+like this'?"
+
+Nan laughed. "There certainly were," she said. "I'll trust you, Betty.
+Only don't see too much of Miss Watson, or she'll drag you down, in
+spite of yourself."
+
+"But Ethel's dragging her up," objected Betty. "And I gave her the first
+boost, by knowing Ethel. Not that I meant to. I never seem to accomplish
+things when I mean to. You remember Helen Chase Adams?"
+
+"With great pleasure. She noticed my youthful appearance."
+
+"Well, I've been all this term trying to reform her clothes, but I can't
+improve her one bit, except when I set to work and do it all myself. I
+should think you'd be afraid she'd drag me into dowdiness, I have to see
+so much of her."
+
+Nan smiled at the dainty little figure in the big chair. "I don't notice
+any indications yet," she said. "It took you an hour to dress this
+morning, exactly as it always does. But you'd better take care. What are
+you going to do to-day?"
+
+"Make your friend Helen Chase Adams a stock for Christmas," announced
+Betty, jumping up and pulling Nan after her. "And you've got to help,
+seeing you admire her so much."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+A RUMOR
+
+
+After Christmas there were goodies from home to eat and Christmas-gifts
+to arrange in their new quarters. Betty's piece de resistance was a
+gorgeous leather sofa pillow stamped with the head of a ferocious Indian
+chief. Eleanor had a great brass bowl, which in some mysterious fashion
+was kept constantly full of fresh roses, a shelf full of new books, and
+more dresses than her closet would hold. Katherine had a chafing-dish,
+Rachel a Persian rug, and Roberta an illustrated "Alice in Wonderland"
+of her own. To Betty's great relief Helen had brought back two small
+pillows for her couch, all her skirts were lengthened, and the Christmas
+stock of black silk with its white linen turnovers replaced the clumsy
+woolen collars that she had worn with her winter shirt-waists. And--she
+was certainly learning to do her hair more becomingly. There wasn't a
+very marked improvement to be sure, but if Betty could have watched
+Helen's patient efforts to turn her vacation to account in the matter of
+hair-dressing, she would have realized how much the little changes
+meant, and would have been more hopeful about her pupil's progress. Not
+until the end of her junior year did Helen Adams reach the point where
+she could be sure that one's personal appearance is quite as important a
+matter as one's knowledge of calculus or Kantian philosophies; but,
+thanks largely to Betty, she was beginning to want to look her best, and
+that was the first step toward the things that she coveted. The next,
+and one for which Betty, with her open-hearted, free-and-easy fashion of
+facing life, was not likely to see the need, must be to break down the
+barriers that Helen's sensitive shyness had erected between herself and
+the world around her. The self-confidence that Caroline Barnes had
+cruelly, if unintentionally wounded, must be restored before Helen could
+find the place she longed for in the little college world.
+
+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.
+
+"But I thought it was a nice letter," said Betty. "Eleanor, why won't
+you give yourself a chance? Go and see Ethel this afternoon, and--and
+then set to work to show her what you said you would," she ended lamely.
+
+Eleanor only laughed. "Sorry, Betty, but I'm going to Winsted this
+afternoon. Paul has taken pity on me; there's a sleighing party. I
+thought perhaps you were invited too."
+
+"No, but I'm going skating with Mary and Katherine," said Betty
+cheerfully, "and then at four Rachel and I are going to do Latin."
+
+"Oh, Latin," said Eleanor significantly. "Let me think. Is it two or
+three weeks to mid-years?"
+
+"Two, just."
+
+"Well, I suppose I shall have to do a little something then myself,"
+said Eleanor, "but I shan't bother yet awhile. Here comes the sleigh,"
+she added, looking out of the window. "Paul's driving, and your Mr.
+Parsons has asked Georgie Arnold. What do you think of that?"
+
+"I should certainly hope he wouldn't ask the same girl to everything, if
+that's what you mean," said Betty calmly, helping Eleanor into her new
+coat.
+
+Eleanor shrugged her shoulders. "Good-bye," she said. "For my part, I
+prefer to be the one and only--while I last," and snatching up her furs
+she was off.
+
+Betty found Mary and Katherine in possession of her room and engaged in
+an animated discussion about the rules of hockey.
+
+"I tell you that when the thing-um-bob is in play," began Katherine.
+
+"Not a bit of it," cut in Mary.
+
+"Come along, girls," interrupted Betty, fishing her skates from under
+her couch, and pulling on her "pussy" mittens. "Never mind those rules.
+You can't play hockey to-day. You promised to skate with me."
+
+It was an ideal winter's afternoon, clear, cold and still. The ice on
+Paradise was smooth and hard, and the little pond was fairly alive with
+skaters, most of them Harding girls. Betty was a novice, with one weak
+ankle that had an annoying habit of turning over suddenly and tripping
+her up; so she was timid about skating alone. But between Mary and
+Katherine she got on famously, and thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon. At
+four Mary had a committee meeting, Katherine an engagement to play
+basket-ball, and Betty had agreed to meet Rachel. So with great
+reluctance they took off their skates and started up the steep path that
+led past the boat-house to the back gate of the campus.
+
+"Goodness, but I'm stiff," groaned Mary, stopping to rest a minute half
+way up. "I'd have skated until dinner time though, if it hadn't been for
+this bothering committee. Never be on committees, children."
+
+"Why don't you apply your own rules?" inquired Katherine saucily.
+
+"Oh, because I'm a vain peacock like the rest of the world. The class
+president comes to me and says, 'Now Mary, nobody but you knows every
+girl in the class. You can find out the sentiments of all sorts and
+conditions on this matter. And then you have such fine executive
+ability. I know you hate committees, but----' Of course I feel pleased
+by her base flattery, and I don't come to my senses until it's too late
+to escape. Is to-day the sixteenth?"
+
+"No, it's Saturday, the twentieth," said Katherine. "Two weeks next
+Monday to mid-years."
+
+"The twentieth!" repeated Mary in tones of alarm. "Then, my psychology
+paper is due a week from Tuesday. I haven't done a thing to it, and I
+shall be so busy next week that I can't touch it till Friday or
+Saturday. How time does fly!"
+
+"Don't you even know what you're going to write on or anything that
+you're going to say?" asked Betty, who always wrote her papers as soon
+as they were assigned, to get them off her mind, and who longed to know
+the secret of waiting serenely until the eleventh hour.
+
+"Why, I had a plan," answered Mary absently, "but I've waited so long
+that I hardly know if I can use it."
+
+Just then Alice Waite and her roommate came panting up the hill, and
+Mary, who seldom took much exercise and was very tired, fell back to the
+rear of the procession. But when the freshmen stopped in front of the
+Hilton House she trilled and waved her hand to attract their attention.
+
+"Oh. Betty, please take my skates home," she said as she limped up to
+the group. Then she smiled what Roberta had named her "beamish" smile.
+"I know what you girls are talking about," she said. "Will you give me a
+supper at Holmes's if I'm right?"
+
+"Yes," said Katherine recklessly, "for you couldn't possibly guess. What
+was it?"
+
+"You're wondering about those fifty freshmen," answered Mary promptly.
+
+"What freshmen?" demanded the four girls in a chorus, utterly ignoring
+the lost wager.
+
+"Why, those fifty who, according to a perfectly baseless rumor, are
+going to be sent home after mid-years."
+
+"What do you mean?" gasped Betty.
+
+"Hadn't you heard?" asked Mary soothingly. "Well, I'm sure it will be
+all over the college by this afternoon. Now understand, I don't believe
+it's true. If it were ten or even twenty it might be, but fifty--why,
+girls, it's preposterous!"
+
+"But I don't understand you," said Miss Madison excitedly. She had grown
+very pale and was hanging on to Katherine's arm. "Do you mean that there
+is such a story--that fifty freshmen are to be sent home after
+mid-years?"
+
+"Yes," said Mary sadly, "there is, and that's what I meant. I'm sorry
+that I should have been the one to tell you, but you'd have heard it
+from some one else, I'm sure. A thing like that is always repeated so.
+Remember, I assure you I don't believe a word of it. Somebody probably
+started it on purpose to frighten you little freshmen. If you would take
+my skates, Betty. I hate to lug them around till dinner time. Now
+good-bye, and do cheer up."
+
+Left to themselves the four freshmen stared blankly at one another.
+Finally Katherine broke the mournful silence.
+
+"Girls," she said solemnly, "it's utter foolishness to worry about this
+report. Mary didn't believe it herself, and why should we?"
+
+"She's not a freshman," suggested Alice gloomily.
+
+"There are almost four hundred freshmen. Perhaps the fifty wouldn't be
+any of us," put in Betty.
+
+Miss Madison maintained a despairing silence.
+
+"Well," said Katherine at last, "if it is true there's nothing to be
+done about it now, I suppose; and if it isn't true, why it isn't; so I
+think I'll go to basket-ball," and she detached Miss Madison and started
+off.
+
+Betty gave a prolonged sigh. "I must go too," she said. "I've promised
+to study Latin. I presume it isn't any use, but I can't disappoint
+Rachel. I wish I was a fine student like Rachel. She won't be one of the
+fifty."
+
+Alice, who had been in a brown study, emerged, just as Betty turned
+away.
+
+"Wait a minute," she commanded. "Of course it's awfully queer up here,
+but still, if they have exams. I don't see the use of cooking it all up
+beforehand. I mean I don't see the use of exams. if it is all decided."
+
+Her two friends brightened perceptibly.
+
+"That's a good idea," declared Betty. "Every one says the mid-years are
+so important. Let's do our best from now on, and perhaps the faculty
+will change their minds."
+
+As she walked home, Betty thought of Eleanor. "She'll be dreadfully
+worried. I shan't tell her a word about it," she resolved. Then she
+remembered Mary Brooks's remark. Yes, no doubt some one else would
+enlighten Eleanor. It was just too bad. But perhaps Mary was right and
+the story was only a story.
+
+It is hard for freshmen on the eve of their mid-year examinations to be
+perfectly calm and philosophical. The story of the fifty unfortunates
+ran like wild-fire through the college, and while upper-class girls
+sniffed at it as absurd and even freshmen, particularly the clever ones,
+pooh-poohed it in public, it was the cause of many anxious, and some
+tearful moments. Betty, after her first fright, had accepted the
+situation with her usual cheerfulness, and so had Alice and Rachel, who
+could not help knowing that her work was of exceptionally high grade,
+while Helen irritated her house-mates by affecting an anxiety which, as
+Katherine put it, "No dig, who gets 'good' on all her written work, can
+possibly feel." Katherine was worried about her mathematics, in which
+she had been warned before Thanksgiving, but she confided to Betty that
+she had counted them up, and without being a bit conceited she really
+thought there were fifty stupider girls in the class of 19--. Roberta
+and the Riches, however, were utterly miserable, and Eleanor wrote to
+Paul West that she was busy--she had written "ill" first, and then torn
+up the note--and indulged in another frantic fit of industry, even more
+violent than its predecessors had been.
+
+"But I thought you wanted to go home," said Betty curiously one
+afternoon when Eleanor had come in to borrow a lexicon. "You say you
+hate it here, and you hate to study. So why do you take so much trouble
+about staying?"
+
+Eleanor straightened proudly. "Haven't you observed yet that I have a
+bad case of the Watson pride?" she asked. "Do you think I'd ever show my
+face again if I failed?"
+
+"Then why----" began Betty.
+
+"Oh, that's the unutterable laziness that I get from my--from the other
+side of the house," interrupted Eleanor. "It's an uncomfortable
+combination, I assure you," and taking the book she had come for, she
+abruptly departed.
+
+Betty realized suddenly that in all the year Eleanor had never once
+spoken of her mother.
+
+After that she couldn't help being sorry for Eleanor, but she pitied
+Miss Madison more. Miss Madison was dull at books and she knew it, and
+had actually made herself ill with work and worry. Going to see her
+Hilton House friends on the Friday afternoon after the skating party,
+Betty found Miss Madison alone and undisguisedly crying.
+
+"I know I'm foolish," she apologized. "Most people just laugh at that
+story, but I notice they study harder since they heard it. And I'm such
+a stupid."
+
+Betty, who hated tears, had a sudden inspiration. "Why don't you ask
+about it at the registrar's office?" she suggested.
+
+"Oh, I couldn't," wailed Miss Madison.
+
+"Then I shall," returned Betty. "That is, I shall ask one of the
+faculty."
+
+"Would you dare?"
+
+"Yes, indeed. They're human, like other people," said Betty, quoting
+Nan. "I don't see why some one didn't think of it sooner."
+
+That night at dinner Betty announced her plan. The freshmen looked
+relieved and Mary Brooks showed uncalled-for enthusiasm.
+
+"Do go," she urged. "It's high time such an absurd story was shown up at
+its real value. It's absurd. The way we talk and talk about a report
+like that, and never dare to ask the faculty if it's true."
+
+"Do you take any freshman courses?" inquired Eleanor sarcastically.
+
+Mary smiled her "beamish" smile. "No," she said, "but I'm an interested
+party nevertheless--quite as much so as any of the famous fifty."
+
+"Whom shall you ask, Betty?" pursued Katherine, ignoring the digression.
+
+"Miss Mansfield. I have her the first hour, and besides, since she's
+been engaged she's so nice and sympathetic."
+
+Next day the geometry class dragged unmercifully for three persons.
+Eleanor beat a nervous tattoo on the seat-arm, Miss Madison stared
+fixedly at the clock, and Betty blushed and twisted and wished she could
+have seen Miss Mansfield before class. The delayed interview was
+beginning to seem very formidable. But it wasn't, after the first
+plunge.
+
+"What an absurd story!" laughed Miss Mansfield. "Not a word of truth in
+it, of course. Why I don't believe the girl who started it thought it
+was true. How long has it been in circulation?"
+
+Betty counted the days. "I didn't really believe it," she added shyly.
+
+"But you worried," said Miss Mansfield, smiling down at her. "Next time
+don't be taken in one little bit,--or else come to headquarters sooner."
+
+Eleanor and Miss Madison were waiting outside the door when Betty dashed
+at them with a little squeal of ecstasy. There was a moment of rapturous
+congratulation; then Miss Madison picked up the note-book she had
+dropped and held out her hand solemnly to Betty.
+
+"You've--why I think you've saved my life," she said, "and now I must go
+to my next class."
+
+"You're a little hero," added Eleanor, catching Betty's arm and rushing
+her off to a recitation in Science Hall.
+
+Roberta received the joyful news more calmly. "We may any of us flunk
+our mid-years yet," she said.
+
+"But we can study for them in peace and comfort," said Adelaide Rich.
+
+Mary Brooks asked endless questions at luncheon. Did the girls all
+accept Miss Mansfield's denial as authoritative? Did it travel as fast
+as the original story had done? How did people think the rumor had
+started?
+
+"Why, nobody mentioned that," said Rachel in surprise. "How odd that we
+shouldn't have wondered!"
+
+"Shows your sheep-like natures," said Mary, rising abruptly. "Well, now
+I can finish my psychology paper."
+
+"Haven't you worked on it any?" inquired Betty.
+
+"Oh, yes, I made an outline and developed some topics last night. But I
+couldn't finish until to-day. I was so worried about you children."
+
+Toward the end of the next week Rachel came in to dinner late and in
+high spirits. "I've had such a fine walk!" she exclaimed. "Hester Gulick
+and I went to the bridge, and on the way back we overtook a senior named
+Janet Andrews. She is such fun. She'd walked down-town with Professor
+Hinsdale. He teaches psychology, doesn't he? They seem to be very good
+friends, and he told her such a funny thing about the fifty-freshmen
+story. How do you suppose it started?"
+
+"Oh, please tell us," cried everybody at once.
+
+"Why, an awfully clever girl in his sophomore class started it as an
+experiment, to see how it would take. She told it to some freshmen,
+saying explicitly that it wasn't true, and they told their friends, and
+so it went all over the college until last Saturday Betty got Miss
+Mansfield to deny it. But no one knew how it started until yesterday
+when Professor Hinsdale looked over a paper in which the girl had
+written it all up, as a study in the way rumors spread and grow. This
+one was so big to begin with that it couldn't grow much, though it
+seems, according to the paper, that some people had added to it that
+half the freshmen would be conditioned in math."
+
+"How awfully funny!" gurgled Betty. Then she jumped almost out of her
+chair. "Why, Mary Brooks!" she said.
+
+Everybody looked at Mary, who blushed guiltily and remarked with great
+dignity that Professor Hinsdale was an old telltale. But when she had
+assured herself that the freshmen, with the possible exception of
+Eleanor, were disposed to regard the psychological experiment which had
+victimized them with perfect good-nature, and herself with considerable
+admiration, she condescended to accept congratulations and answer
+questions.
+
+"Seriously, girls," she said at last, "I hope no one got really scared.
+I wanted to explain when I heard Betty tell how unhappy Miss Madison
+was, but I really thought Miss Mansfield's denial would cheer her up
+more and reach her almost as quickly, and at the same time it would help
+me out so beautifully. It made such a grand conclusion!
+
+"You see," she went on, "Professor Hinsdale put the idea into my head
+when he assigned the subjects away back last month. He said he was
+giving them out early so we would have time to make original
+observations. When he mentioned 'Rumor,' he spoke of village gossip, and
+the faked stories that are circulated on Wall Street to make stocks go
+up or down, and then of the wild way we girls take up absurd reports.
+The last suggestion appealed to me, but I couldn't remember anything
+definite enough, so I decided to invent a rumor. Then I forgot all about
+it till that Saturday that I went skating, and 'you know the rest,' as
+our friend Mr. Longfellow aptly remarks. When I get my chef-d'oeuvre
+back you may have a private view, in return for which I hope you'll
+encourage your friends not to hate me."
+
+"Isn't she fun?" said Betty a little later, when she and Helen were
+alone together. "Do you know, I think this rumor business has been a
+good thing. It's made a lot of us work hard, and only seriously
+frightened three or four."
+
+"Yes," said Helen primly. "I think so too. The girls here are inclined
+to be very frivolous."
+
+"Who?" demanded Betty.
+
+Helen hesitated. "Oh, the girls as a whole."
+
+"That doesn't count," objected Betty. "Give me a name."
+
+"Well, Barbara Gordon."
+
+"Takes sixteen hours, has her themes read in Mary's class, and in her
+spare moments paints water colors that are exhibited in Boston," said
+Betty promptly.
+
+"Really?" gasped Helen.
+
+"Really," repeated Betty. "Of course she was very well prepared, and so
+her work here seems easy to her. Next year I hope that you and I won't
+have to plod along so."
+
+Helen said nothing, but she was deeply grateful to Betty for that last
+sentence. "You and I"--as if there was something in common between them.
+The other girls set her apart in a class by herself and labeled her
+"dig." If one was born slow and conscientious and plodding, was there
+any hope for one,--any place among these pretty girls who worked so
+easily and idled so gracefully? Helen shut her lips firmly and resolved
+to keep on hunting.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+MID-YEARS AND A DUST-PAN
+
+
+Viewed in retrospect the tragic experiences of one's freshman year seem
+often the most insignificant of trifles; but that does not prevent their
+being at the time momentous as the fate of empires. There are mid-year
+examinations, for instance; after one has survived them a few times she
+knows that being "flunked out" is not so common an experience as report
+represents it to be, and as for "low grades" and "conditions," if one
+has "cut" or been too often unprepared she deserves and expects them,
+and if she has done her best and still finds an unwelcome note or two on
+the official bulletin board, why, she must remember that accidents will
+happen, and are generally quite endurable when viewed philosophically.
+But in freshman year one is inexperienced and easily the dupe of
+mischievous sophomores. Then how is one to prepare for the dreadful
+ordeal? The distinction is not at all clear between the intelligent
+review that the faculty recommend and the cramming that they abhor.
+There is a disconcerting little rhyme on this subject that has been
+handed down from generation to generation for so long that it has lost
+most of its form and comeliness; but the point is still sharp. It is
+about a girl who followed the faculty's advice on the subject of
+cramming, took her exercise as usual, and went to bed each night at ten
+o'clock, as all good children should. The last stanza still rhymes,
+thus:
+
+    "And so she did not hurry,
+      Nor sit up late to cram,
+    Nor have the blues and worry,
+      But--she failed in her exam."
+
+Mary Brooks took pains that all her "young friends," as she called them,
+should hear of this instructive little poem.
+
+"I really thought," said Betty on the first evening of the examination
+week, "when that hateful rumor was contradicted, that I should never be
+scared again, but I am."
+
+"There's unfortunately nothing rumorous about these exams.," muttered
+Katherine wrathfully. "The one I had to-day was the real article, all
+right."
+
+"And I have my three worst to-morrow and next day," mourned Betty, "so
+I've got permission to sit up after ten to-night. Don't all the rest of
+you want to come in here and work? Then some one else can ask Mrs.
+Chapin for the other nights."
+
+"But we must all attend strictly to business," said Mary Rich, whereat
+Helen Adams looked relieved.
+
+And business was the order of the week. An unwonted stillness reigned
+over the Chapin house, broken occasionally by wild outbursts of
+hilarity, which meant that some examination or other was over and had
+not been so bad after all. Every evening at ten the girls who felt it
+necessary to sit up later assembled in one room, comfortably attired in
+kimonos--all except Roberta, who had never been seen without her
+collar--and armed with formidable piles of books; and presently work
+began in earnest. There was really no reason, as Rachel observed, why
+they should not stay in their own rooms, if they were going to sit up at
+all. This wasn't the campus, where there was a night-watchman to report
+lights, and Mrs. Chapin was very accommodating about giving permission.
+
+"This method benefits her gas bill though," said Katherine, "and
+therefore keeps her accommodating. Besides, it's much easier to stick to
+it in a crowd."
+
+Eleanor never went through the formality of asking Mrs. Chapin's
+permission to do anything, and she did not care for the moral support of
+numbers. She was never sleepy, she said, pointing significantly to her
+brass samovar, and she could work best alone in her own room. She held
+aloof, too, from the discussions about the examinations which were the
+burden of the week's table-talk, only once in a while volunteering a
+suggestion about the possible answer to an obscure or ambiguous
+question. Her ideas invariably astonished the other freshmen by their
+depth and originality, but when any one exclaimed, Eleanor would say,
+sharply, "Why, it's all in the text-book!" and then relapse into gloomy
+silence.
+
+"I suppose she talks more to her friends outside," suggested Rachel,
+after an encounter of this sort.
+
+"Not on your life," retorted Katherine. "She's one of the kind that
+keeps herself to herself. She hates us because we have to know as much
+about her as we do, living here in the house with her. I hope she gets
+through all right."
+
+"She's awfully clever," said Mary Rich admiringly. "She'd never have
+said that a leviathan was some kind of a church creed, as I did in
+English."
+
+"Yes, she's a clever--blunderer, but she's also a sadly mistaken young
+person," amended Katherine.
+
+It was convenient to have one's examinations scattered evenly through
+the week with time for study between them, but pleasanter on the whole
+to be through by Thursday or Friday, with several days of delicious
+idleness before the new semester began. And as a certain faction of the
+college always manages to suit its own convenience in such matters, the
+campus, which is the unfailing index of college sentiment, began to wear
+a leisurely, holiday air some time before the dreaded week was over.
+
+The ground was covered deeply with snow which a sudden thaw and as
+sudden a freeze had coated with a thick, hard crust. This put a stop to
+snow-shoeing and delayed the work of clearing the ice off Paradise pond,
+where there was to be a moonlight carnival on the evening of the holiday
+that follows mid-year week. But it made splendid coasting. Toboggans,
+"bobs" and hand sleds appeared mysteriously in various quarters, and the
+pasture hills north of the town swarmed with Harding girls out for fresh
+air, exercise and fun.
+
+On Friday afternoon an ingenious damsel who had no sled conceived the
+idea of substituting a dust-pan. So she borrowed one of an obliging
+chambermaid and went out to the little slope which divides the front
+from the back campus to try her experiment. In twenty minutes the hill
+was alive with girls, all the available dust-pans had been pressed into
+service, and large tin pans were found to do nearly as well. Envious
+groups of girls who could get neither the one nor the other watched the
+absurd spectacle from the windows of the nearest campus houses or
+hurried down-town to buy tinware. Sleds were neglected, toboggans
+despised; the dust-pan fad had taken possession of the college.
+
+Betty, who had the happy faculty of being on hand at interesting
+moments, was crossing the campus on her way home from the Hilton House.
+She had taken her last examination, had helped Alice Waite finish up a
+box of candy, and now had nothing to do until dinner time, so she
+stopped to watch the novel coasting, and even had one delicious ride
+herself on Dorothy King's dust-pan.
+
+Near the gate she met Mary Brooks and Roberta and asked them if they had
+been through the campus.
+
+"No," said Mary, "we've been having chocolate at Cuyler's." And she
+dragged her companions back to within sight of the hill. Then she
+abruptly turned them about and hurried them off in the other direction.
+
+"Let's go straight down and buy some dust-pans," she began
+enthusiastically. "We have just time before dinner, and we can slide all
+to-morrow afternoon."
+
+"Oh, no," demurred Roberta. "I couldn't."
+
+Betty laughed at her expression of alarm, and Mary demanded, "Why not?"
+
+"Oh, I couldn't," repeated Roberta. "It looks dangerous, and, besides, I
+have to dress for dinner."
+
+"Dangerous nothing!" jeered Mary. "Don't be so everlastingly neat and
+lady-like, child. What's the use? Well," as Roberta still hung back,
+"carry my fountain pen home, then, and don't spill it. Come on, Betty,"
+and the two raced off down the hill.
+
+Roberta looked after them admiringly, wishing she were not such a "muff"
+at outdoor sports.
+
+The next afternoon Betty and Mary hurried over to the campus directly
+after luncheon to try their new toys. The crust was still firm and the
+new sport popular as ever.
+
+"You see it's much more exciting than a 'bob,'" a tall senior was
+explaining to a group of on-lookers. "You can't steer, so you're just as
+likely to go down backward as frontward; and being so near the ground
+gives you a lovely creepy sensation."
+
+"The point is, it's such a splendid antidote for overstudying. It just
+satisfies that absolutely idiotic feeling that every one has after
+mid-years," added an athletic young woman in a gray sweater, as she
+joined the group with her dust-pan tucked scientifically under her arm.
+
+She was Marion Lawrence, sophomore vice-president, and Mary Brooks's
+best friend. Betty, fearing to be in the way, joined another lone
+freshman from the Belden House.
+
+"Do you suppose you could sit up to study to-night if you had to?"
+inquired the freshman as they stood waiting their turns to go down.
+
+"No, only it seems as if you always could do what you have to," answered
+Betty, starting off.
+
+She decided presently that dust-pan coasting was not so much fun as it
+looked. Mary Brooks, coming to find her and ask her to join a racing
+tournament captained by herself and Marion Lawrence, declared noisily
+that she was having "the time of her gay young life," but Betty after
+the first coast or two began to think of going home. Perhaps it was
+because she was so tired. It seemed so much trouble to walk up on the
+slippery crust and such a long way round by the path. So she refused to
+enter the tournament. "I'm not going to stay long enough," she
+explained. "I shall just have two more slides. Then I'm going home to
+take a nap. That's my best antidote for overstudy."
+
+The next coast was nicer. Perhaps the dust-pan had been too new. The
+Belden House freshman said that hers went better since her roommate had
+used it and scraped off all the paint in a collision.
+
+"I wonder there aren't more collisions," said Betty, preparing for her
+last slide.
+
+Half-way down she discovered that the other freshman and the rest hadn't
+started--that the hill was almost clear. Then somebody called shrilly,
+"Look out, Miss Wales." She turned her head back toward the voice, the
+dust-pan swirled, and she turned back again to find herself slipping
+rapidly sidewise straight toward a little lady who was walking serenely
+along the path that cut the coast at right angles. She was a
+faculty--Betty hadn't the least idea what her name was, but she had
+noticed her on the "faculty row" at chapel. In an instant more she was
+certainly going to run into her. Betty dug her heels frantically into
+the crust. It would not break.
+
+"Oh, I beg your pardon, but I can't stop!" she called.
+
+At that the little lady, who was walking rapidly with her head bent
+against the wind, looked up and apparently for the first time noticed
+the dust-pan coasters. Mirth and confusion overcame her. She stopped an
+instant to laugh, then started back, then changed her mind and dashed
+wildly forward, with the inevitable result that she fell in an
+undignified heap on top of Betty and the dust-pan. The accident took
+place on the edge of the path where the crust was jagged and icy. Betty,
+who had gone head-first through it, emerged with a bleeding scratch on
+one cheek and a stinging, throbbing wrist. Fortunately her companion was
+not hurt.
+
+"Oh, I'm so sorry!" sighed Betty, trying to brush the snow off her
+victim with one hand. "I do hope you'll forgive me for being so
+careless." Then she sat down suddenly on the broken crust. "It's only
+that my wrist hurts a little," she finished abruptly.
+
+The girls had gathered around them by this time, sympathizing and
+lamenting that they had not warned Betty in time. "But we thought of
+course you saw Miss Ferris," said the tall senior, "and we supposed she
+was looking out for you."
+
+So this was Miss Ferris--the great Miss Ferris. Rachel had sophomore
+zoology with her and Mary Brooks had said that she was considered the
+most brilliant woman on the faculty. She was "house-teacher" at the
+Hilton, and Alice Waite and Miss Madison were always singing her
+praises.
+
+She cut Betty's apologies and the girls' inquiries short. "My dear
+child, it was all my fault, and you're the one who's hurt. Why didn't
+you girls stop me sooner--call to me to go round the other way? I was in
+a hurry and didn't see or hear you up there." Then she sat down on the
+crust beside Betty. "Forgive me for laughing," she said, "but you did
+look so exactly like a giant crab sidling along on that ridiculous
+dust-pan. Have you sprained your wrist? Then you must come straight over
+to my room and wait for a carriage."
+
+Betty's feeble protests were promptly overruled, and supported by Mary
+Brooks on one side and Miss Ferris on the other she was hurried over to
+the Hilton House and tucked up in Miss Ferris's Morris chair by her open
+fire, to await the arrival of the college doctor and a carriage. In
+spite of her embarrassment at having upset so important a personage, and
+the sharp pains that went shooting up and down her arm, she was almost
+sorry when doctor and carriage arrived together. Miss Ferris was even
+nicer than the girls had said. Somehow she made one feel at home
+immediately as she bustled about bringing a towel and a lotion for
+Betty's face, hot water for her wrist, and "butter-thins" spread with
+delicious strawberry jam to keep her courage up. Before she knew it,
+Betty was telling her all about her direful experiences during
+examination week, how frightened she had been, and how sleepy she was
+now,--"not just now of course"--and how she had been all ready to go
+home when the spill came. And Miss Ferris nodded knowingly at Mary and
+laughed her little rippling laugh.
+
+"Just like these foolish little freshmen; isn't it?" she said, exactly
+as if she had been one last year too. And yet there was a suspicion of
+gray in her hair, and she was a doctor of philosophy and had written the
+leading article in the learned German magazine that lay on her table.
+
+"You must come again, both of you, when I can make tea for you
+properly," she said as she closed the carriage door.
+
+Betty, leaning whitely back on Mary's shoulder, with her arm on Miss
+Ferris's softest down pillow, smiled happily between the throbs. If she
+was fated to have sprained her wrist, she was glad that she had met Miss
+Ferris.
+
+Saturday night and Sunday were long and dismal beyond belief. The wrist
+ached, the cheek smarted, and a bad cold added its quota to Betty's
+miseries. But she slept late Monday morning, and when she woke felt able
+to sit up in bed and enjoy her flowers and her notoriety. Just after
+luncheon the entire Chapin house came in to congratulate and condole
+with her.
+
+"It's too windy to have any fun outdoors," began Rachel consolingly.
+
+"Who sent you those violets?" demanded Katherine.
+
+"Miss Ferris. Wasn't it dear of her? There was a note with them, too,
+that said she considered herself still 'deeply in my debt,' because of
+her carelessness--think of her saying that to me!--and that she hopes I
+won't hesitate to call on her if she 'can ever be of the slightest
+assistance.' And Mary, she said for us not to forget that Friday is her
+day at home."
+
+"You are the luckiest thing, Betty Wales," sighed Rachel, who worshiped
+Miss Ferris from afar.
+
+"Now if I'd knocked the august Miss Ferris down," declared Katherine, "I
+should probably have been expelled forthwith. Whereas you----" She
+finished the sentence with an expressive little gesture.
+
+"Who gave you the rest of this conservatory, Betty?" asked Mary Brooks.
+
+"Clara Madison brought the carnations, and Nita Reese, a girl in my
+geometry division, sent the white roses, and Eleanor the pink ones, and
+the freshman I was sliding with these lilies-of-the-valley. It's almost
+worth a sprained wrist to find out how kind people are to you," said
+Betty gratefully.
+
+"Too bad you'll miss to-night," said Mary, "but maybe it will snow."
+
+"I don't mind that. The worst thing is my not being able to get my
+conditions off the bulletin," said Betty, making a wry face.
+
+"Goodness! That is a calamity!" said Katherine with mock seriousness.
+
+"Nonsense! You've studied," from Rachel.
+
+"If you should have any conditions, I'll bring them to you," volunteered
+Eleanor quietly. Then she looked straight at Rachel and Katherine and
+smiled pleasantly. "I'm sorry to say that I haven't studied," she said.
+
+Betty thanked her, feeling more pleased at the apparent harmony of the
+household than she had been with all her flowers. It was so difficult to
+like Eleanor and Rachel and Katherine and Helen, all four, so well, when
+Rachel and Katherine had good reason for disliking Eleanor, and Helen
+wouldn't hitch with any of the rest.
+
+"Do you know that Prexy had forbidden sliding on dust-pans?" asked Mary
+Rich in the awkward pause that followed.
+
+"Oh, yes," added Mary Brooks, "I forgot to tell you. So it's just as
+well that I lost mine in the shuffle."
+
+"But I'm sorry to have been the one to stop the fun," said Betty sadly.
+
+"Oh, it wasn't wholly that. Two other girls banged into each other after
+we left."
+
+"But you're the famous one," added Rachel, "because you knocked over
+Miss Ferris. She looked so funny and knowing when Prexy announced it in
+chapel."
+
+"I wish I could do something for you too," said Helen timidly, after the
+rest had drifted out of the room.
+
+"Why you have," Betty assured her. "You helped a lot both times the
+doctor came, and you've stayed out of the room whenever I wanted to
+sleep, and brought up all my meals, and written home for me."
+
+Helen flushed. "That's nothing. I meant something pretty like those,"
+and she pointed to the tableful of flowers, and then going over to it
+buried her face in the bowl of English violets.
+
+Betty watched her for a moment with a vague feeling of pity. "I don't
+suppose she has ten cents a month to spend on such things," she thought,
+"and as for having them sent to her----" Then she said aloud, "We
+certainly don't need any more of those at present. Were you going to the
+basket-ball game?"
+
+"I thought I would, if you didn't want me."
+
+"Not a bit, and you're to wear some violets--a nice big bunch. Hand me
+the bowl, please, and I'll tie them up."
+
+Helen gave a little gasp of pleasure. Then her face clouded. "But I
+couldn't take your violets," she added quickly.
+
+Betty laughed and went on tying up the bunch, only making it bigger than
+she had at first intended. After Helen had gone she cried just a little.
+"I don't believe she ever had any violets before," she said to the green
+lizard. "Why, her eyes were like stars--she was positively pretty."
+
+More than one person noticed the happy little girl who sat quite alone
+in the running track, dividing her eager attention between the game and
+the violets which she wore pinned to her shabby, old-fashioned brown
+jacket.
+
+Meanwhile Betty, propped up among her pillows, was trying to answer
+Nan's last letter.
+
+"You seem to be interested in so many other people's affairs," Nan had
+written, "that you haven't any time for your own. Don't make the mistake
+of being a hanger-on."
+
+"You see, Nan," wrote Betty, "I am at last a heroine, an interesting
+invalid, with scars, and five bouquets of flowers on my table. I am
+sorry that I don't amount to more usually. The trouble is that the other
+people here are so clever or so something-or-other that I can't help
+being more interested in them. I'm afraid I am only an average girl, but
+I do seem to have a lot of friends and Miss Ferris, whom you are always
+admiring, has asked me to five o'clock tea. Perhaps, some day----"
+
+Writing with one's left hand was too laborious, so Betty put the letter
+in a pigeon-hole of her desk to be finished later. As she slipped the
+sheets in, Miss Ferris's note dropped out. "I wonder if I shall ever
+want to ask her anything," thought Betty, as she put it carefully away
+in the small drawer of her desk that held her dearest treasures.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A TRIUMPH FOR DEMOCRACY
+
+
+By Wednesday Betty was well enough to go to classes, though she felt
+very conspicuous with her scratched face and her wrist in a sling. And
+so when early Wednesday afternoon Eleanor pounced on her and Katherine
+and demanded why they were not starting to class-meeting, she replied
+that she at least was not going.
+
+"Nor I," said Katherine decidedly. "It's sure to be stupid."
+
+"I'm sorry," said Eleanor. "We may need you badly; every one is so busy
+this week. Perhaps you'll change your minds before two-thirty, and if
+you do, please bring all the other girls that you can along. You know
+the notice was marked important."
+
+"Evidently all arranged beforehand," sniffed Katherine, as Eleanor
+departed, explaining that she had promised to be on hand early, ready to
+drum up a quorum if necessary.
+
+Betty looked out at the clear winter sunshine. "I wanted a little walk,"
+she said. "Let's go. If it's long and stupid we can leave; and we ought
+to be loyal to our class."
+
+"All right," agreed Katherine. "I'll go if you will. I should rather
+like to see what they have on hand this time."
+
+"They" meant the Hill-School contingent, who from the initial meeting
+had continued to run the affairs of the class of 19--. Some of the girls
+were indignant, and a few openly rebellious, but the majority were
+either indifferent or satisfied that the Hill clique was as good as any
+other that might get control in its stead. So the active opposition had
+been able to accomplish nothing, and Hill's machine, as a cynical
+sophomore had dubbed it, had elected its candidates for three class
+officers and the freshman representative on the Students' Commission,
+while the various class committees were largely made up of Jean
+Eastman's intimate friends.
+
+"I hope that some of the crowd have nicer manners than our dear Eleanor
+and are better students," Mary Brooks had said to Betty. "Otherwise I'm
+afraid your ship of state will run into a snag of faculty prejudices
+some fine day."
+
+Betty belonged to the indifferent faction of the class. She was greatly
+interested in all its activities, and prepared to be proud of its
+achievements, but she possessed none of the instincts of a wire-puller.
+So long as the class offices were creditably filled she cared not who
+held them, and comparing her ignorance of parliamentary procedure with
+the glib self-confidence of Jean, Eleanor and their friends, she even
+felt grateful to them for rescuing the class from the pitfalls that
+beset inexperience.
+
+Katherine, on the other hand, was a bitter opponent of what she called
+"ring rule," and Adelaide Rich, who was the only recruit that they could
+succeed in adding to their party, had never forgotten the depths of
+iniquity which her pessimistic acquaintance had revealed in the
+seemingly innocent and well conducted first meeting, and was prepared to
+distrust everything, down to the reading of the minutes.
+
+The three were vigorously applauded when they appeared in the door of
+No. 19, the biggest recitation room in the main building and so the one
+invariably appropriated to freshman assemblies. Katherine whispered to
+Mary that she had not known Betty was quite so popular as all that; but
+a girl on the row behind the one in which they found seats explained
+matters by whispering that three had been the exact number needed to
+make up a quorum.
+
+The secretary's report was hastily read and accepted, and then Miss
+Eastman stated that the business of the meeting was to elect a class
+representative for the Washington's Birthday debate.
+
+"Some of you know," she continued, "that the Students' Commission has
+decided to make a humorous debate the main feature of the morning rally.
+We and the juniors are to take one side, and the senior and sophomore
+representatives the other. Now I suppose the first thing to decide is
+how our representative shall be chosen."
+
+A buzz of talk spread over the room. "Why didn't they let us know
+beforehand--give us time to think who we'd have?" inquired the talkative
+girl on the row behind.
+
+The president rapped for order as Kate Denise, her roommate, rose to
+make a motion.
+
+"Madame president, I move that the freshman representative aforesaid be
+chosen by the chair. Of course," she went on less formally, turning to
+the girls, "that is by far the quickest way, and Jean knows the girls as
+a whole so well--much better than any of us, I'm sure. I think that a
+lot depends on choosing just the right person for our debater, and we
+ought not to trust to a haphazard election."
+
+"Haphazard is good," muttered the loquacious freshman, in tones plainly
+audible at the front of the room.
+
+"Of course that means a great responsibility for me," murmured the
+president modestly.
+
+"Put it to vote," commanded a voice from the front row, which was always
+occupied by the ruling faction. "And remember, all of you, that if we
+ballot for representative we don't get out of here till four o'clock."
+
+The motion was summarily put to vote, and the ayes had it at once, as
+the ayes are likely to do unless a matter has been thoroughly discussed.
+
+"I name Eleanor Watson, then," said Miss Eastman with suspicious
+promptness. "Will somebody move to adjourn?"
+
+"Well, of all ridiculous appointments!" exclaimed the loquacious girl
+under cover of the applause and the noise of moving chairs.
+
+"Right you are!" responded Katherine, laughing at Adelaide Rich's
+disgusted expression.
+
+But Betty was smiling happily with her eyes on the merry group around
+Eleanor. "Aren't you glad, girls?" she said. "Won't she do well, and
+won't the house be proud of her?"
+
+"I for one never noticed that she was a single bit humorous," began Mary
+indignantly.
+
+Katherine pinched her arm vigorously. "Don't! What's the use?" she
+whispered.
+
+"Nor I, but I suppose Miss Eastman knows that she can be funny,"
+answered Betty confidently, as she hurried off to congratulate Eleanor.
+
+She was invited to the supper to be given at Cuyler's that night in
+Eleanor's honor, and went home blissfully unconscious that half the
+class was talking itself hoarse over Jean Eastman's bad taste in
+appointing a notorious "cutter" and "flunker" to represent them on so
+important an occasion, just because she happened to be the best dressed
+and prettiest girl in the Hill crowd.
+
+The next afternoon most of the girls were at gym or the library, and
+Betty, who was still necessarily excused from her daily exercise, was
+working away on her Latin, when some one knocked imperatively on her
+door. It was Jean Eastman.
+
+"Good-afternoon, Miss Wales," she said hurriedly. "Will you lend me a
+pencil and paper? Eleanor has such a habit of keeping her desk locked,
+and I want to leave her a note."
+
+She scribbled rapidly for a moment, frowned as she read through what she
+had written, and looked doubtfully from it to Betty. Then she rose to
+go. "Will you call her attention to this, please?" she said. "It's very
+important. And, Miss Wales,--if she should consult you, do advise her to
+resign quietly and leave it to me to smooth things over."
+
+"Resign?" repeated Betty vaguely.
+
+"Yes," said Jean. "You see--well, I might as well tell you now, that
+I've said so much. The faculty object to her taking the debate. Perhaps
+you know that she's very much in their black books but I didn't. And I
+never dreamed that they would think it any of their business who was our
+debater, but I assure you they do. At least half a dozen of them have
+spoken to me about her poor work and her cutting. They say that she is
+just as much ineligible for this as she would be for the musical clubs
+or the basket-ball team. Now what I want is for Eleanor to write a sweet
+little note of resignation to-night, so that I can appoint some one else
+bright and early in the morning."
+
+Betty's eyes grew big with anxiety. "But won't the girls guess the
+reason?" she cried. "Think how proud Eleanor is, Miss Eastman. It would
+hurt her terribly if any one found out that she had been conditioned.
+You shouldn't have told me--indeed you shouldn't!"
+
+Jean laughed carelessly. "Well, you know now, and there's no use crying
+over spilt milk. I used that argument about the publicity of the affair
+to the faculty, but it was no go. So the only thing for you to do is to
+help Eleanor write a nice, convincing note of resignation that I can
+read at the next meeting, when I announce my second appointment."
+
+"But Eleanor won't ask my help," said Betty decidedly, "and, besides,
+what can she say, after accepting all the congratulations, and having
+the supper?"
+
+Jean laughed again. "I'm afraid you're not a bit ingenious, Miss Wales,"
+she said rising to go, "but fortunately Eleanor is. Good-bye."
+
+When Betty handed Eleanor the note she read it through unconcernedly,
+unconcernedly tore it into bits as she talked, and spent the entire
+evening, apparently, in perfect contentment and utter idleness,
+strumming softly on her guitar.
+
+The next morning Betty met Jean on the campus. "Did she tell you?" asked
+Jean.
+
+Betty shook her head.
+
+"I thought likely she hadn't. Well, what do you suppose? She won't
+resign. She says that there's no real reason she can give, and that
+she's now making it a rule to tell the truth; that I'm in a box, not
+she, and I may climb out of it as best as I can."
+
+"Did she really say that?" demanded Betty, a note of pleasure in her
+voice.
+
+"Yes," snapped Jean, "and since you're so extremely cheerful over it,
+perhaps you can tell me what to do next."
+
+Betty stared at her blankly. "I forgot," she said. "The girls mustn't
+know. We must cover it up somehow."
+
+"Exactly," agreed Jean crossly, "but what I want to know is--how."
+
+"Why not ask the class to choose its speaker? All the other classes
+did."
+
+Jean looked doubtful. "I know they did. That would make it very awkward
+for me, but I suppose I might say there had been dissatisfaction--that's
+true enough,--and we could have it all arranged----Well, when I call a
+meeting, be sure to come and help us out."
+
+The meeting was posted for Saturday, and all the Chapin house girls,
+except Helen, who never had time for such things, and Eleanor, attended
+it. Eleanor was expecting a caller, she said. Besides, as she hadn't
+been to classes in the morning there was no sense in emphasizing the
+fact by parading through the campus in the afternoon.
+
+At the last minute she called Betty back. "Paul may not get over
+to-day," she said. "Won't you come home right off to tell me about it?
+I--well, you'll see later why I want to know--if you haven't guessed
+already."
+
+The class of 19-- had an inkling that something unusual was in the wind
+and had turned out in full force. There was no need of waiting for a
+quorum this time. After the usual preliminaries Jean Eastman rose and
+began a halting, nervous little speech.
+
+"I have heard," she began, "that is--a great many people in and out of
+the class have spoken to me about the matter of the Washington's
+Birthday debate. I mean, about the way in which our debater was
+appointed. I understand there is a great deal of dissatisfaction--that
+some of the class say they did not understand which way they were
+voting, and so on. So I thought you might like to reconsider your vote.
+I certainly, considering position in the matter, want you to have the
+chance to do so. Now, can we have this point thoroughly discussed?"
+Then, as no one rose, "Miss Wales, won't you tell us what you think?"
+
+Betty stared helplessly at Jean for a moment and then, assisted by
+vigorous pushes from Katherine and Rachel, who sat on either side of
+her, rose hesitatingly to her feet. "Miss Eastman,--I mean, madame
+president," she began. She stopped for an instant to look at her
+audience. Apparently the class of 19-- was merely astonished and puzzled
+by Jean's suggestion; there was no indication that any one--except
+possibly a few of the Hill girls--had any idea of her motive. "Madame
+president," repeated Betty, forcing back the lump that had risen in her
+throat when she realized that the keeping of Eleanor's secret lay
+largely with her, "Miss Watson is my friend, and I was very much pleased
+to have her for our representative. But I do feel, and I believe the
+other girls do, as they come to think it over, that it would have been
+better to elect our representative. Then we should every one of us have
+had a direct interest in the result of the debate. Besides, all the
+other classes elected theirs, and so I think, if Miss Watson is
+willing----"
+
+"Miss Watson is perfectly willing," broke in Jean. "A positive
+engagement unfortunately prevents her being here to say so, but she
+authorized me to state that she preferred the elective choice herself,
+and to tell you to do just as you think best in the matter. She----Go
+on, Miss Wales."
+
+"Oh, that was all," said Betty hastily slipping back into her seat.
+
+A group of girls in the farthest corner of the room clapped vigorously.
+
+"Nothing cut-and-dried about that," whispered Katherine to Adelaide
+Rich.
+
+"Are there any more remarks?" inquired the president. No one seemed
+anxious to speak, and she went on rather aimlessly. "Miss Wales has
+really covered the ground, I think. The other classes all elected their
+debaters, and I fancy they want us to do the same. As for the
+faculty--well, I may as well say that they almost insist upon a change."
+
+"Good crawl," whispered Katherine, who was quick to put two and two
+together, to Adelaide Rich, who never got the point of any but the most
+obvious remarks, and who now looked much perplexed.
+
+Meanwhile Betty had been holding whispered consultations with some of
+the girls around her, and now she rose again. Her "madame president" was
+so obviously prior to Kate Denise's that when Kate was recognized there
+was an ominous murmur of discontent and Jean apologized and promptly
+reversed her decision.
+
+"Perhaps I oughtn't to speak twice," said Betty blushing at the
+commotion she had caused, "but if we are to change our vote, some of us
+think it would be fun to hold a preliminary debate now, and choose our
+speaker on her merits. We did that once at school----"
+
+"Good stunt," called some one.
+
+"I move that Miss Wales as chairman select a committee of arrangements,
+and that we have a five minute recess while the committee meets."
+
+"I move that there be two committees, one for nominating speakers and
+the other for choosing a subject."
+
+"I move that we reconsider our other vote first."
+
+The motions were coming in helter-skelter from all quarters, instead of
+decorously from the front row as usual. The president was trying vainly
+to restore order and to remember whose motion should have precedence,
+and to make way somehow for the prearranged nomination, which so far had
+been entirely crowded out, when three girls in one corner of the room
+began thumping on their seat-arms and chanting in rhythmic, insistent
+chorus, "We--want--Emily--Davis. We--want--Emily--Davis.
+We--want--Emily--Davis."
+
+Hardly any one in the room had ever heard of Emily Davis, but the three
+girls constituted an original and very popular little coterie known
+individually as Babe, Babbie, and Bob, or collectively as "the three
+B's." They roomed on the top floor of the Westcott House and were famous
+in the house for being at the same time prime favorites of the matron
+and the ringleaders in every plot against her peace of mind, and outside
+for their unique and diverting methods of recreation. It was they who
+had successfully gulled Mary Brooks with a rumor as absurd as her own;
+and accounts of the "spread" they had handed out to the night-watchman
+in a tin pail, and dangled just out of his reach, in the hope of
+extracting a promise from that incorruptible worthy not to report their
+lights, until the string incontinently broke and the ice cream and
+lobster salad descended as a flood, were reported to have made even the
+august president of the college laugh. Ergo, if they "wanted" Emily
+Davis, she must be worth "wanting." So their friends took up the cry,
+and it quickly spread and gathered volume, until nearly everybody in the
+room was shouting the same thing. Finally the president stepped forward
+and made one determined demand for order.
+
+"Is Miss Emily Davis present?" she called, when the tumult had slightly
+subsided.
+
+"Yes," shouted the Three and the few others who knew Miss Davis by
+sight.
+
+"Then will she please--why, exactly what is it that you want of her?"
+questioned the president, a trifle haughtily.
+
+"Speech!" chorused the Three.
+
+"Will Miss Davis please speak to us?" asked the president.
+
+At that a very tall girl who was ineffectually attempting to hide behind
+little Alice Waite was pulled and pushed to her feet, and amid a sudden
+silence began the funniest speech that most of the class of 19-- had
+ever listened to; but it was not so much what she said as her inimitable
+drawling delivery and her lunging, awkward gestures that brought down
+the house. When she took her seat again, resolutely ignoring persistent
+cries of "More!" the class applauded her to the echo and elected her
+freshman debater by acclamation.
+
+It was wonderful what a change those twenty riotous minutes had made in
+the spirit of the class of 19--. For the first time in its history it
+was an enthusiastic, single-hearted unit, and to the credit of the Hill
+girls be it said that no one was more enthusiastic or joined in the
+applause with greater vigor than they. They had not meant to be
+autocratic--except three of them; they had simply acted according to
+their lights, or rather, their leaders' lights. Now they understood how
+affairs could be conducted at Harding, and during the rest of the course
+they never entirely forgot or ignored the new method.
+
+To Betty's utter astonishment and consternation the lion's share of
+credit for the sudden triumph of democracy was laid at her door. The
+group around her after the meeting was almost as large and quite as
+noisy as the one that was struggling to shake hands with Miss Davis.
+
+"Don't! You mustn't. Why, it was the B's who got her, not I," protested
+Betty vigorously.
+
+"No, you began it," said Babe.
+
+"You bet you did," declared Bob.
+
+"Yes, indeed. We were too scared to speak of her until you proposed
+something like it," added Babbie in her sweet, lilting treble.
+
+"You can't get out of it. You are the real founder of this democracy,"
+ended Christy Mason decidedly. Betty was proud of Christy's approval. It
+was fun, too, to have the Hill girls crowding around and saying pleasant
+things to her.
+
+"I almost think I'm somebody at last. Won't Nan be pleased!" she
+reflected as she hurried home to keep her promise to Eleanor. Then she
+laughed merrily all to herself. "Those silly girls! I really didn't do a
+thing," she thought. And then she sighed. "I never get a chance to be a
+bit vain. I wish I could--one little wee bit. I wonder if Mr. West
+came."
+
+It did not occur to Betty as at all significant that Jean Eastman and
+Kate Denise had not spoken to her after the meeting, until, when she
+knocked on Eleanor's door, Eleanor came formally to open it. "Jean and
+Kate are here," she said coldly, "so unless you care to stop----"
+
+Jean and Kate nodded silently from the couch where they were eating
+candy.
+
+"Oh, no," said Betty in quick astonishment. "I'll come some other time."
+
+"You needn't bother," answered Eleanor rudely. "They've told me all
+about it," and she shut the door, leaving Betty standing alone in the
+hall.
+
+Betty winked hard to keep back the tears as she hurried to her own room.
+What could it all mean? She had done her best for Eleanor, and nobody
+had guessed--they had been too busy laughing at that ridiculous Emily
+Davis--and now Eleanor treated her like this. And Jean Eastman, too,
+when she had done exactly what Jean wanted of her. Jean's curtness was
+even less explainable than Eleanor's, though it mattered less. It was
+all--queer. Betty smiled faintly as she applied Alice Waite's favorite
+adjective. Well, there was nothing more to be done until she could see
+Eleanor after dinner. So she wiped her eyes, smoothed her hair, and went
+resolutely off to find Roberta, whose heavy shoes--another of Roberta's
+countless fads--had just clumped past her door.
+
+"I'm writing my definitions for to-morrow's English," announced Roberta.
+"For the one we could choose ourselves I'm going to invent a word and
+then make up a meaning for it. Isn't that a nice idea?"
+
+"Very," said Betty listlessly.
+
+Roberta looked at her keenly. "I believe you're homesick," she said.
+"How funny after such a jubilant afternoon."
+
+Betty smiled wearily. "Perhaps I am. Anyway, I wish I were at home."
+
+Meanwhile in Eleanor's room an acrimonious discussion was in progress.
+
+"The more I think of it," Kate Denise was saying emphatically, "the
+surer I am that she didn't do a thing against us this afternoon. She
+isn't to blame for having started a landslide by accident, Jean. Did you
+see her face when Eleanor turned her down just now? She looked
+absolutely nonplussed."
+
+"Most people do when the lady Eleanor turns and rends them," returned
+Jean, with a reminiscent smile.
+
+"Just the same," continued Kate Denise, "I say you have a lot to thank
+her for this afternoon, Jean Eastman. She got you out of a tight hole in
+splendid shape. None of us could have done it without stamping the whole
+thing a put-up job, and most of the outsiders who could have helped you
+out, wouldn't have cared to oblige you. It was irritating to see her
+rallying the multitudes, I'll admit; but I insist that it wasn't her
+fault. We ought to have managed better."
+
+"Say I ought to have managed better and be done with it," muttered Jean
+crossly.
+
+"You certainly ought," retorted Eleanor. "You've made me the
+laughing-stock of the whole college."
+
+"No, Eleanor," broke in Kate Denise pacifically. "Truly, your dignity is
+intact, thanks to Miss Wales and those absurd B's who followed her
+lead."
+
+"Never mind them. I'm talking about Betty Wales. She was a friend of
+mine--she was at the supper the other night. Why couldn't she leave it
+to some one else to object to your appointing me?"
+
+"Oh, if that's all you care about," said Jean irritably, "don't blame
+Miss Wales. The thing had to be done you know. I didn't see that it
+mattered who did it, and so I--well, I practically asked her. What I'm
+talking about is her way of going at it--her having pushed herself
+forward so, and really thrown us out of power by using what I--" Jean
+caught herself suddenly, remembering that Eleanor did not know about
+Betty's having been let into the secret.
+
+"By using what you told her," finished Kate innocently. "Well, why did
+you tell her all about it, if you didn't expect--"
+
+Eleanor stood up suddenly, her face white with anger. "How dared you,"
+she challenged. "As if it wasn't insulting enough to get me into a
+scrape like this, and give any one with two eyes a chance to see through
+your flimsy little excuses, but you have to go round telling people----"
+
+"Eleanor, stop," begged Jean. "She was the only one I told. I let it out
+quite by accident the day I came up here to see you. Not another soul
+knows it but Kate, and you told her yourself. You'd have told Betty
+Wales, too,--you know you would--if we hadn't seen you first this
+afternoon."
+
+"Suppose I should," Eleanor retorted hotly. "What I do is my own affair.
+Please go home."
+
+Jean stalked out in silence, but Kate, hesitating between Scylla and
+Charybdis, lingered to say consolingly, "Cheer up, Eleanor. When you
+come to think it over, it won't seem so----"
+
+"Please go home," repeated Eleanor, and Kate hurried after her roommate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+SAINT VALENTINE'S ASSISTANTS
+
+
+If Eleanor had taken Kate's advice and indulged in a little calm
+reflection, she would have realized how absolutely reasonless was her
+anger against Betty Wales. Betty had been told of the official
+objections which made it necessary for Eleanor to be withdrawn from the
+debate. Her action, then, had been wholly proper and perfectly friendly.
+But Eleanor was in no mood for reflection. A wild burst of passion held
+her firmly in its grasp. She hated everybody and everything in
+Harding--the faculty who had made such a commotion about two little low
+grades--for Eleanor had come surprisingly near to clearing her record at
+mid-years,--Jean, who had stupidly brought all this extra annoyance upon
+her; the class, who were glad to get rid of her, Betty, who--yes, Jean
+had been right about one thing--Betty, who had taken advantage of a
+friend's misfortune to curry favor for herself. They were all leagued
+against her. But--here the Watson pride suddenly asserted itself--they
+should never know that she cared, never guess that they had hurt her.
+
+She deliberately selected the most becoming of her new evening gowns,
+and in an incredibly short time swept down to dinner, radiantly
+beautiful in the creamy lace dress, and--outwardly at least--in her
+sunniest, most charming mood. She insisted that the table should admire
+her dress, and the pearl pendant which her aunt had just sent her.
+
+"I'm wearing it, you see, to celebrate my return to the freedom of
+private life," she rattled on glibly. "I understand you've found a
+genius to take my place. I'm delighted that we have one in the class.
+It's so convenient. Who of you are going to the Burton House dance
+to-night?"
+
+So she led the talk from point to point and from hand to hand. She
+bantered Mary, deferred to Helen and the Riches, appealed in comradely
+fashion to Katherine and Rachel. Betty alone she utterly, though quite
+unostentatiously, ignored; and Betty, too much hurt to make any effort,
+stood aside and tried to solve the riddle of Eleanor's latest caprice.
+On the way up-stairs Eleanor spoke to her for the first time. She went
+up just ahead of her and at the top of the flight she turned and waited.
+
+"I understand that you quite ran the class to-day," she said with a
+flashing smile. "The girls tell me that you're a born orator, as good in
+your way as the genius in hers."
+
+Betty rallied herself for one last effort. "Don't make fun of me,
+Eleanor. Please let me come in and tell you about it. You don't
+understand----"
+
+"Possibly not," said Eleanor coldly. "But I'm going out now."
+
+"Just for a moment!"
+
+"But I have to start at once. I'm late already."
+
+"Oh, very well," said Betty, and turned away to join Mary and Roberta.
+
+Eleanor's mind always worked with lightning rapidity, and while she
+dressed she had gone over the whole situation and decided exactly how
+she would meet it; and in the weeks that followed she kept rigidly to
+the course she had marked out for herself, changing only one detail. At
+first she had intended to have nothing more to do with Jean, but she saw
+that a sudden breaking off of their friendship would be remarked upon
+and wondered at. So she compromised by treating Jean exactly as usual,
+but seeing her as little as possible. This made it necessary to refuse
+many of her invitations to college affairs, for wherever she went Jean
+was likely to go. So she spent much of her leisure time away from
+Harding; she went to Winsted a great deal, and often ran down to Boston
+or New York for Sunday, declaring that the trips meant nothing to a
+Westerner used to the "magnificent distances" of the plains. Naturally
+she grew more and more out of touch with the college life, more and more
+scornful of the girls who could be content with the narrow, humdrum
+routine at Harding. But she concealed her scorn perfectly. And she no
+longer neglected her work; she attended her classes regularly and
+managed with a modicum of preparation to recite far better than the
+average student. Furthermore her work was now scrupulously honest, and
+she was sensitively alert to the slightest imputation of untruthfulness.
+She offered no specious explanations for her withdrawal from the debate,
+and when Mary Brooks innocently inquired "what little yarn" she told the
+registrar, that she could get away so often, Eleanor fixed her with an
+unpleasantly penetrative stare and answered with all her old-time
+hauteur that she did not tell "yarns."
+
+"I have a note from my father. So long as I do my work and go to all my
+classes, they really can't object to my spending my Sundays as he
+wishes."
+
+Betty observed all these changes without being in the least able to
+reconcile them with Eleanor's new attitude toward herself. Unlike the
+friendship with Jean, Eleanor's intercourse with her had been
+inconspicuous, confined mostly to the Chapin house itself. Even the
+girls there, because Eleanor had stood so aloof from them, had seen
+little of it, so Eleanor was free to break it off without thinking of
+public opinion, and she did so ruthlessly. From the day of the class
+meeting she spoke to Betty only when she must, or, if no one was by,
+when some taunting remark occurred to her.
+
+At first Betty tried her best to think how she could have offended, but
+she could not discuss the subject with any one else and endless
+consideration and rejection of hypotheses was fruitless, so after
+Eleanor had twice refused her an interview that would have settled the
+matter, she sensibly gave it up. Eleanor would perhaps "come round" in
+time. Meanwhile it was best to let her alone.
+
+But Betty felt that she was having more than her share of trouble; Helen
+was quite as trying in her way as Eleanor in hers. She had entirely lost
+her cheerful air and seemed to have grown utterly discouraged with life.
+
+"And no wonder, for she studies every minute," Betty told Rachel and
+Katherine. "I think she feels hurt because the girls don't get to like
+her better, but how can they when she doesn't give them any chance?"
+
+"She's awfully touchy lately," added Katherine.
+
+"Poor little thing!" said Rachel.
+
+Then the three plunged into an animated discussion of basket-ball, and
+Rachel and Katherine, who were on a sort of provisional team that
+included most of the best freshman players and arrogated to itself the
+name of "The Stars," showed Betty in strictest confidence the new
+cross-play that "T. Reed" had invented. "T. Reed" seemed to be the
+basket-ball genius of the freshman class. She was the only girl who was
+perfectly sure to be on the regular team.
+
+It is one of the fine things about college that no matter who of your
+friends are temporarily lost to you, there is always somebody else to
+fall back upon, and some new interest to take the place of one that
+flags. Betty had noticed this and been amused by it early in her course.
+Sometimes, as she said to Miss Ferris in one of her many long talks with
+that lady, things change so fast that you really begin to wonder if you
+can be the same person you were last week.
+
+Besides the inter-class basket-ball game, there was the Hilton House
+play to talk about and look forward to, and the rally; and, nearer
+still, St. Valentine's day. It was a long time, to be sure, since Betty
+had been much excited over the last named festival; in her experience
+only children exchanged valentines. But at Harding it seemed to be
+different. While the day was still several weeks off she had received
+three invitations to valentine parties. She consulted Mary Brooks and
+found that this was not at all unusual.
+
+"All the campus houses give them," Mary explained, "and the big ones
+outside, just as they do for Hallowe'en. They have valentine boxes, you
+know, and sometimes fancy dress balls."
+
+And there the matter would have dropped if Mary had not spent all her
+monthly allowance three full weeks before she was supposed to have any
+more. Poverty was Mary's chronic state. Not that Dr. Brooks's checks
+were small, but his daughter's spending capacity was infinite.
+
+"You wait till you're a prominent sophomore," she said when Katherine
+laughed at her, "and all your friends are making societies, and you just
+have to provide violets and suppers, in hopes that they'll do as much
+for you later on. The whole trouble is that father wants me to be on an
+allowance, instead of writing home for money when I'm out. And no matter
+how much I say I need, it never lasts out the month."
+
+"Why don't you tutor?" suggested Rachel, who got along easily on a third
+of what Mary spent. "I hope to next year."
+
+"Tutor!" repeated Mary with a reminiscent chuckle. "I tried to tutor my
+cousin this fall in algebra, and the poor thing flunked much worse than
+before. But anyway the faculty wouldn't give me regular tutoring. I look
+too well-to-do. Ah! how deceitful are appearances!" sighed Mary, opening
+her pocketbook, where five copper pennies rattled about forlornly.
+
+But the very next day she dashed into Betty's room proclaiming loudly,
+"I have an idea, and I want you to help me, Betty Wales. You can draw
+and I'll cut them out and drum up customers, and I guess I can write the
+verses. We ought to make our ad. to-night."
+
+"Our what?" inquired Betty in an absolutely mystified tone.
+
+Then Mary explained that she proposed to sell valentines. "Lots of the
+girls who can't draw buy theirs, not down-town, you know--we don't give
+that kind here,--but cunning little hand-made ones with pen-and-ink
+drawings and original verses. Haven't you noticed the signs on the 'For
+Sale' bulletin?"
+
+Betty had not even seen that bulletin board since she and Helen had
+hunted second-hand screens early in the fall, but the plan sounded very
+attractive; it would fill up her spare hours, and keep her from worrying
+over Eleanor, and getting cross at Helen, so she was very willing to
+help if Mary honestly thought she could draw well enough.
+
+"Goodness, yes!" said Mary, rushing off to borrow Roberta's water-color
+paper and Katherine's rhyming dictionary.
+
+So the partnership was formed, a huge red heart covered with hastily
+decorated samples was stuck up on the "For Sale" bulletin in the
+gymnasium basement, and, as Betty's cupids were really very charming and
+her Christy heads quite as good as the average copy, names began to
+appear in profusion on the order-sheet.
+
+Mary had written two sample verses with comparative ease, and in the
+first flush of confidence she had boldly printed on the sign: "Rhymed
+grinds for special persons furnished at reasonable rates." But later,
+when everybody seemed to want that kind, even the valuable aid of the
+rhyming dictionary did not disprove the adage that poets are born, not
+made.
+
+"I can't--I just can't do them," wailed Mary finally. "Jokes simply will
+not go into rhyme. What shall we do?"
+
+"Get Roberta--she writes beautifully--and Katherine--she told me that
+she'd like to help," suggested Betty, without looking up from the chubby
+cupid she was fashioning.
+
+So Katherine and Roberta were duly approached and Katherine was added to
+the firm. Roberta at first said she couldn't, but finally, after
+exacting strict pledges of secrecy, she produced half a dozen dainty
+little lyrics, bidding Mary use them if she wished--they were nothing.
+But no amount of persuasion would induce her to do any more.
+
+However, Katherine's genius was nothing if not profuse, and she
+preferred to do "grinds," so Mary could devote herself to sentimental
+effusions,--which, so she declared, did not have to have any special
+point and so were within her powers,--and to the business end of the
+project. This, in her view, consisted in perching on a centrally located
+window-seat in the main building, in the intervals between classes, and
+soliciting orders from all passers-by, to the consequent crowding of the
+narrow halls and the great annoyance of the serious-minded, who wished
+to reach their recitations promptly. But from her point of view she was
+strikingly successful.
+
+"I tell you, I never appreciated how easy it is to make money if you
+only set about it in the right way," she announced proudly one day at
+luncheon. "By the way, Betty, would you run down after gym to get our
+old order sheet and put up a new one? I have a special topic in
+psychology to-morrow, and if Professor Hinsdale really thinks I'm clever
+I don't want to undeceive him too suddenly."
+
+Betty promised, but after gym Rachel asked her to stay and play
+basket-ball with "The Stars" in the place of an absent member. Naturally
+she forgot everything else and it was nearly six o'clock when,
+sauntering home from an impromptu tea-drinking at the Belden House, she
+remembered the order sheet. It was very dusky in the basement. Betty,
+plunging down the steps that led directly into the small room where the
+bulletin board was, almost knocked down a girl who was curled up on the
+bottom step of the flight.
+
+"Goodness! did I hurt you?" she said, a trifle exasperated that any one
+should want to sit alone in the damp darkness of the basement.
+
+There was no answer, and Betty, whose eyes were growing accustomed to
+the dim light, observed with consternation that her companion was doing
+her best to stop crying.
+
+As has already been remarked, Betty hated tears as a kitten hates rain.
+Personally she never cried without first locking her door, and she could
+imagine nothing so humiliating as to be caught, unmistakably weeping, by
+a stranger. So she turned aside swiftly, peered about in the shadows for
+the big red heart, changed the order sheet, and was wondering whether
+she would better hurry out past the girl or wait for her to recover her
+composure and depart, when the girl took the situation out of her hands
+by rising and saying in cheery tones, "Good-evening, Miss Wales. Are you
+going my way?"
+
+"I--why it's Emily--I mean Miss--Davis," cried Betty.
+
+"Yes, it's Emily Davis, in the blues, the more shame to her, when she
+ought to be at home getting supper this minute. Wait just a second,
+please." Miss Davis went over to the signs, jerked down one, and picking
+up her books from the bottom step announced without the faintest trace
+of embarrassment, "Now I'm ready."
+
+"But are you sure you want me?" inquired Betty timidly.
+
+"Bless you, yes," said Miss Davis. "I've wanted to know you for ever so
+long. I'm sorry you caught me being a goose, though."
+
+"And I'm sorry you felt like crying," said Betty shyly. "Why, Miss
+Davis, I should want to laugh all the time if I'd done what you did the
+other day. I should be so proud."
+
+Miss Davis smiled happily down at her small companion. "I was proud,"
+she said simply. "I only hope I can do as well week after next. But Miss
+Wales, that was the jam of college life. There's the bread and butter
+too, you know, and sometimes that's a lot harder to earn than the jam."
+
+"Do you mean----" began Betty and stopped, not wanting to risk hurting
+Miss Davis's feelings.
+
+"Yes, I mean that I'm working my way through. I have a scholarship, but
+there's still my board and clothes and books."
+
+"And you do it all?"
+
+Miss Davis nodded. "My cousin sends me some clothes."
+
+"How do you do it, please?"
+
+"Tutor, sort papers and make typewritten copies of things for the
+faculty, put on dress braids (that's how I met the B's), mend stockings,
+and wait on table off and on when some one's maid leaves suddenly. We
+thought it would be cheaper and pleasanter to board ourselves and earn
+our money in different ways than to take our board in exchange for
+regular table-waiting; but I don't know. The other way is surer."
+
+"You mean you don't find work enough?"
+
+Miss Davis nodded. "It takes a good deal," she said apologetically, "and
+there isn't much tutoring that freshmen can do. After this year it will
+be easier."
+
+"Dear me," gasped Betty. "Don't you get any--any help from home?"
+
+"Well, they haven't been able to send any yet, but they hope to later,"
+said Miss Davis brightly.
+
+"And does it pay when you have to work so hard for it?"
+
+"Oh, yes," answered Miss Davis promptly. "All three of us are sure that
+it pays."
+
+"Three of you live together?"
+
+"Yes. Of course there are ever so many others in the college, and I'm
+sure all of them would say the same thing."
+
+"And--I hope I'm not being rude--but do girls--do you advertise things
+down on that bulletin board? I don't know much about it. I never was
+there but once till I went to-day on--on an errand for a friend," Betty
+concluded awkwardly. Perhaps she had been an interloper. Perhaps that
+bulletin board had not been meant for girls like her.
+
+Miss Davis evidently assumed that she had been to leave an order. "You
+ought to buy more," she said laughingly. "But you want to know what I
+was there for, don't you? Why yes, we do make a good deal off that
+bulletin board. One of the girls paints a little and she advertises
+picture frames--Yale and Harvard and Pennsylvania ones, you know. I sell
+blue-prints. A senior lends me her films. She has a lot of the faculty
+and the campus, and they go pretty well. We use the money we make from
+those things for little extras--ribbons and note-books and desserts for
+Sunday. We hoped to make quite a bit on valentines----"
+
+"Valentines?" repeated Betty sharply.
+
+"Yes, but a good many others thought of it too, and we didn't get any
+orders--not one. Ours weren't so extra pretty and it was foolish of me
+to be so disappointed, but we'd worked hard getting ready and we did
+want a little more money so much."
+
+They had reached Betty's door by this time, and Miss Davis hurried on,
+saying it was her turn to get supper and begging Betty to come and see
+them. "For we're very cozy, I assure you. You mustn't think we have a
+horrid time just because--you know why."
+
+Betty went straight to Mary's room, which, since she had no roommate to
+object to disorder, had been the chief seat of the valentine industry.
+
+"You're a nice one," cried Katherine, "staying off like this when to-day
+is the eleventh."
+
+"Many orders?" inquired Mary.
+
+Betty sat down on Mary's couch, ruthlessly sweeping aside a mass of half
+finished valentines to make room. "Girls, this has got to stop," she
+announced abruptly.
+
+Mary dropped her scissors and Katherine shut the rhyming dictionary with
+a bang.
+
+"What is the trouble?" they asked in chorus.
+
+Then Betty told her story, suppressing only Emily's name and mentioning
+all the details that had made up the point and pathos of it. "And just
+think!" she said at last. "She's a girl you'd both be proud to know, and
+she works like that. And we stepped in and took away a chance of--of
+ribbons and note-books and dessert for Sunday."
+
+"May be not; perhaps hers were so homely they wouldn't have sold
+anyway," suggested Katherine with an attempt at jocoseness.
+
+"Don't, please," said Betty wearily.
+
+Mary came and sat down beside her on the couch. "Well, what's to be done
+about it now?" she asked soberly.
+
+"I don't know. We can't give them orders because she took her sign down.
+I thought perhaps--how much have we made?"
+
+"Fifteen dollars easily. All right; we'll send it to them."
+
+"Of course," chimed in Katherine. "I was only joking. Shall we finish
+these up?"
+
+"Yes indeed," said Mary, "they're all ordered, and the more money the
+better, n'est ce pas, Betty? But aren't we to know the person's name?"
+
+Betty hesitated. "Why--no--that is if you don't mind very much. You see
+she sort of told me about herself because she had to, so I feel as if I
+oughtn't to repeat it. Do you mind?"
+
+"Not one bit," said Katherine quickly. "And we needn't say anything at
+all about it, except--don't you think the girls here in the house will
+have to know that we're going to give away the money?"
+
+"Yes," put in Mary, "and we'll make them all give us extra orders."
+
+"We will save out a dollar for you to live on till March," said Betty.
+
+"Oh no, I shall borrow of you," retorted Mary, and then they all laughed
+and felt better.
+
+On St. Valentine's morning Betty posted a registered valentine. The
+verse read:--
+
+    "There are three of us and three of you,
+      Though only one knows one,
+    So pray accept this little gift
+      And go and have some fun."
+
+But if the rhyme went haltingly and was not quite true either, as Betty
+pointed out, since Adelaide and Alice had contributed to the fund, and
+the whole house had bought absurd quantities of valentines because it
+was such a "worthy object" ("just as if I wasn't a worthy object!"
+sighed Mary), there was nothing the matter with the "little gift," which
+consisted of three crisp ten dollar bills.
+
+"Oh, if they should feel hurt!" thought Betty anxiously, and dodged
+Emily Davis so successfully that until the day of the rally they did not
+meet.
+
+That week was a tremendously exciting one. To begin with, on the
+twentieth the members of both the freshman basket-ball teams were
+announced. Rachel was a "home" on the regular team, and Katherine a
+guard on the "sub," so the Chapin house fairly bubbled over with pride
+and pleasure in its double honors. Then on the morning of the
+twenty-second came the rally with its tumultuous display of class and
+college loyalty, its songs written especially for the occasion, its
+shrieks of triumph or derision (which no intrusive reporter should make
+bold to interpret or describe as "class yells," since such masculine
+modes of expression are unknown at Harding), and its mock-heroic debate
+on the vital issue, "Did or did not George Washington cut down that
+cherry-tree?"
+
+Every speaker was clever and amusing, but Emily Davis easily scored the
+hit of the morning. For whereas most freshmen are frightened and appear
+to disadvantage on such an occasion, she was perfectly calm and
+self-possessed, and made her points with exactly the same irresistible
+gaucherie and daring infusion of local color that had distinguished her
+performance at the class meeting. Besides, she was a "dark horse"; she
+did not belong to the leading set in her class, nor to any other set,
+for that matter, and this fact, together with the novel method of her
+election made her interesting to her essentially democratic audience. So
+when the judges--five popular members of the faculty--announced their
+decision in favor of the negative, otherwise the junior-freshman side of
+the debate, 19--'s enthusiasm knew no bounds, and led by the delighted
+B's they carried their speaker twice round the gym on their
+shoulders--which is an honor likely to be remembered by its recipient
+for more reasons than one.
+
+As the clans were scattering, it suddenly occurred to Betty that, if
+Emily did not guess anything, it would please her to be congratulated on
+the excellence of her debate; and if, as was more likely, she had
+guessed, there was little to be gained by postponing the dreaded
+interview. She chose a moment when Emily was standing by herself in one
+corner of the gymnasium. Emily did not wait for her to begin her speech
+of congratulation.
+
+"Oh, Miss Wales," she cried, "I've been to see you six times, and you
+are never there. It was lovely of you--lovely--but ought we to take it?"
+
+"Yes, indeed. It belongs to you; honestly it does. Don't ask me how, for
+it's too long a story. Just take my word for it."
+
+"Well, but----" began Emily doubtfully.
+
+At that moment some one called, "Hurrah for 19--!" Betty caught up the
+cry and seizing Emily's hand rushed her down the hall, toward a group of
+freshmen.
+
+"Make a line and march," cried somebody else, and presently a long line
+of 19-- girls was winding in noisy lock-step down the hall, threading in
+and out between groups of upper-class girls and cheering and gaining
+recruits as it went.
+
+"Hurrah for 19--!" cried Betty hoarsely.
+
+"Take it for 19--," she whispered to Emily, as the line stopped with a
+jerk that knocked their heads together.
+
+"If you are sure---- Thank you for 19--," Emily whispered back.
+
+    "Here's to 19--, drink her down!
+    Here's to 19--, drink her down!"
+
+As the chorus rose and swelled Betty felt, as she never had before, what
+it meant to be a college girl at Harding.
+
+As Betty was leaving the gymnasium she met Eleanor face to face in the
+hallway.
+
+"Wasn't it fun?" said Betty, shyly. Perhaps, now that the debate was
+over, Eleanor would be ready to make friends again.
+
+"Patronizing the genius, do you mean?" asked Eleanor slowly. "I hope she
+didn't buy that hideous salmon-pink waist with your money."
+
+"Oh, Eleanor, how did you ever find out?" cried Betty, deeply
+distressed. Only a few of the Chapin house girls knew anything about the
+disposition of the valentine money, and not even the rest of the firm
+had been told who had received it. So Betty had thought the secret
+perfectly safe.
+
+"No one told me about your private affairs," returned Eleanor
+significantly. "I guessed and I congratulate you. The genius will be a
+useful ally. She will get all the freaks' votes for you, when----"
+
+"Eleanor Watson, come on if you're coming," called a voice from the foot
+of the stairs, and Eleanor marched blithely off, without finishing her
+sentence.
+
+Betty stared after her with unseeing eyes. So that was it! She was to
+blame because Jean had told her of Eleanor's predicament--told her
+against her wish. And now she was supposed to be trying to get votes.
+
+"Votes for what, I wonder? How perfectly absurd!" said Betty to the
+brick wall she was facing. But the appropriate smile would not come, for
+the absurdity had cost her a friend whom she had loved dearly in spite
+of her faults.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+A BEGINNING AND A SEQUEL
+
+
+"I shan't be here to dinner Sunday," announced Helen Chase Adams with an
+odd little thrill of importance in her voice.
+
+"Shan't you?" responded her roommate absently. She was trying to decide
+which dress to wear to the Hilton House play. Her pink organdie was
+prettiest, but she really ought to save that for the Glee Club concert.
+And should she ask her cousin Jack Burgess up from Harvard for the
+concert, or would it be better to invite Mr. Parsons? These absorbing
+questions left her small attention to bestow on so comparatively
+commonplace a matter as an invitation out to Sunday dinner.
+
+"I thought you might like to have some one in my place," continued
+Helen, moving the pink organdie waist on to the same chair with the
+batiste skirt.
+
+Betty came to herself with a start. "I beg your pardon. I didn't see
+that I had taken up all the chairs. I was trying to decide what to wear
+to the dramatics."
+
+"And I was thinking what I'd wear Sunday," said Helen.
+
+It was so seldom nowadays that she obtruded her affairs upon any one's
+notice that Betty glanced at her wonderingly. Her eyes had their starry
+look, and a smile that she was futilely endeavoring to keep in the
+background played around the corners of her mouth.
+
+"I'm glad she's got over the blues," thought Betty. "Why, where are you
+going?" she asked aloud.
+
+"Oh, only to the Westcott House," answered Helen with an assumption of
+unconcern. "Would you wear the blue silk waist or the brown dress?"
+
+"Well, the Westcott is the swellest house on the campus, you know. When
+I go there I always put on my very best."
+
+"Yes, but which is my best?"
+
+Betty considered a moment. "Why, of course they're both pretty," she
+began with kindly diplomacy, "but dresses are more the thing than
+waists. Still, the blue is very becoming. But I think--yes, I'm sure I'd
+wear the brown."
+
+"All right. If you change your mind before Sunday you can let me know."
+
+"Yes," said Betty briefly. She was examining the batiste skirt to see if
+it would need pressing for the dramatics. After all, Jack was more fun,
+and probably Mr. Parsons was invited by this time anyhow--he knew lots
+of Harding girls. What was the name of Jack's dormitory house? She would
+ask the Riches; they had a brother in the same one. So she strolled off
+to find the Riches, and incidentally to get the latest basket-ball news
+from Rachel and Katherine. At nine o'clock they turned her out; they
+were in training and supposed to be fast asleep by nine-thirty. When she
+opened her own door, Helen was still sitting idly in the wicker rocker,
+looking as if she would be perfectly content to stay there indefinitely
+with her pleasant thoughts for company.
+
+Betty had quite lost interest in Helen lately; she had small patience
+with people who moped, and besides, between Eleanor and the valentine
+enterprise, her thoughts had been fully engrossed. But this new mood
+made her curious. "She acts as if she'd got a crush," she decided.
+"She's just the kind to have one, and probably her divinity has asked
+her to dinner, and she can't put her mind on anything else. But who on
+earth could it be--in the Westcott House?"
+
+She was on the point of inquiring, when Helen diverted her attention to
+something else. "I made a wonderful discovery to-day," she said.
+"Theresa Reed and T. Reed are the same person."
+
+Betty laughed. "They might easily be," she said. "I don't see that it
+was so wonderful."
+
+"Why, I've known Theresa all this year--she was the one that asked me to
+go off with her house for Mountain Day. She's the best friend I have
+here, but she never told me that she was specially interested in
+basket-ball and I never thought--well, I guess I never imagined that a
+dear friend of mine could be the celebrated T. Reed," laughed Helen
+happily. "But all sorts of nice things are happening to me lately."
+
+"That's good," said Betty. "It seems to be just the opposite with me,"
+and she plunged into her note to Jack, which must be ready for the next
+morning's post.
+
+All that week Helen went about fairly wreathed in smiles. Her shyness
+seemed to have vanished suddenly. She joined gaily in the basket-ball
+gossip at the table, came out into the hall to frolic with the rest of
+the house at ten o'clock, and in general acted as a happy,
+well-conducted freshman should.
+
+The Chapin house brought its amazement over the "dig's" frivolity to
+Betty, but she had very little to tell them. "All I know is that she's
+awfully pleased about being a friend of T. Reed's. And oh yes--she's
+invited out to dinner next Sunday. But of course there must be something
+else."
+
+"Perhaps she's going to have a man up for the concert," suggested
+Katherine flippantly.
+
+"Are you?" inquired Mary Rich, and with that the regeneration of Helen
+was forgotten in the far more absorbing topic of the Glee Club concert.
+
+Sunday came at last. "I'm not going to church, Betty," said Helen shyly.
+"I want to have plenty of time to get dressed for dinner."
+
+"Yes, indeed," said Betty carelessly. She had just received an absurd
+letter from Jack. He was coming "certain-sure"; he wanted to see her
+about a very serious matter, he said. "Incidentally" he should be
+delighted to go to the concert. There was a mysterious postscript
+too:--"How long since you got so fond of Bob Winchester?"
+
+"I never heard of any such person. What do you suppose he means?" Betty
+asked Mary Brooks as they walked home from church together. Mary had
+also invited a Harvard man to the concert and Dorothy King had found
+them both seats, so they were feeling unusually friendly and
+sympathetic.
+
+"I can't imagine. Do let me see his letter," begged Mary. "He must be no
+end of fun."
+
+"He's a worse tease than you," said Betty, knocking on her door.
+
+"Come in," called Helen Chase Adams eagerly. "Betty, would you please
+hook my collar, and would one of you see what time it really is? I don't
+like to depend too much on my watch."
+
+"She'll be at least ten minutes too early," sighed Betty, when Helen had
+finally departed in a flutter of haste. "And see this room! But I
+oughtn't to complain," she added, beginning to clear up the dresser.
+"I'm always leaving it like this myself; but someway I don't expect it
+of Helen."
+
+"Who asked her to dinner to-day?" inquired Mary Brooks. She had been
+sitting in a retired corner, vastly enjoying the unusual spectacle of
+Helen Adams in a frenzy of excitement.
+
+"Why, I don't know. I never thought to ask," said Betty, straightening
+the couch pillows. "I only hope she'll have as good a time as she
+expects."
+
+"Poor youngster!" said Mary. "Wish I'd asked Laurie to jolly her up a
+bit."
+
+It is to be presumed that these fears were groundless, since the bell
+was ringing for five o'clock vespers when Helen came back. Betty was
+sitting at her desk pretending to write letters, but really trying to
+decide whether she should say anything to Eleanor apropos of her remarks
+about Emily Davis, and if so, whether she should do it now. Mary Brooks
+curled up on Betty's couch, dividing her attention between Jack
+Burgess's picture and a new magazine.
+
+"Had a good time, didn't you?" she remarked sociably when Helen
+appeared.
+
+"Oh, yes," said Helen happily. "You see I don't go out very often. Were
+you ever at the Westcott House for dinner?"
+
+"Once," chuckled Mary. "But I found they didn't have ice-cream, because
+the matron doesn't approve of buying things on Sunday; so I've turned
+them down ever since."
+
+Helen laughed merrily. "How funny! I never missed it!" There was a
+becoming flush on her cheeks, a pretty new confidence in her manner.
+
+"Helen, who did you say asked you to the Westcott?" inquired Betty.
+
+"I didn't say, because you didn't ask me," returned Helen truthfully,
+"but it was Miss Mills."
+
+"Miss Mills!" repeated Mary. "Well, my child, I don't wonder that you
+were rattled this noon, being invited around by the faculty. Gracious,
+what a compliment to a young freshman!"
+
+"I should think so!" chimed in Betty eagerly.
+
+In spite of her embarrassment Helen evidently enjoyed the sensation she
+was producing. "I thought it was awfully nice," she said.
+
+"Why didn't you tell us sooner?" demanded Mary. "Why, child, you must be
+a bright and shining shark in lit."
+
+Helen's happy face clouded suddenly. "I'm not, am I, Betty?" she asked
+appealingly.
+
+Betty laughed. "Why no, since you ask me. No, she isn't, Mary. She sits
+on the back row with me and we don't either of us say an extra word.
+It's math, and Latin and Greek that Helen shines in."
+
+"Well, are you awfully devoted to Miss Mills?" pursued Mary. "Is that
+why she asked you?"
+
+Helen shook her head. "I like her. She reads beautifully and sometimes
+she says very interesting things, doesn't she, Betty?"
+
+"I hadn't noticed," answered her roommate hastily.
+
+"Well, I think she does, but I never told her I thought so. It couldn't
+be that."
+
+"Then why did she ask you?" demanded Mary.
+
+"I suppose because she wanted me," said Helen happily. "I can't think of
+any other reason. Isn't it lovely?"
+
+"Yes indeed," agreed Mary. "It's so grand that I'm going off this minute
+to tell everybody in the house about it. They'll be dreadfully envious,"
+and she left the roommates alone.
+
+Helen pulled off her best gloves carefully, and laid them neatly away,
+then she put up her hat and coat and sat down in her favorite wicker
+chair. "I guess I left the room in a dreadful muss this noon," she said
+apologetically. "I guess I acted silly and excited, but you see--I said
+I hadn't been out often--this is the very first time I've been invited
+out to a meal since I came to Harding."
+
+"Really?" said Betty, thinking guiltily of her own multitude of
+invitations.
+
+"Yes, I hoped you hadn't any of you noticed it. I hate to be pitied. Now
+you can just like me."
+
+"Just like you?" repeated Betty vaguely.
+
+"Yes. Don't you see? I'm not left out any more." She hesitated, then
+went on rapidly. "You see I had a lovely time at first, at the sophomore
+reception and the frolic and all, but it stopped and--this was a good
+while coming, and I got discouraged. Wasn't it silly? I--oh, it's all
+right now. I wouldn't change places with anybody." She began to rock
+violently. Betty had noticed that Helen rocked when other girls sang or
+danced jigs.
+
+"But I thought--we all thought," began Betty, "that you had decided you
+preferred to study--that you didn't care for our sort of fun. You
+haven't seemed to lately."
+
+"Not since it came over me why you girls here in the house were nice to
+me when nobody else was except Theresa," explained Helen with appalling
+frankness. "You were sorry for me. I thought it out the day after you
+gave me the violets. Before I came to Harding," she went on, "I did
+think that college was just to study. It's funny how you change your
+mind after you get here--how you begin to see that it's a lot bigger
+than you thought. And it's queer how little you care about doing well in
+class when you haven't anything else to care about." She gave a little
+sigh, then got up suddenly. "I almost forgot; I have a message for
+Adelaide. And by the way, Betty, I saw your Miss Hale; she and somebody
+else were just going in to see Miss Mills when I left."
+
+She had scarcely gone when Mary sauntered back as if by accident. "Well,
+have you found out?" she asked. "As a student of psychology I'm vastly
+interested in this situation."
+
+"Found out what?" asked Betty unsmilingly.
+
+"Why Miss Mills asked her, and why she is so pleased."
+
+"I suppose Miss Mills asked her because she was sorry for her," answered
+Betty slowly, "and Helen is pleased because she doesn't know it. Mary,
+she's been awfully lonely."
+
+"Too bad," commented Mary. Unhappiness always made her feel awkward.
+
+"But she says this makes up to her for everything," added Betty.
+
+"Oh, I've noticed that life is a pretty even thing in the end," returned
+Mary, relieved that there was no present call on her sympathies, "but I
+must confess I don't see how one dinner invitation, even if it is
+from----"
+
+Just then Helen tapped on the door.
+
+Down in Miss Mills's room they were discussing much the same point.
+
+"It's a shame for you to waste your Sundays over these children," said
+Miss Hale.
+
+Miss Mills stopped her tea-making to dissent. "It isn't wasted if she
+cared. She was so still that I couldn't be sure, but judging from the
+length of time she stayed----"
+
+"She was smiling all over her face when we met her," interrupted Miss
+Meredith. "Who is she, anyway?"
+
+"Oh, just nobody in particular," laughed Miss Mills, "just a forlorn
+little freshman named Adams."
+
+"But I don't quite see how----" began Miss Hale.
+
+"Oh, you wouldn't," said Miss Mills easily. "You were president of your
+class when you were a freshman. I was nobody in particular, and I know
+what it's like."
+
+"But why not leave it to her friends to hearten her up?"
+
+"Apparently she hasn't any, or if she has, they're as out of things as
+she is."
+
+"Well, to the other girls then."
+
+"When girls are happy they are cruel," said Miss Mills briefly, "or
+perhaps they're only careless."
+
+Betty, after a week's consideration, put the matter even more
+specifically. "I tried to make her over because I wanted a different
+kind of roommate," she said, "and we all let her see that we were sorry
+for her. Miss Mills made her feel as if----"
+
+"She had her dance card full and was splitting her waltzes," supplied
+Mary, who was just back from an afternoon at Winsted.
+
+"Exactly like that," agreed Betty, laughing. "I wish I'd done it," she
+added wistfully.
+
+"You kept her going till her chance came," said Mary. "She owes a lot to
+you, and she knows it."
+
+"Don't," protested Betty, flushing. "I tell you, I was only thinking of
+myself when I tried to fix her up, and then after a while I got tired of
+her and let her alone. I was horrid, but she's forgiven me and we're
+real friends now."
+
+"Well, we can't do but so much apiece," said Mary practically. "And I've
+noticed that 'jam,' as your valentine girl called it, is a mighty hard
+thing to give to people who really need it."
+
+Nevertheless the gift had been managed in Helen's case; she had gotten
+her start at last. Miss Mills's tactful little attention had furnished
+her with the hope and courage that she lacked, had given her back the
+self-confidence that Caroline Barnes had wounded. Whatever the girls
+might think, she knew she was "somebody" now, and she would go ahead and
+prove it. She could, too--she no longer doubted her possession of the
+college girl's one talent that Betty had laughed about. For there was
+Theresa Reed, her friend down the street. She was homely and awkward,
+she wore dowdy clothes and wore them badly, she was slow and plodding;
+but there was one thing that she could do, and the girls admired her for
+it and had instantly made a place for her. Helen was glad of a second
+proof that those things did not matter vitally. She set herself happily
+to work to study T. Reed's methods, and she began to look forward to the
+freshman-sophomore game as eagerly as did Betty or Katherine.
+
+But before the game there was the concert. Jack Burgess, having missed
+his connections, arrived in Harding exactly twenty-seven minutes before
+it began. As they drove to the theatre he inquired if Betty had received
+all three of his telegrams.
+
+"Yes," laughed Betty, "but I got the last one first. The other two were
+evidently delayed. You've kept me guessing, I can tell you."
+
+"Glad of that," said Jack cheerfully, as he helped her out of the
+carriage. "That's what you've kept me doing for just about a month. But
+I've manfully suppressed my curiosity and concealed the wounds in my
+bleeding heart until I could make inquiries in person."
+
+"What in the world do you mean, Jack?" asked Betty carelessly. Jack was
+such a tease.
+
+Just then they were caught in the crowd that filled the lobby of the
+theatre, and conversation became impossible as they hurried through it
+and into the theatre itself.
+
+"Checks, please," said a businesslike little usher in pink chiffon, and
+Jack and Betty followed her down the aisle. The theatre was already
+nearly full, and it looked like a great flower garden, for the girls all
+wore light evening gowns, for which the black coats of the men made a
+most effective background; while the odor of violets and roses from the
+great bunches that many of the girls carried strengthened the illusion.
+
+"Jove, but this is a pretty thing!" murmured Jack, who had never been in
+Harding before. "Is this all college?"
+
+"Yes," said Betty proudly, "except the men, of course. And don't they
+all look lovely?"
+
+"Who--the men?" asked Jack. Then he gave a sudden start. "Bob
+Winchester, by all that's wonderful!"
+
+"Who is he?" said Betty idly. "Another Harvard man? Jack"--with sudden
+interest, as she recognized the name--"what did you mean by that
+postscript?"
+
+"Good bluff!" said Jack in his most tantalizing drawl.
+
+"Jack Burgess, I expect you to talk sense the rest of the time you're
+here," remonstrated Betty impatiently.
+
+"Well, I will on one condition. Tell me why you sent it to him."
+
+"Sent what to whom?" demanded Betty.
+
+"Oh come," coaxed Jack. "You know what I mean. Why did you send Bob that
+valentine? It almost crushed me, I can tell you, when I hadn't even
+heard from you for months."
+
+Betty was staring at him blankly, "Why did I send 'Bob' that valentine?
+Who please tell me is 'Bob'?"
+
+"Robert M. Winchester, Harvard, 19--. Eats at my club. Is sitting at the
+present moment on the other side of the aisle, two rows up and over by
+the boxes. You'll know him by his pretty blush. He's rattled--he didn't
+think I'd see him."
+
+"Well?" said Betty.
+
+"Well?" repeated Jack.
+
+"I never saw Mr. Robert M. Winchester before," declared Betty with
+dignity, "and of course I didn't send him any valentine. What are you
+driving at, Jack Burgess?"
+
+Jack smiled benignly down at her. "But I saw it," he insisted. "Do you
+think I don't know your handwriting? The verses weren't yours, unless
+they turn out spring poets amazingly fast up here, but the writing was,
+except that on the envelope, and the Cupids were. The design was the
+same as the one on the picture frame you gave me last winter. Beginning
+to remember?" he inquired with an exasperating chuckle.
+
+"No," said Betty severely. Then a light broke over her face. "Oh yes, of
+course, I made that. Oh Jack Burgess, how perfectly rich!"
+
+"Don't think so myself, but Bobbie will. You see I told him that I could
+put up a good guess who sent him that valentine, and that I'd find out
+for sure when I came up. But evidently he couldn't wait, so he's made
+his sister ask him up too, in the hope of happening on the valentine
+lady, I suppose. Know his sister?"
+
+"No," said Betty, who was almost speechless with laughter. "Oh, Jack,
+listen!" and she told the story of the valentine firm. "Probably his
+sister bought it and sent it to him," she finished. "Or anyway some girl
+did. Jack, he's looking this way again. Did you tell him I sent it?"
+
+"No," said Jack hastily, "that is--I--well, I only said that the girl I
+knew up here sent it. He evidently suspects you. See him stare."
+
+"Jack, how could you?"
+
+"How couldn't I you'd better say," chuckled Jack. "I never heard of this
+valentine graft. What should I think, please? Never mind; I'll undeceive
+the poor boy at the intermission. He'll be badly disappointed. You see,
+he said it was his sister all along, and----"
+
+The curtain rolled slowly up, disclosing the Glee Club grouped in a
+rainbow-tinted semicircle about the leader, and the concert began.
+
+At the intermission Jack brought Mr. Winchester and his sister to meet
+Betty, and there were more explanations and much laughter. Then Jack
+insisted upon meeting the rest of the firm, so Betty hunted up Mary. Her
+Harvard man knew the other two slightly, and the story had to be
+detailed again for his benefit.
+
+"I say," he said when he had heard it, "that's what I call enterprise,
+but you made just one mistake. Next year you must sell your stock to us.
+Then all of it will be sure to land with the ladies, and your cousin's
+feelings won't be hurt."
+
+"Good idea," agreed Jack, "but let's keep to the living present, as the
+poets call it. Are you all good for a sleigh ride to-morrow afternoon?"
+
+"Ah, do say yes," begged Mr. Winchester, looking straight at Betty.
+
+"But your sister said you were going----"
+
+"On the sleeper to-morrow night," finished Mr. Winchester promptly. "And
+may I have the heart-shaped sign?"
+
+Betty stopped in Mary's room that night to talk over the exciting events
+of the evening. "Betty Wales, your cousin is the nicest man I ever met,"
+declared Mary with enthusiasm.
+
+Betty laughed. "I shan't tell you what he said about you. It would make
+you entirely too vain. I'm so sorry that Katherine wasn't there, so she
+could go to-morrow."
+
+"It was too bad," said Mary complacently. "But then you know virtue is
+said to be its own reward. She'll have to get along with that, but I'm
+glad we're going to have another one. Those valentines were a lot of
+work to do for a girl whose very name I don't know."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+AT THE GREAT GAME
+
+
+"Well, I thought I'd seen some excitement before," declared Betty Wales,
+struggling to settle herself more comfortably on the scant ten square
+inches of space allotted her by the surging, swaying mass of girls
+behind. "But I was mistaken. Even the rally was nothing to this. Helen,
+do you feel as if they'd push you under the railing?"
+
+"A little," laughed Helen, "but I don't suppose they could, do you?"
+
+"I guess not," said Betty hopefully, "but they might break my spine.
+They're actually sitting on me, and I haven't room to turn around and
+see who's doing it. Oh, but isn't it fun!"
+
+The day of the great basket-ball game had come at last. A bare two hours
+more and the freshman team would either be celebrating its victory over
+the sophomores, or bravely shouldering its defeat; and the college had
+turned out _en masse_ to witness the struggle. The floor of the
+gymnasium was cleared, only Miss Andrews, the gym teacher, her assistant
+line-keepers and the ushers in white duck, with paper hats of green or
+purple, being allowed on the field of battle. On the little stage at one
+end of the hall sat the faculty, most of them manifesting their
+partisanship by the display of class-colors. The more popular supporters
+of the purple had been furnished with violets by their admirers, while
+the wearers of the green had American beauty roses--red being the junior
+color--tied with great bows of green ribbon. The prize exhibit was
+undoubtedly that of the enterprising young head of the chemistry
+department, who carried an enormous bunch of vivid green carnations; but
+the centre of interest was the president of the college, who of course
+displayed impartially the colors of both sides.
+
+He divided interest with a sprightly little lady in a brilliant purple
+gown, whose arms were so full of violets and daffodils and purple and
+yellow ribbons that she looked like an animated flower bed. She smiled
+and nodded at the sophomore gallery from behind their floral tributes;
+and the freshmen watched her eagerly and wished she had worn the green.
+But of course she wouldn't; she had nothing but sophomore lit., and all
+her classes adored her.
+
+In the gallery were the students, seniors and sophomores on one side,
+juniors and freshmen on the other, packed in like sardines. The front
+row of them sat on the floor, dangling their feet over the edge of the
+balcony--they had been warned at the gym classes of the day before to
+look to their soles and their skirt braids. The next row kneeled and
+peered over the shoulders of the first. The third row stood up and saw
+what it could. The others stood up and saw nothing, unless they were
+very tall or had been lucky enough to secure a place on a stray chair or
+a radiator. The balcony railings and posts were draped with bunting, and
+in every hand waved banners and streamers, purple and yellow on one
+side, red and green on the other.
+
+In the middle of each side were grouped the best singers of the classes,
+ready to lead the chorus in the songs which had been written for the
+occasion to the music of popular tunes. These were supposed to take the
+place of "yells," and cheers, both proscribed as verging upon the
+unwomanly. By rule the opposing factions sang in turn, but occasionally,
+quite by accident, both started at once, with deafening discords that
+rocked the gallery, and caused the musical head of the German Department
+to stop her ears in agony.
+
+Most of the girls had been standing in line for an hour waiting for the
+gymnasium doors to open, but a few, like Betty and Helen, had had
+reserved seat tickets given them by some one on the teams. These
+admitted their fortunate holders by a back door ahead of the crowd. All
+the faculty seats were reserved, of course, and the occupants of them
+were still coming in. As each appeared, he or she was met by a group of
+ushers and escorted ceremoniously across the floor, amid vigorous
+hand-clapping from the side whose colors were in evidence, and the
+singing of a verse of "Balm of Gilead" adapted to the occasion. Most of
+these had been written beforehand and were now hastily "passed along"
+from a paper in the hands of the leader. The rhymes were execrable, but
+that did not matter since almost nobody could understand them; and the
+main point was to come out strong on the chorus.
+
+"Oh, there's Miss Ferris!" cried Betty, "and she's wearing my
+ro--goodness, she's half covered with roses. Helen, see that lovely
+green dragon pennant!"
+
+    "Here's to our Miss Ferris, drink her down!"
+
+sang the freshman chorus.
+
+    "Here's to our Miss Ferris, drink her down!
+    Here's to our Miss Ferris, may she never, never perish!
+    Drink her down, drink her down, drink her down, down, down!"
+
+Back by the door there was a sudden commotion, and the sophomore faction
+broke out into tumultuous applause as a tall and stately gentleman
+appeared carrying a "shower bouquet" of daffodils with a border and
+streamers of violets.
+
+    "Here's to Dr. Hinsdale, he's the finest man within hail!
+    Drink him down, drink him down, drink him down, down, down!"
+
+sang the sophomores.
+
+    "There is a team of great renown,"
+
+began the freshmen lustily. What did the sophomores mean by clapping so?
+Ah! Miss Andrews was opening a door.
+
+"They're coming!" cried Betty eagerly.
+
+"Only the sophomore subs," amended the junior next to her. "So please
+don't stick your elbow into me."
+
+"Excuse me," said Betty hastily. "Oh Helen, there's Katherine!"
+
+Through the door at one side of the stage the freshman subs were coming,
+through the other the sophomores. Out on the floor of the gym they ran,
+all in their dark blue gym suits with green or purple stripes on the
+right sleeves, tossing their balls from hand to hand, throwing them into
+the baskets, bouncing them adroitly out of one another's reach, trying
+to appear as unconcerned as if a thousand people were not applauding
+them madly and singing songs about them and wondering which of them
+would get a chance to play in the great game. In a moment a little
+whistle blew and the subs found their places on the edge of the stage,
+where they sat in a restive, eager row, each girl in readiness to take
+the field the moment she should be needed.
+
+The door of the sophomore room opened again and the "real team" ran out.
+Then the gallery shook indeed! Even the freshmen cheered when the mascot
+appeared hand in hand with the captain. He was a dashing little Indian
+brave in full panoply of war-paint, beads, and feathers, with fringed
+leggins and a real Navajo blanket. When he had finished his grand entry,
+which consisted of a war-dance, accompanied by ear-splitting war-whoops,
+he came to himself suddenly to find a thousand people staring at him,
+and he was somewhat appalled. He could not blush, for Mary Brooks had
+stained his face and neck a beautiful brick-red, and he lacked the
+courage to run away. So he waited, forlorn and uncomfortable, while the
+freshman team rushed in, circling gaily about a diminutive knight in
+shining silver armor, with a green plume. He marched proudly, but with
+some difficulty, for his helmet was down and his sword, which was much
+too long for him, had an unbecoming tendency to trip him up. When his
+hesitating steps had brought him to the middle of the gymnasium, the
+knight, apparently perceiving the Indian for the first time, dropped his
+encumbering sword and rushed at his rival with sudden vehemence and
+blood-curdling cries. The little Indian stared for a moment in blank
+amazement, then slipping off his blanket turned tail and ran, reaching
+the door long before his sophomore supporters could stop him. The knight
+meanwhile, left in full possession of the field, waited for a moment
+until the laughter and applause had died away into curiosity. Then,
+deliberately reaching up one gauntleted hand, he pulled off his helmet,
+and disclosed the saucy, freckled face of the popular son of a favorite
+professor.
+
+He grinned cheerfully at the stage and the gallery, gallantly faced the
+junior-freshman side, and waving his green plume aloft yelled, "Hip,
+hip, hurrah for the freshmen!" at the top of a pair of very strong
+lungs. Then he raced off to find the seat which had been the price of
+his performance between two of his devoted admirers on the sub team,
+while the gallery, regardless of meaningless prohibitions and forgetful
+of class distinctions, cheered him to the echo.
+
+All of a sudden a businesslike air began to pervade the floor of the
+gymnasium. Somebody picked up the knight's sword and the Indian's
+blanket, and Miss Andrews took her position under the gallery. The
+ushers crowded onto the steps of the stage, and the members of the
+teams, who had gathered around their captains for a last hurried
+conference, began to find their places.
+
+"Oh, I almost wished they'd sing for a while more," sighed Betty.
+
+"Do you?" answered Helen absently. She was leaning out over the iron bar
+of the railing with her eyes glued to the smallest freshman centre.
+"Why?"
+
+"Oh, it makes me feel so thrilled and the songs are so clever and
+amusing, and the mascots so funny."
+
+"Oh, yes," agreed Helen. "The things here are all like that, but I want
+to see them play."
+
+"You mean you want to see her play," corrected Betty merrily. "I don't
+believe you care for a single other thing but T. Reed. Where is she?"
+
+Helen pointed her out proudly.
+
+"Oh, what an awfully funny, thin little braid! Isn't she comical in her
+gym suit, anyway? You wouldn't think she could play at all, would you,
+she's so small."
+
+"But she can," said Helen stoutly.
+
+"Don't I know it? I guarded her once--that is, I tried to. She's a
+perfect wonder. See, there's Rachel up by our basket. Katherine says
+she's fine too. Helen, they're going to begin."
+
+The assistant gym teacher had the whistle now. She blew it shrilly.
+"Play!" called Miss Andrews, and tossed the ball out over the heads of
+the waiting centres. A tall sophomore reached up confidently to grab it,
+but she found her hands empty. T. Reed had jumped at it and batted it
+off sidewise. Then she had slipped under Cornelia Thompson's famous
+"perpetual motion" elbow, and was on hand to capture the ball again when
+it bounced out from under a confused mass of homes and centres who were
+struggling over it on the freshman line. The freshmen clapped riotously.
+The sophomores looked at each other. Freshman teams were always rattled,
+and "muffed" their plays just at first. What did this mean? Oh, well,
+the homes would miss it. They did, and the sophomores breathed again,
+but only for a moment. Then T. Reed jumped and the ball went pounding
+back toward the freshman basket. This time a home got it, passed it
+successfully to Rachel, and Rachel poised it for an instant and sent it
+cleanly into the basket.
+
+The freshmen were shouting and thumping as if they had never heard that
+it was unlady-like (and incidentally too great a strain on the crowded
+gallery) to do so. Miss Andrews blew her whistle. "Either the game will
+stop or you must be less noisy," she commanded, and amid the ominous
+silence that followed she threw the ball.
+
+This time T. Reed missed her jump, and the tall sophomore got the ball
+and tossed it unerringly at Captain Marion Lawrence, who was playing
+home on her team. She bounded it off in an unexpected direction and then
+passed it to a home nearer the basket, who on the second trial put it
+in. The sophomores clapped, but the freshmen smiled serenely. Their home
+had done better, and they had T. Reed!
+
+The next ball went off to one side. In the scramble after it two
+opposing centres grabbed it at once, and each claimed precedence. The
+game stopped while Miss Andrews and the line-men came up to hear the
+evidence. There was a breathless moment of indecision. Then Miss Andrews
+took the ball and tossed up between the two contestants. But neither of
+them got it. Instead, T. Reed, slipping in between them, jumped for it
+again, and quick as a flash sent it flying toward the freshman goal.
+There was another breathless moment. Could Rachel Morrison put it in
+from that distance? No, it had fallen just short and the sophomore
+guards were playing it along to the opposite end of the home space,
+possibly intending to---- Ah! a stalwart sophomore guard, bracing
+herself for the effort, had tossed it over the heads of the centres
+straight across the gymnasium, and Marion Lawrence had it and was
+working toward the basket, meanwhile playing the ball back to a red
+haired competent-looking girl whose gray eyes twinkled merrily as her
+thin, nervous hands closed unerringly and vice-like around the big
+sphere. It was in the basket, and the freshmen's faces fell.
+
+"But maybe they've lost something on fouls," suggested Betty hopefully.
+
+"And T. Reed is just splendid," added Helen.
+
+Everybody was watching the gallant little centre now, but she watched
+only the ball. Back and forth, up and down the central field she
+followed it, slipping and sliding between the other players, now
+bringing the ball down with a phenomenal quick spring, now picking it up
+from the floor, now catching it on the fly. The sophomore centres were
+beginning to understand her methods, but it was all they could do to
+frustrate her; they had no effort left for offensive tactics. Generally
+because of their superior practice and team play, the sophomores win the
+inter-class game, and they do it in the first half, when the frightened
+freshmen, overwhelmed by the terrors of their unaccustomed situation,
+let the goals mount up so fast that all they can hope to do in the
+second half is to lighten their defeat. What business had T. Reed to be
+so cool and collected? If she kept on, there was strong likelihood of a
+freshman victory. But she was so small, and Cornelia Thompson was
+guarding her--Cornelia stuck like a burr, and the "perpetual motion"
+elbow had already circumvented T. Reed more than once.
+
+After a long and stubborn battle, the freshmen scored another point. But
+in the next round the big sophomore guard repeated her splendid
+'crossboard play, and again Marion Lawrence caught the ball.
+
+Ah! Captain Lawrence is down, sliding heavily along the smooth floor;
+but in an instant she is up again, brushing the hair out of her eyes
+with one hand and making a goal with the other.
+
+"Time!" calls Miss Andrews. "The goals are three to two, fouls not
+counted."
+
+The line-men gather to compare notes on those. The teams hurry off to
+their rooms, Captain Lawrence limping badly. The first half is finished.
+
+A little shivering sigh of relief swept over the audience. The front row
+in the gallery struggled to its feet to rest, the back rows sat down
+suddenly for the same purpose.
+
+"Oh, doesn't it feel good to stretch out," said Betty, pulling herself
+up by the railing and drawing Helen after her. "Aren't you tired to
+death sitting still?"
+
+"Why no, I don't think so," answered Helen vaguely. "It was so splendid
+that I forgot."
+
+"So did I mostly, but I'm remembering good and hard now. I ache all
+over." She waved her hand gaily to Dorothy King, then caught Mary
+Brooks's eye across the hall and waved again. "T. Reed is a dandy," she
+said. "And Rachel was great. They were all great."
+
+"How do you suppose they feel now?" asked Helen, a note of awe in her
+voice.
+
+"Tired," returned Betty promptly, "and thirsty, probably, and
+proud--awfully proud." She turned upon Helen suddenly. "Helen Chase
+Adams, do you know I might have been down there with the subs. Katherine
+told me this morning that it was nip and tuck between Marie Austin and
+me. If I'd tried harder--played an inch better--think of it, Helen, I
+might have been down there too!"
+
+"I couldn't do anything like that," said Helen simply, "but next year I
+mean to write a song."
+
+Betty looked at her solemnly. "You probably will. You're a good hard
+worker, Helen. Isn't it queer," she went on, "we're not a bit alike, but
+this game is making us feel the same way. I wonder if the others feel so
+too. Perhaps it's one reason why they have this game--to wake us all up
+and make us want to do something worth while."
+
+"Betty Wales," called Christy Mason from the floor below. Betty leaned
+over the railing. "Don't forget that you're coming to dinner to-night.
+We're going to serenade the team. They'll be dining at the Belden with
+Miss Andrews."
+
+Kate Denise joined her. She had never mentioned the afternoon in
+Eleanor's room, but she took especial pains to be pleasant to Betty.
+
+"Hello, Betty Wales," she called up. "Isn't it fine? Don't you think
+we'll win? Anyway Miss Andrews says it's the best game she ever saw."
+
+"Betty Wales," called Dorothy King from her leader's box, "come to
+vespers with me to-morrow."
+
+Betty met them all with friendly little nods and enthusiastic answers.
+Then she turned back to Helen. "It's funny, but I'm always interrupted
+when I'm trying to think," she said. "If there were six of me I think I
+might be six successful persons. But as it is, I suppose I shall always
+be just 'that little Betty Wales' and have a splendid time."
+
+"That would be enough for most people," said Helen.
+
+"Oh, I hope not," said Betty soberly. "I don't amount to anything." She
+slipped down into her place again. The teams were coming back.
+
+"See Laurie limp!"
+
+"Their other home--the one with the red hair--looks as fresh as a May
+morning."
+
+"Well, so does T. Reed."
+
+"We have a fighting chance yet."
+
+Thus the freshman gallery.
+
+But the second half opened with the rapid winning of three goals by the
+sophomores. Cornelia Thompson had evidently made up her mind that nobody
+so small as T. Reed should get away from her and mar the reputation of
+her famous "ever moving and ever present" elbow. The other freshman
+centres were over-matched, and once Marion Lawrence and the red-haired
+home got the ball between them, a goal was practically a certainty.
+
+"Play!" called Miss Andrews for the fourth time.
+
+T. Reed's eyes flashed and her lips shut into a narrow determined line.
+Another freshman centre got the ball and passed it successfully to T.
+Reed, who gave it a pounding blow toward the freshman basket. A
+sophomore guard knocked it out of Rachel Morrison's hands, and it rolled
+on to the stage. There was a wild scuffle and the freshman balcony broke
+into tumultuous cheering, for a home who had missed all her previous
+chances had clutched it from under the president's chair and had scored
+at last.
+
+A moment later she did it again. There was a pause while a freshman
+guard was carried off with a twisted ankle and Katherine Kittredge ran
+to her place. Then the sophomores scored twice. Then the freshmen did
+likewise. "Time!" called Miss Andrews sharply. The game was over.
+
+"Score!" shrieked the galleries.
+
+Then the freshmen bravely began to sing their team song,
+
+    "There is a team of great renown."
+
+They were beaten, of course, but they were proud of that team.
+
+"The freshmen score one goal on fouls. Score, six to eight in favor of
+the purple," announced Miss Andrews after a moment. "And I want to
+say----"
+
+It was unpardonably rude, but they could not help interrupting to cheer.
+
+"That I am proud of all the players. It was a splendid game," she
+finished, when the thoughtful ones had hushed the rest.
+
+Then they cheered again. The sophomore team were carrying their captain
+around the gym on their shoulders; the freshmen, gathered in a brave
+little group, were winking hard and cheering with the rest. The gallery
+was emptying itself with incredible rapidity on to the floor. The stage
+was watching, and wishing--some of it--that it could go down on the
+floor and shriek and sing and be young and foolish generally.
+
+Betty and Helen ran down with the rest. "Helen," whispered Betty on the
+way, "I don't care what happens, I will, I will, I will make them sing
+to me some day. Oh Helen, don't you love 19--, and aren't you proud of
+it and of T. Reed?"
+
+At the foot of the stairs they met the three B's. "Come on, come on,"
+cried the three. "We're going to sing to the sophomores," and they
+seized upon Betty and bore her off to the corner where the freshmen were
+assembling. Left to herself Helen got into a nook by the door and
+watched. It was queer how much fun it was to watch, lately.
+
+"Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness
+thrust upon them:"--she had read it in the library that morning and it
+kept running in her head. Was it selfish and conceited to want to be
+worth something to her college--to long to do something that would give
+her a place among the girls? A month ago Theresa had stood with her high
+up on the bank and watched the current sweep by. Now she was in the
+stream; even Betty Wales envied her; she had "achieved greatness." Betty
+wanted to be sung to. Well, no doubt she would be, in spite of the
+"interruptions"; she was "born great." Helen aspired only to write a
+song to be sung. That wasn't very much, and she would try hard--Theresa
+said it was all trying and caring--for she must somehow prove herself
+worthy of the greatness that had been "thrust upon" her.
+
+Betty was in the centre of an excited group of freshmen. Christy Mason
+was there too; probably they were planning for the serenade. "She won't
+mind if I go," thought Helen. She would have liked to speak to Theresa,
+but she had delayed too long; the teams had disappeared. So she slipped
+out alone. There would be a long, quiet evening for theme work--for
+Helen had elected Mary's theme course at mid-years, though no one in the
+Chapin house knew it.
+
+Betty did not get home till quarter of ten, and then she went straight
+off to find Katherine and Rachel. "I came to see if there's anything
+left of Rachel," she said.
+
+"There's a big bump on my forehead," said Rachel, sitting up in bed with
+a faint smile. "I'm sure of that because it aches."
+
+"Poor lady!" Betty turned to Katherine. "You got your chance, didn't
+you? I felt it in my bones that you would. Wasn't it all splendid?"
+
+"Yes indeed," assented the contestants heartily.
+
+"It made me feel so energetic," Betty went on eagerly. "Of course I felt
+proud of you and of 19--, just as I did at the rally, but there was
+something else, too. You'll see me going at things next term the way T.
+Reed went at that ball."
+
+"You're one of the most energetic persons I know, as it is," said
+Rachel, smiling at her earnestness.
+
+"Yes," said Betty impatiently. "I fly around and make a great commotion,
+but I fritter away my time, because I forget to keep my eyes on the
+ball. Why, I haven't done anything this year."
+
+Katherine pulled Betty down beside her on the couch. "Child, you've done
+a lot," she said. "We were just considering all you've done, and
+wondering why you weren't asked to usher to-day. You've sub-subed a lot
+and you know so many girls on the team and are such good friends with
+Jean Eastman."
+
+To her consternation Betty felt a hot flush creeping up her neck and
+over her cheeks. It had been the one consolation in the trouble with
+Eleanor that none of the Chapin house girls had asked any questions or
+even appeared to notice that anything was wrong.
+
+"Oh, I don't know Miss Eastman much," she said quickly. "And as for
+substituting on the subs, that was a great privilege. That wasn't
+anything to make me an usher for."
+
+"Well, all the other girls who did it much ushered," persisted
+Katherine. "Christy Mason and Kate Denise and that little Ruth Ford. And
+you'd have made such a stunning one."
+
+"Goosie!" said Betty, rising abruptly. "I know you girls want to go to
+bed. We'll talk it all over to-morrow."
+
+As she closed the door, Rachel and Katherine exchanged glances. "I told
+you there was trouble," said Katherine, "and mark my words, Eleanor
+Watson is at the bottom of it somehow."
+
+"Don't let's notice it again, though," answered the considerate Rachel.
+"She evidently doesn't want to tell us about it."
+
+Betty undressed almost in silence. Her exhilaration had left her all at
+once and her ambition; life looked very complicated and unprofitable. As
+she went over to turn out the light, she noticed a sheet of paper, much
+erased and interlined, on Helen's desk. "Have you begun your song
+already?" she asked.
+
+"Oh, no, I wrote a theme," said Helen with what seemed needless
+embarrassment. But the theme was a little verse called "Happiness." She
+got it back the next week heavily under-scored in red ink, and with a
+succinct "Try prose," beneath it; but she was not discouraged. She had
+had one turn; she could afford to wait patiently for another, which, if
+you tried long enough and cared hard enough must come at last.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+A CHANCE TO HELP
+
+
+Eleanor Watson had gotten neither class spirit nor personal ambition
+from 19--'s "glorious old defeat," as Katherine called it. The Saturday
+afternoon of the game she had spent, greatly to the disgust of her
+friends, on the way to New York, whither she went for a Sunday with
+Caroline Barnes. Caroline's mother had been very ill, and the European
+trip was indefinitely postponed, but the family were going for a shorter
+jaunt to Bermuda. Caroline begged Eleanor to join them. "You can come as
+well as not," she urged. "You know your father would let you--he always
+does. And we sail the very first day of your vacation too."
+
+"But you stay three weeks," objected Eleanor, "and the vacation is only
+two."
+
+"What's the difference? Say you were ill and had to stay over,"
+suggested Caroline promptly.
+
+Eleanor's eyes flashed. "Once for all, Cara, please understand that's
+not my way of doing business nowadays. I should like to go, though, and
+I imagine my father wouldn't object. I'll write you if I can arrange
+it."
+
+She had quite forgotten her idle promise when, on the following Monday
+morning, she stood in the registrar's office, waiting to get a record
+card for chapel attendance in place of one she had lost. The registrar
+was busy. Eleanor waited while she discussed the pedagogical value of
+chemistry with a sophomore who had elected it, and now, after a semester
+and a half of gradually deteriorating work, wished to drop it because
+the smells made her ill.
+
+"Does the fact that we sent you a warning last week make the smells more
+unendurable?" asked the registrar suggestively, and the sophomore
+retreated in blushing confusion.
+
+Next in line was a nervous little girl who inquired breathlessly if she
+might go home right away--four days early. Some friends who were
+traveling south in their private car had telegraphed her to meet them in
+Albany and go with them to her home in Charleston.
+
+"My dear, I'm sorry," began the registrar sympathetically, "but I can't
+let you go. We're going to be very strict about this vacation. A great
+many girls went home early at Christmas, and it's no exaggeration to say
+that a quarter of the college came back late on various trivial excuses.
+This time we're not going to have that sort of thing. The girls who come
+back at all must come on time; the only valid excuse at either end of
+the vacation will be serious illness. I'm sorry."
+
+"So am I," said the little girl, with a pathetic quiver in her voice. "I
+never rode in a private car. But--it's no matter. Thank you, Miss
+Stuart."
+
+Eleanor had listened to the conversation with a curl of her lip for the
+stupid child who proffered her request in so unconvincing a manner, and
+an angry resentment against the authorities who should presume to
+dictate times and seasons. "They ought to have a system of cuts," she
+thought. "That's the only fair way. Then you can take them when you
+please, and if you cut over you know it and you do it at your peril.
+Here everything is in the air; you are never sure where you stand----"
+
+"What can I do for you, Miss Watson?" asked the registrar pleasantly.
+
+Eleanor got her chapel card and hurried home to telegraph her father for
+permission to go to Bermuda, and, as she knew exactly what his answer
+would be, to write Caroline that she might expect her. "You know I
+always take a dare," she wrote. "My cuts last semester amounted to twice
+as much as this trip will use up, and if they make a fuss I shall just
+call their attention to what they let pass last time. Please buy me a
+steamer-rug, a blue and green plaid one, and meet me at the Forty-second
+Street station at two on Friday."
+
+Betty knew nothing about Eleanor's plans, beyond what she had been able
+to gather from chance remarks of the other girls; and that was not much,
+for every time the subject came up she hastened to change it, lest some
+one should discover that Eleanor had told her nothing, and had scarcely
+spoken to her indeed for weeks. When Eleanor finally went off, without a
+sign or a word of good-bye, Betty discovered that she was dreadfully
+disappointed. She had never thought of the estrangement between them as
+anything but a temporary affair, that would blow over when Eleanor's
+mortification over the debate was forgotten. She had felt sure that long
+before the term ended there would come a chance for a reconciliation,
+and she had meant to take the chance at any sacrifice of her pride. She
+was still fond of Eleanor in spite of everything, and she was sorry for
+her too, for her quick eyes detected signs of growing unhappiness under
+Eleanor's ready smiles. Besides, she hated "schoolgirl fusses." She
+wanted to be on good terms with every girl in 19--. She wanted to come
+back to a spring term unclouded by the necessity for any of the evasions
+and subterfuges that concealment of the quarrel with Eleanor and Jean
+Eastman's strange behavior had brought upon her. And now Eleanor was
+gone; the last chance until after vacation had slipped through her
+fingers.
+
+At home she told Nan all about her troubles, first exacting a solemn
+pledge of secrecy. "Hateful thing!" said Nan promptly. "Drop her. Don't
+think about her another minute."
+
+"Then you don't think I was to blame?" asked Betty anxiously.
+
+"To blame? No, certainly not. To be sure," Nan added truthfully, "you
+were a little tactless. You knew she didn't know that you were in the
+secret of her having to resign, and you didn't intend to tell her, so it
+would have been better for you to let some one else help Miss Eastman
+out."
+
+"But I thought I was helping Eleanor out."
+
+"In a way you were. But you see it wouldn't seem so to her. It would
+look as though you disapproved of her appointment."
+
+"But Nan, she knows now that I knew."
+
+"Then I suppose she concludes that you took advantage of knowing. You
+say that it made you quite prominent for a while. You see, dear, when a
+person isn't quite on the square herself----"
+
+But Betty had burst into a storm of tears. "I am to blame," she sobbed.
+"I am to blame! I knew it, only I couldn't quite see how. Oh, what shall
+I do? What shall I do?"
+
+"Don't cry, dear," said Nan in distress, at the unprecedented sight of
+Betty in tears. "I tell you, you were not to blame. You were a little
+unwise perhaps at first, but Miss Watson has refused your apologies and
+explanations and only laughs at you when you try to talk to her about
+it. I should drop her at once and forever; but, if you are bound to
+bring her around, the only way I can think of is to look out for some
+chance to serve her and so prove your real friendship--though what sort
+of friend she can be I can't imagine."
+
+"Nan, she's just like the girl in the rhyme," said Betty seriously.
+
+    "'When she was good she was very, very good,
+    And when she was bad she was horrid.'
+
+"Eleanor is a perfect dear most of the time. And Nan, there's something
+queer about her mother. She never speaks of her, and she's been at
+boarding school for eight years now, though she's not seventeen till
+May. Think of that!"
+
+"It certainly makes her excusable for a good deal," said Nan. "How is my
+friend Helen Chase Adams coming on?"
+
+"Why Nan, she's quite blossomed out. She's really lots of fun now. But I
+had an awful time with her for a while," and she related the story of
+Helen's winter of discontent. "I suppose that was my fault too," she
+finished. "I seem to be a regular blunderer."
+
+"You're a dear little sister, all the same," declared Nan.
+
+"I say girls, come and play ping-pong," called Will from the hall below,
+and the interview ended summarily.
+
+But the memory of Eleanor Watson seemed fated to pursue Betty through
+her vacation. A few days later an old friend of Mrs. Wales, who had gone
+to Denver to live some years before and was east on a round of visits,
+came in to call. The moment she heard that Betty was at Harding, she
+inquired for Eleanor. "I'm so glad you know her," she said. "She's quite
+a protege of mine and she needs nice friends like you if ever a girl
+did. Don't mention it about college, Betty, but she's had a very sad
+life. Her mother was a strange woman--but there's no use going into
+that. She died when Eleanor was a tiny girl, and Eleanor and her brother
+Jim have been at boarding schools ever since. In the summers, though,
+they were always with their father in Denver. They worshiped him,
+particularly Eleanor, and he has always promised her that when she was
+through school he would open the old Watson mansion and she should keep
+house for him and Jim. Then last year a pretty little society girl, only
+four or five years older than Eleanor, set her cap for the judge and
+married him. Jim liked her, but Eleanor was heart-broken, and the judge,
+seeing storms ahead, I suppose, and hoping that Eleanor would get
+interested and want to finish the course, made her promise to go to
+Harding for a year. Now don't betray my confidence, Betty, and do make
+allowances for Eleanor. I hope she'll be willing to stay on at college.
+It's just what she needs. Besides, she'd be very unhappy at home, and
+her aunt in New York isn't at all the sort of person for her to live
+with."
+
+So it came about that Betty returned to college more than ever
+determined to get back upon the old footing with Eleanor, and behold,
+Eleanor was not there! The Chapin house was much excited over her
+absence, for tales of the registrar's unprecedented hardness of heart
+had gone abroad, and almost nobody else had dared to risk the mysterious
+but awful possibilities that a late return promised. As Betty was still
+supposed by most of the house to be in Eleanor's confidence, she had to
+parry question after question as to her whereabouts. To, "Did she tell
+you that she was coming back late?" she could truthfully answer "No."
+But the girls only laughed when she insisted that Eleanor must be ill.
+
+"She boasts that she's never been ill in her life," said Mary Brooks.
+
+And Adelaide Rich always added with great positiveness, "It's exactly
+like her to stay away on purpose, just to see what will happen."
+
+Unfortunately Betty could not deny this, and she was glad enough to drop
+the argument. She had too many pleasant things to do to care to waste
+time in profitless discussion. For it was spring term. Nobody but a
+Harding girl knows exactly what that means. The freshman is very likely
+to consider the much heralded event only a pretty myth, until having
+started from home on a cold, bleak day that is springtime only by the
+calendar, she arrives at Harding to find herself confronted by the
+genuine article. The sheltered situation of the town undoubtedly has
+something to do with its early springs, but the attitude of the Harding
+girl has far more. She knows that spring term is the beautiful crown of
+the college year, and she is bound that it shall be as long as possible.
+So she throws caution and her furs to the winds and dons a muslin gown,
+plans drives and picnics despite April showers, and takes twilight
+strolls regardless of lurking germs of pneumonia. The grass grows green
+perforce and the buds swell to meet her wishes, while the sun, finding a
+creature after his brave, warm heart, does his gallant best for her.
+
+"Do what little studying you intend to right away," Mary Brooks advised
+her freshmen. "Before you know it, it will be too warm to work."
+
+"But at present it's too lovely," objected Roberta.
+
+"Then join the Athletic Association and trust to luck, but above all
+join the Athletic Association. I'm on the membership committee."
+
+"Can I get into the golf club section this time?" asked Betty, who had
+been kept on the waiting list all through the fall.
+
+"Yes, you just squeeze in, and Christy Mason wants you to play round the
+course with her to-morrow."
+
+"I'm for tennis," said Katherine. "Miss Lawrence and I are going to play
+as soon as the courts are marked out. By the way, when do the
+forget-me-nots blossom?"
+
+"Has Laurie roped you into that?" asked Mary Brooks scornfully.
+
+"Don't jump at conclusions," retorted Katherine.
+
+"I didn't have to jump. The wild ones blossom about the middle of May.
+You'll have to think of something else if you want to make an immediate
+conquest of your angel. And speaking of angels," added Mary, who was
+sitting by a window, "Eleanor Watson is coming up the walk."
+
+The girls trooped out into the hall to greet Eleanor, who met them all
+with the carefully restrained cordiality that she had used toward them
+ever since the break with Betty. Yes, Bermuda had been charming, such
+skies and seas. Yes, she was just a week late--exactly. No, she had not
+seen the registrar yet, but she had heard last term that excuses weren't
+being given away by the dozen.
+
+"I met a friend of yours during vacation," began Betty timidly in the
+first pause.
+
+Eleanor turned to her unsmilingly. "Oh yes, Mrs. Payne," she said. "I
+believe she mentioned it. I saw her last night in New York." Then she
+picked up her bag and walked toward her room with the remark that late
+comers mustn't waste time.
+
+The next day at luncheon some one inquired again about her excuse.
+Eleanor shrugged her shoulders. "Oh, that's all right; you needn't be at
+all anxious. The interview wasn't even amusing. The week is to be
+counted as unexcused absence--which as far as I can see means nothing
+whatever."
+
+"You may find out differently in June," suggested Mary, nettled by
+Eleanor's superior air.
+
+"Oh, June!" said Eleanor with another shrug. "I'm leaving in June, thank
+the fates!"
+
+"Perhaps you'll change your mind after spring term. Everybody says it's
+so much nicer," chirped Helen.
+
+"Possibly," said Eleanor curtly, "but I really can't give you much
+encouragement, Miss Adams." Whereat poor Helen subsided meekly, scarcely
+raising her eyes from her plate through the rest of the meal.
+
+"Better caution your friend Eleanor not to air those sentiments of hers
+about unexcused absences too widely, or she'll get into trouble," said
+Mary Brooks to Betty on the way up-stairs; but Betty, intent on
+persuading Roberta to come down-town for an ice, paid no particular
+attention to the remark, and it was three weeks before she thought of it
+again.
+
+She found Eleanor more unapproachable than ever this term, but
+remembering Nan's suggestion she resolved to bide her time. Meanwhile
+there was no reason for not enjoying life to the utmost. Golf, boating,
+walking, tennis--there were ten ways to spend every spare minute. But
+golf usually triumphed. Betty played very well, and having made an
+excellent record in her first game with Christy, she immediately found
+herself reckoned among the enthusiasts and expected to get into trim for
+the June tournament. Some three weeks after the beginning of the term
+she went up to the club house in the late afternoon, intending to
+practice putting, which was her weak point and come home with Christy
+and Nita Reese, another golf fiend, who had spent the whole afternoon on
+the course.
+
+But on the club house piazza she found Dorothy King. Dorothy played golf
+exceedingly well, as she did everything else; but as she explained to
+Betty, "By junior year all this athletic business gets pretty much
+crowded out." She still kept her membership in the club, however, and
+played occasionally, "just to keep her hand in for the summer." She had
+done six holes this afternoon, all alone, and now she was resting a few
+moments before going home. She greeted Betty warmly. "I looked for you
+out on the course," she said, "but your little pals thought you weren't
+coming up to-day. How's your game?"
+
+"Better, thank you," said Betty, "except my putting, and I'm going to
+practice on that now. Did you know that Christy had asked me to play
+with her in the inter-class foursomes?"
+
+"That's good," said Dorothy cordially. "Do you see much of Eleanor
+Watson these days?" she added irrelevantly.
+
+"Why--no-t much," stammered Betty, blushing in spite of herself. "I see
+her at meals of course."
+
+"I thought you told me once that you were very fond of her."
+
+"Yes, I did--I am," said Betty quickly, wondering what in the world
+Dorothy was driving at.
+
+"She was down at the house last night," Dorothy went on, "blustering
+around about having come back late, saying that she'd shown what a bluff
+the whole excuse business is, and that now, after she has proved that
+it's perfectly easy to cut over at the end of a vacation, perhaps some
+of us timid little creatures will dare to follow her lead. But perhaps
+you've heard her talking about it."
+
+"I heard her say a little about it," admitted Betty, suddenly
+remembering Mary Brooks's remark. Had the "trouble" that Mary had
+foreseen anything to do with Dorothy's questions?
+
+"She's said a great deal about it in the last two weeks," went on
+Dorothy. "Last night after she left, her senior friend, Annette Cramer,
+and I had a long talk about it. We both agreed that somebody ought to
+speak to her, but I hardly know her, and Annette says that she's tried
+to talk to her about other things and finds she hasn't a particle of
+influence with her." Dorothy paused as if expecting some sort of comment
+or reply, but Betty was silent. "We both thought," said Dorothy at last,
+"that perhaps if you'd tell her she was acting very silly and doing
+herself no end of harm she might believe you and stop."
+
+"Oh, Miss King, I couldn't," said Betty in consternation. "She wouldn't
+let me--indeed she wouldn't!"
+
+"She told Annette once that she admired you more than any girl in
+college," urged Dorothy quietly, "so your opinion ought to have some
+weight with her."
+
+"She said that!" gasped Betty in pleased amazement. Then her face fell.
+"I'm sorry, Miss King, but I'm quite sure she's changed her mind. I
+couldn't speak to her; but would you tell me please just why any one
+should--why you care?"
+
+"Why, of course, it's not exactly my business," said Dorothy, "except
+that I'm on the Students' Commission, and so anything that is going
+wrong is my business. Miss Watson is certainly having a bad influence on
+the girls she knows in college, and besides, if that sort of talk gets
+to the ears of the authorities, as it's perfectly certain to do if she
+keeps on, she will be very severely reprimanded, and possibly asked to
+leave, as an insubordinate and revolutionary character. The Students'
+Commission aims to avoid all that sort of thing, when a quiet hint will
+do it. But Miss Watson seems to be unusually difficult to approach; I'm
+afraid if you can't help us out, Betty, we shall have to let the matter
+rest." She gathered up her caddy-bag. "I must get the next car. Don't do
+it unless you think best. Or if you like ask some one else. Annette and
+I couldn't think of any one, but you know better who her friends are."
+She was off across the green meadow.
+
+Betty half rose to follow, then sank back into her chair. Dorothy had
+not asked for an answer; she had dropped the matter, had left it in her
+hands to manage as she thought fit, appealing to her as a friend of
+Eleanor's, a girl whom Eleanor admired. "Whom she used to admire,"
+amended Betty with a sigh. But what could she do? A personal appeal was
+out of the question; it would effect nothing but a widening of the
+breach between them. Could Kate Denise help? She never came to see
+Eleanor now. Neither did Jean Eastman--why almost nobody did; all her
+really intimate friends seemed to have dropped away from her. And yet
+she must think of some one, for was not this the opportunity she had so
+coveted? It might be the very last one too, thought Betty. "If anything
+happened to hurt Eleanor's feelings again, she wouldn't wait till June.
+She'd go now." She considered girl after girl, but rejected them all for
+various reasons. "She wouldn't take it from any girl," she decided, and
+with that decision came an inspiration. Why not ask Ethel Hale? Ethel
+had tried to help Eleanor before, was interested in her, and understood
+something of her moody, many-sided temperament. She had put Eleanor in
+her debt too; she could urge her suggestion on the ground of a return
+favor.
+
+In an instant Betty's mind was made up. She looked ruefully at her dusty
+shoes and mussed shirt-waist. "I can't go to see Ethel in these," she
+decided, "but if I hurry home now I can dress and go right up there
+after dinner, before she gets off anywhere." The putting must wait. With
+one regretful glance out over the green, breezy course Betty started
+resolutely off toward the dusty highway and the noisy trolleys.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+AN OUNCE OF PREVENTION
+
+
+"I wish I could do it, Betty, but I'm sure it wouldn't be the least use
+for me to try. I thought I had a little hold on her for a while, but I'm
+afraid I was too sure of her. She avoids me now--goes around corners and
+into recitation rooms when she sees me coming. You see--I wonder if she
+told you about our trip to New York?"
+
+Betty nodded, wishing she dared explain the full extent of her
+information.
+
+"I thought so from your coming up here to-night. Well, as you've just
+said, she's very reserved, strangely so for a young girl; when she lets
+out anything about herself she wishes that she hadn't the next minute."
+
+"Yes, I've noticed that," admitted Betty grudgingly.
+
+"And so, having once let me get a glimpse of her better self, and then
+having decided as usual that she wished she hadn't, she needed a proof
+from me that I was worthy of her confidence. But I didn't give it; I was
+busy and let the matter drop, and now I am the last person who could go
+to her. I'm very sorry."
+
+"Oh, dear!" said Betty forlornly.
+
+"But isn't it so? Don't you agree with me?"
+
+"I'm afraid I do."
+
+"Then go back and speak to her yourself, dear. She's very fond of you,
+and I'm sure a little friendly hint from you is all that she needs."
+
+"No, I can't speak to her either, Ethel. You wouldn't suggest it if you
+knew how things are between us. But I see that you can't. Thank you just
+as much. No, I mustn't stop to-night."
+
+Betty walked down the elm-shaded street lost in thought. Eleanor had
+declaimed upon the foolishness of coming back on time after vacations
+through most of the dinner hour, and Betty understood as she had not
+that afternoon what Dorothy meant. But now her one hope had failed her;
+Ethel had shown good cause why she should not act as Eleanor's adviser
+and Betty had no idea what to do next.
+
+"Hello, Betty Wales! Christy and I thought we saw you up at the golf
+club this afternoon." Nita Reese's room overlooked the street and she
+was hanging out her front window.
+
+"I was up there," said Betty soberly, "but I had to come right back. I
+didn't play at all."
+
+"Then I should say it was a waste of good time to go up," declared Nita
+amiably. "You'd better be on hand to-morrow. The juniors are going to be
+awfully hard to beat."
+
+"I'll try," said Betty unsmilingly, and Nita withdrew her head from the
+window, wondering what could be the matter with her usually cheerful
+friend.
+
+At the corner of Meriden Place Betty hesitated. Then, noticing that Mrs.
+Chapin's piazza was full of girls, she crossed Main Street and turned
+into the campus, following the winding path that led away from the
+dwelling-houses through the apple orchard. There were seats along this
+path. Betty chose one on the crest of the hill, screened in by a clump
+of bushes and looking off toward Paradise and the hills beyond. There
+she sat down in the warm spring dusk to consider possibilities. And yet
+what was the use of bothering her head again when she had thought it all
+over in the afternoon? Arguments that she might have made to Ethel
+occurred to her now that it was too late to use them, but nothing else.
+She would go back to Dorothy, explain why she could not speak to Eleanor
+herself, and beg her to take back the responsibility which she had
+unwittingly shifted to the wrong shoulders. She would go straight off
+too. She had found an invitation to a spread at the Belden house
+scrawled on her blotting pad at dinner time, and she might as well be
+over there enjoying herself as here worrying about things she could not
+possibly help.
+
+As she got up from her seat she glanced at the hill that sloped off
+below her. It was the dust-pan coasting ground. How different it looked
+now in its spring greenery! Betty smiled at the memory of her mishap.
+How nice Eleanor had been to her then. And Miss Ferris! If only Miss
+Ferris would speak to Eleanor. "Why, perhaps she will," thought Betty,
+suddenly remembering Miss Ferris's note. "I could ask her to, anyway.
+But--she's a faculty. Well, Ethel is too, though I never thought of it."
+And Dorothy had wanted Betty's help in keeping the matter out of the
+hands of the authorities. "But this is different," Betty decided at
+last. "I'm asking them not as officials, but just as awfully nice
+people, who know what to say better than we girls do. Miss King would
+think that was all right."
+
+Without giving herself time to reconsider, Betty sped toward the Hilton
+house. All sorts of direful suppositions occurred to her while she
+waited for a maid to answer her ring. What if Miss Ferris had forgotten
+about writing the note, or had meant it for what Nan called "a polite
+nothing"? Perhaps it would be childish to speak of it anyway. Perhaps
+Miss Ferris would have other callers. If not, how should she tell her
+story?
+
+"I ought to have taken time to think," reflected Betty, as she followed
+the maid down the hall to Miss Ferris's rooms.
+
+Miss Ferris was alone; nevertheless Betty fidgeted dreadfully during the
+preliminary small-talk. Somebody would be sure to come in before she
+could get started, and she should never, never dare to come again. At
+the first suggestion of a pause she plunged into her business.
+
+"Miss Ferris, I want to ask you something, but I hated to do it, so I
+came right along as soon as I decided that I'd better, and now I don't
+know how to begin."
+
+"Just begin," advised Miss Ferris, laughing.
+
+"That is what they say to you in theme classes," said Betty, "but it
+never helped me so very much, somehow. Well, I might begin by telling
+you why I thought I could come to you."
+
+"Unless you really want to tell that you might skip it," said Miss
+Ferris, "because I don't need to be reminded that I shall always be glad
+to do anything I can for my good friend Betty Wales."
+
+"Oh, thank you! That helps a lot," said Betty gratefully, and went on
+with her story.
+
+Miss Ferris listened attentively. "Miss Watson is the girl with the
+wonderful gray eyes and the lovely dark hair. I remember. She comes down
+here a great deal to see Miss Cramer, I think. It's a pity, isn't it,
+that she hasn't great good sense to match her beauty? So you want me to
+speak to her about her very foolish attitude toward our college life.
+Suppose I shouldn't succeed in changing her mind?"
+
+"Oh, you would succeed," said Betty eagerly. "Mary Brooks says you can
+argue a person into anything."
+
+Miss Ferris laughed again. "I'm glad Miss Brooks approves of my
+argumentative ability, but are you sure that Miss Watson is the sort of
+person with whom argument is likely to count for anything? Did you ever
+know her to change her mind on a subject of this sort, because her
+friends disapproved of her?"
+
+Betty hesitated. "Yes--yes, I have. Excuse me for not going into
+particulars, Miss Ferris, but there was a thing she did when she came
+here that she never does now, because she found how others felt about
+it. Indeed, I think there are several things."
+
+Miss Ferris nodded silently. "Then why not appeal to the same people who
+influenced her before?"
+
+It was the question that Betty had been dreading, but she met it
+unflinchingly. "One of them thinks she has lost her influence, Miss
+Ferris, and another one who helped a little bit before, can't,
+because--I'm that one, Miss Ferris. I unintentionally did something last
+term that made Eleanor angry with me. It made her more dissatisfied and
+unhappy here too; so when I heard about this I felt as if I was a little
+to blame for it, and then I wanted to make up for the other time too.
+But of course it is a good deal to ask of you." Betty slid forward on to
+the edge of her chair ready to accept a hasty dismissal.
+
+Miss Ferris waited a moment. "I shall be very glad to do it," she said
+at last. "I wanted to be sure that I understood the situation and that I
+could run a chance of helping Miss Watson. I think I can, but you must
+forgive me if I make a bad matter worse. I'll ask her to have tea with
+me to-morrow. May I send a note by you?"
+
+"Of course you won't tell her that I spoke to you?" asked Betty
+anxiously, when Miss Ferris handed her the note. Miss Ferris promised
+and Betty danced out into the night. Half-way home she laughed merrily
+all to herself.
+
+"What's the joke?" said a girl suddenly appearing around the corner of
+the Main Building.
+
+"It was on me," laughed Betty, "so you can't expect me to tell you what
+it was."
+
+It had just occurred to her that, as there was no possibility of
+Eleanor's finding out her part in Miss Ferris's intervention, a
+reconciliation was as far away as ever. "She wouldn't like it if she
+should find out," thought Betty, "and perhaps it was just another
+tactless interference. Well, I'm glad I didn't think of all these things
+sooner, for I believe it was the right thing to do, and it was a lot
+easier doing it while I hoped it might bring us together, as Nan said. I
+wonder what kind of things Nan meant."
+
+She dropped the note on the hall table and slipped softly up-stairs. As
+she sat down at her desk she looked at the clock and hesitated. It was
+not so late as she had thought, only quarter of nine. There was still
+time to go back to the Belden. But after a moment's wavering Betty began
+getting out of her dress and into a kimono. Since the day of the
+basket-ball game she had honestly tried not to let the little things
+interfere with the big, nor the mere "interruptions" that were fun and
+very little more loom too large in her scale of living. "Livy to-night
+and golf to-morrow," she told the green lizard, as she sat down again
+and went resolutely to work.
+
+When Eleanor came in to dinner the next evening Betty could hardly
+conceal her excitement. Would she say anything? If she said nothing what
+would it mean? The interview had apparently not been a stormy one.
+Eleanor looked tired, but not in the least disturbed or defiant. She ate
+her dinner almost in silence, answering questions politely but briefly
+and making none of her usual effort to control and direct the
+conversation. But just as the girls were ready to leave the table she
+broke her silence. "Wait a minute," she said. "I want to ask you please
+to forget all the foolish things I said last night at dinner. I've said
+them a good many times, and I can't contradict them to every one, but I
+can here--and I want to. I've thought more about it since yesterday, and
+I see that I hadn't at all the right idea of the situation. The students
+at a college are supposed to be old enough to do the right thing about
+vacations without the attaching of any childish penalty to the wrong
+thing. But we all of us get careless; then a public sentiment must be
+created against the wrong things, like cutting over. That was what the
+registrar was trying to do. Anybody who stays over as I did makes it
+less possible to do without rules and regulations and penalties--in
+other words hurts the tone of the college, just as a man who likes to
+live in a town where there are churches but never goes to them himself,
+unfairly throws the responsibility of church-going on to the rest of the
+community. I hadn't thought of it in that way; I didn't mean to be a
+shirk, but I was one."
+
+A profound silence greeted Eleanor's argument. Mary Rich, who had been
+loud in her championship of Eleanor's sentiments the night before,
+looked angry at this sudden desertion; and Mary Brooks tried rather
+unsuccessfully not to smile. The rest were merely astonished at so
+sudden a change of mind. Finally Betty gave a little nervous cough and
+in sheer desperation began to talk. "That's a good enough argument to
+change any one's mind," she said. "Isn't it queer how many different
+views of a subject there are?"
+
+"Of some subjects," said Eleanor pointedly.
+
+It was exactly what Betty should have expected, but she couldn't help
+being a little disappointed. Eleanor had just shown herself so fine and
+downright, so willing to make all the reparation in her power for a
+course whose inconsistency had been proved to her. It was very
+disheartening to find that she cherished the old, reasonless grudge as
+warmly as ever. But if Betty had accomplished nothing for herself, she
+had done all that she hoped for Eleanor, and she tried to feel perfectly
+satisfied.
+
+"I think too much about myself, anyway," she told the green lizard, who
+was the recipient of many confidences about this time.
+
+The rest of the month sped by like the wind. As Betty thought it over
+afterward, it seemed to have been mostly golf practice and bird club.
+Roberta organized the bird club. Its object, according to her, was to
+assist Mary Brooks with her zoology by finding bird haunts and conveying
+Mary to them; its ultimate development almost wrought Mary's ruin. Mary
+had elected a certain one year course in zoology on the supposition that
+one year, general courses are usually "snaps," and the further theory
+that every well conducted student will have one "snap" on her schedule.
+These propositions worked well together until the spring term, when
+zoology 1a resolved itself into a bird-study class. Mary, who was
+near-sighted, detested bird-study, and hardly knew a crow from a
+kinglet, found life a burden, until Roberta, who loved birds and was
+only too glad to get a companion on her walks in search of them,
+organized what she picturesquely named "the Mary-bird club." Rachel and
+Adelaide immediately applied for admission, and about the time that Mary
+appropriated the forget-me-nots that Katherine had gathered for Marion
+Lawrence and wore them to a dance on the plea that they exactly matched
+her evening dress, and also decoyed Betty into betraying her connection
+with the freshman grind-book, Katherine and Betty joined. They seldom
+accompanied the club on its official walks, preferring to stroll off by
+themselves and come back with descriptions of the birds they had seen
+for Mary and Roberta to identify. Occasionally they met a friendly bird
+student who helped them with their identifications on the spot, and
+then, when Roberta was busy, they would take Mary out in search of
+"their birds," as they called them. Oddly enough they always found these
+rare species a second time, though Mary, because of her
+near-sightedness, had to be content with a casual glance at them.
+
+"But what you've seen, you've seen," she said. "I've got to see fifty
+birds before June 1st; that doesn't necessarily mean see them so you'll
+know them again. Now I shouldn't know the nestle or the shelcuff, but I
+can put them down, can't I?"
+
+"Of course," assented Katherine, "a few rare birds like those will make
+your list look like something."
+
+The pink-headed euthuma, which came to light on the very last day of
+May, interested Mary so much that she told Roberta about it immediately
+and Roberta questioned the discoverers. Their accounts were perfectly
+consistent.
+
+"Way out on Paradise path, almost to the end, we met a man dashing
+around as if he were crazy," explained Betty. "We should have thought he
+was an escaped lunatic if we hadn't seen others like him."
+
+"Yes," continued Katherine. "But he acted too much like you to take us
+in. So we said we were interested in birds too, and he danced around
+some more and said we had come upon a rare specimen. Then he pointed to
+the top of an enormous pine-tree----"
+
+"Those rare birds are always in the very tops of trees," put in Mary
+eagerly.
+
+"Of course; that's one reason they're rare," went on Betty. "But that
+minute it flew into the top of a poplar, and we three pursued it. It was
+a beauty."
+
+"And then you came back after me, and it was still there. Tell her how
+it was marked," suggested Mary. "Perhaps she knows it under some other
+name."
+
+"It had a pink head, of course," said Katherine, "and blue wings."
+
+"Goodness!" exclaimed Roberta suspiciously.
+
+"Don't you mean black wings, Katherine?" asked Betty hastily.
+
+"Did I say blue? I meant black of course. Mary thought they looked blue
+and that confused me. And its breast was white with brown marks on it."
+
+"What size was it?" asked Roberta.
+
+Katherine looked doubtful. "What should you say, Mary?"
+
+"Well, it was quite small--about the size of a sparrow or a robin, I
+thought."
+
+"They're quite different sizes," said Roberta wearily. "Your old man
+must have been color-blind. It couldn't have had a pink head. Who ever
+heard of a pink-headed bird?"
+
+"We three are not color-blind," Katherine reminded her. "And then
+there's the name." Roberta sighed deeply. The new members of the
+Mary-bird club were very unmanageable.
+
+Meanwhile Mary was industriously counting the names on her list, which
+must be handed in the next day. "I think I'd better put the euthuma
+down, Roberta," she said finally. "We saw it all right. They won't look
+the list over very carefully, but they will notice how many birds are on
+it, and even with the pink-headed euthuma I haven't but forty-five. I
+rather wish now that I'd bought a text-book, but I thought it was a
+waste of money when you knew all about the birds, and it would certainly
+be a waste of money now."
+
+"Oh, yes," said Roberta. "If only the library hadn't wanted its copy
+back quite so soon!"
+
+"It was disagreeable of them, wasn't it?" said Mary cheerfully, copying
+away on her list. "You were going to look up the nestle too. Girls, did
+we hear the nestle sing?"
+
+"It whistled like a blue jay," said Katherine promptly.
+
+"It couldn't," protested Roberta. "You said it was only six inches
+long."
+
+"On the plan of a blue jay's call, but smaller, Roberta," explained
+Betty pacifically.
+
+"Well, it's funny that you can never find any of these birds when I'm
+with you," said Roberta.
+
+Katherine looked scornful. "We were mighty lucky to see them even twice,
+I think," she retorted.
+
+Next day Mary came home from zoology 1a, which to add to its other
+unpleasant features met in the afternoon, wearing the air of a martyr to
+circumstance. Roberta, Katherine and Betty happened to be sitting on the
+piazza translating Livy together. "Girls," she demanded, as she came up
+the steps, "if I get you the box of Huyler's that Mr. Burgess sent me
+will you tell me the truth about those birds?"
+
+"She had the lists read in class!" shouted Katherine.
+
+"I knew it!" said Roberta in tragic tones.
+
+"Did you tell her about the shelcuff's neck?" inquired Betty.
+
+Mary sat down on the piazza railing with her feet cushioned on a
+lexicon. "I told her all about the shelcuff," she said, "likewise the
+euthuma and the nestle. What is more, the head of the zoology department
+was visiting the class, so I also told him, and when I stayed to explain
+he stayed too, and--oh, you little wretches!"
+
+"Not at all," said Katherine. "We waited until you'd made a reputation
+for cleverness and been taken into a society. I think we were
+considerateness itself."
+
+Roberta was gazing sadly at Mary. "Why did you try all those queer
+ones?" she asked. "You knew I wasn't sure of them."
+
+"I had to, my dear. She asked us for the rare names on our lists. I was
+the third one she came to, and the others had floundered around and told
+about birds I'd never heard of. I didn't really know which of mine were
+rare, because I'd never seen any of them but once, you know, and I was
+afraid I should strike something that was a good deal commoner than a
+robin, and then it would be all up with me. So I boldly read off these
+three, because I was sure they were rare. You should have seen her face
+when I got to the pink-headed one," said Mary, beginning suddenly to
+appreciate the humor of the situation. "Did you invent them?"
+
+"Only the names," said Betty, "and the stories about finding them. I
+thought of nestle, and Katherine made up the others. Aren't they lovely
+names, Roberta?"
+
+"Yes," said Roberta, "but think of the fix Mary is in."
+
+Mary smiled serenely. "Don't worry, Roberta," she said. "The names were
+so lovely and the shelcuff's neck and the note of the nestle and all,
+and I am honestly so near-sighted, that I don't think Miss Carter will
+have the heart to condition me. But girls, where did you get the
+descriptions? Professor Lawrence particularly wanted to know."
+
+Betty looked at Katherine and the two burst into peals of laughter.
+"Mary Brooks, you invented most of those yourself," explained Katherine,
+when she could speak. "We just showed you the first bird we happened to
+see and told you its new name and you'd say, 'Why it has a green crest
+and yellow wings!' or 'How funny its neck is! It must have a pouch.' All
+we had to do was to encourage you a little."
+
+"And suppress you a little when you put colors like pink and blue into
+the same bird," continued Betty, "so Roberta wouldn't get too
+suspicious."
+
+"Then those birds were just common, ordinary ones that I'd seen before?"
+
+"Exactly. The nestle was a blue jay, and the euthuma was a sparrow. We
+couldn't see what the shelcuff was ourselves, the tree was so tall.
+
+    "'The primrose by a river's brim,
+    A yellow primrose was to him,
+    And it was nothing more.'"
+
+quoted Mary blithely. "You can never put that on my tombstone."
+
+"Better tell your friend Dr. Hinsdale about your vivid ornithological
+imagination," suggested Katherine. "It might interest him."
+
+"Oh, I shall," said Mary easily. "But to-night, young ladies, you will
+be pleased to learn that I am invited up to Professor Lawrence's to
+dinner, so that I can see his bird skins. Incidentally I shall meet his
+fascinating brother. In about ten minutes I shall want to be hooked up,
+Roberta."
+
+"She's one too many for us, isn't she?" said Katherine, as Mary went
+gaily off, followed by the devoted Roberta, declaring in loud tones that
+the Mary-bird club was dissolved.
+
+"I wish things that go wrong didn't bother me any more than they do
+her," said Betty wistfully.
+
+"Cheer up," urged Katherine, giving her a bearish hug. "You'll win in
+the golf again to-morrow, and everything will come out all right in the
+end."
+
+"Everything? What do you mean?" inquired Betty sharply.
+
+"Why, singles and doubles--twosomes and foursomes you call them, don't
+you? They'll all come out right."
+
+A moment later Katherine burst in upon her long-suffering roommate with
+a vehemence that made every cup on the tea-table rattle. "I almost let
+her know what we thought," she said, "but I guess I smoothed it over. Do
+you suppose Eleanor Watson isn't going to make up with her at all?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+INTO PARADISE--AND OUT
+
+
+It was a glorious summer twilight. The air was sweet with the odor of
+lilacs and honeysuckle. One by one the stars shone softly out in the
+velvet sky, across which troops of swallows swooped and darted,
+twittering softly on the wing. Near the western horizon the golden glow
+of sunset still lingered. It was a night for poets to sing of, a night
+to revel in and to remember; but it was assuredly not a night for study.
+Gaslight heated one's room to the boiling point. Closed windows meant
+suffocation; open ones--since there are no screens in the Harding
+boarding house--let in troops of fluttering moths and burly June-bugs.
+
+"And the moral of that is, work while it is yet light," proclaimed Mary
+Brooks, ringing her bicycle bell suggestively.
+
+There was a sudden commotion on the piazza and then Betty's clear voice
+rose above the tumult. "We won it, one up! Isn't that fine? Oh no, not
+the singles; we go on with them to-morrow, but I can't possibly win. Oh,
+I'm so hot!"
+
+Eleanor Watson smiled grimly as these speeches floated up to her from
+below. She had been lounging all the breathless afternoon, trying vainly
+to get rid of a headache; and the next day's lessons were still to be
+learned.
+
+"Ouch, how I hate June-bugs," she muttered, stopping for the fifth time
+in as many minutes to drive out a buzzing intruder. She had just gotten
+one out when another flew straight at her unperceived and tangled
+himself in her hair. That was the limit of endurance. With one swift
+movement Eleanor turned off the gas, with another she pulled down her
+hair and released the prisoned beetle. Then she twisted up the soft coil
+again in the dark and went out into the sweet spring dusk.
+
+At the next corner she gave an angry little exclamation and turned back
+toward the house. The girls had deserted the piazza before she came
+down, and now the only light seemed to be in Betty's room. Every window
+there was shut, so it was no use to call. Eleanor climbed the stairs and
+knocked. Katherine and Betty were just starting for a trolley ride, to
+cool off the champion, Katherine explained; but Helen was going to be in
+all the evening.
+
+"I pity you from the bottom of my heart," said Eleanor, "but if you are
+really going to be here would you tell Lil Day when she comes that I
+have an awful headache and have gone off--that I'll see her to-morrow. I
+could go down there, but if she's in, her room will be fuller of
+June-bugs than mine. Hear them slam against that glass!" She turned to
+Betty stiffly. "I congratulate you on your victory," she said.
+
+"Oh thank you!" answered Betty eagerly. "Christy did most of it.
+Would--won't you come out with us?"
+
+"No, thank you. I feel like being all alone. I'm going down for a
+twilight row on Paradise."
+
+"You'll get malaria," said Katherine.
+
+"You'll catch cold, too, in that thin dress," added Helen.
+
+"I don't mind, if only I don't see any June-bugs," answered Eleanor, "or
+any girls," she added under her breath, when she had gained the lower
+hall.
+
+The quickest way to Paradise was through the campus, but Eleanor chose
+an unfrequented back street, too ugly to attract the parties of girls
+who swarmed over the college grounds, looking like huge white moths as
+they flitted about under the trees. She walked rapidly, trying to escape
+thought in activity; but the thoughts ill-naturedly kept pace with her.
+As everybody who came in contact with Eleanor Watson was sure to remark,
+she was a girl brimful of strong possibilities both for good and evil;
+and to-night these were all awake and warring. Her year of bondage at
+college was nearly over. Only the day before she had received a letter
+from Judge Watson, coldly courteous, like all his epistles to his
+rebellious daughter, inquiring if it was her wish to return to Harding
+another year, and in the same mail had come an invitation from her aunt,
+asking her to spend the following winter in New York. Eleanor shrewdly
+guessed that in spite of her father's disapproval of his sister's
+careless frivolity, he would allow her to accept this invitation, for
+the obvious relief it would bring to himself and the second Mrs. Watson.
+He was fond of her, that she did not for a moment question, and he
+honestly wished her best good; but he did not want her in his house in
+her present mood.
+
+"For which I don't in the least blame him," thought Eleanor.
+
+She had started to answer his letter immediately, as he had wished, and
+then had hesitated and delayed, so that the decision involved in her
+reply was still before her. And yet why should she hesitate? She did not
+like Harding college; she had kept the letter of her agreement to stay
+there for one year; surely she was free now to do as she
+pleased--indeed, her father had said as much. But what did she
+please--that was a point that, unaccountably, she could not settle.
+Lately something had changed her attitude toward the life at Harding.
+Perhaps it was the afternoon with Miss Ferris, with the perception it
+had brought of aims and ideals as foreign to the ambitious schemes with
+which she had begun the year as to the angry indifference in which she
+was finishing it. Perhaps, as poor Helen had suggested, it was the
+melting loveliness of spring term. At any rate, as she heard the girls
+making their plans for the next year, squabbling amiably over the merits
+of the various campus houses, choosing roommates, bargaining for
+furniture, even securing partners for the commencement festivities still
+three years off, an unexplainable longing to stay on and finish the four
+years' drama with the rest had seized upon Eleanor. But each time it
+came she had stifled it, reminding herself sternly that for her the four
+years held no pleasant possibilities; she had thrown away her
+chance--had neglected her work, alienated her friends, disappointed
+every one, and most of all herself. There was nothing left for her now
+but to go away beaten--not outwardly, for she still flattered herself
+that she had proved both to students and faculty her ability to make a
+very brilliant record at Harding had she been so inclined, and even her
+superiority to the drudgery of the routine work and the childish
+recreations. But in her heart of hearts Eleanor knew that this very
+disinclination to make the most of her opportunities, this fancied
+superiority to requirements that jarred on her undisciplined, haphazard
+training, was failure far more absolute and inexcusable than if dulness
+or any other sort of real inability to meet the requirements of the
+college life had been at the bottom of it. Her father would know it too,
+if the matter ever came to his notice; and her brother Jim, who was
+making such a splendid record at Cornell--he would know that, as Betty
+Wales had said once, quoting her sister's friend, "Every nice girl likes
+college, though each has a different reason." Well, Jim had thought for
+two years that she was a failure. Eleanor gulped hard to keep back the
+tears; she had meant to be everything to Jim, and she was only an
+annoyance.
+
+It was almost dark by the time she reached the landing. A noisy crowd of
+girls, who had evidently been out with their supper, were just coming
+in. They exclaimed in astonishment when her canoe shot out from the
+boat-house.
+
+"It's awfully hard to see your way," called one officious damsel.
+
+"I can see in the dark like an owl," sang back Eleanor, her good-humor
+restored the instant her paddle touched water,--for boating was her one
+passion.
+
+Ah, but it was lovely on the river! She glided around the point of an
+island and was alone at last, with the stars, the soft, grape-scented
+breezes, and the dark water. She pulled up the stream with long, swift
+strokes, and then, where the trees hung low over the still water, she
+dropped the paddle, and slipping into the bottom of the canoe, leaned
+back against a cushioned seat and drank in the beauty of the darkness
+and solitude. She had never been out on Paradise River at night. "And I
+shall never come again except at night," she resolved, breathing deep of
+the damp, soft air. Malaria--who cared for that? And when she was cold
+she could paddle a little and be warm again in a moment.
+
+Suddenly she heard voices and saw two shapes moving slowly along the
+path on the bank.
+
+"Oh, do hurry, Margaret," said one. "I told her I'd be there by eight.
+Besides, it's awfully dark and creepy here."
+
+"I tell you I can't hurry, Lil," returned the other. "I turned my ankle
+terribly back there, and I must sit down and rest, creeps or no creeps."
+
+"Oh, very well," agreed the other voice grudgingly, and the shapes sank
+down on a knoll close to the water's edge.
+
+Eleanor had recognized them instantly; they were her sophomore friend,
+Lilian Day, and Margaret Payson, a junior whom Eleanor greatly admired.
+Her first impulse was to call out and offer to take the girls back in
+her canoe. Then she remembered that the little craft would hold only two
+with safety, that the girls would perhaps be startled if she spoke to
+them, and also that she had come down to Paradise largely to escape
+Lil's importunate demands that she spend a month of her vacation at the
+Day camp in the Adirondacks. So, certain that they would never notice
+her in the darkness and the thick shadows, she lay still in the bottom
+of her boat and waited for them to go on.
+
+"It's a pity about her, isn't it?" said Miss Payson, after she had
+rubbed her ankle for a while in silence.
+
+"About whom?" inquired Lilian crossly.
+
+"Why, Eleanor Watson; you just spoke of having an engagement with her.
+She seems to have been a general failure here."
+
+Eleanor started at the sound of her own name, then lay tense and rigid,
+waiting for Lilian's answer. She knew it was not honorable to listen,
+and she certainly did not care to do so; but if she cried out now, after
+having kept silent so long, Lilian, who was absurdly nervous in the
+dark, might be seriously frightened. Perhaps she would disagree and
+change the subject. But no----
+
+"Yes, a complete failure," repeated Lilian distinctly. "Isn't it queer?
+She's really very clever, you know, and awfully amusing, besides being
+so amazingly beautiful. But there is a little footless streak of
+contrariness in her--we noticed it at boarding-school,--and it seems to
+have completely spoiled her."
+
+"It is queer, if she is all that you say. Perhaps next year she'll
+be----"
+
+"Oh, she isn't coming back next year," broke in Lilian. "She hates it
+here, you know, and she sees that she's made a mess of it, too, though
+she wouldn't admit it in a torture chamber. She thinks she has shown
+that college is beneath her talents, I suppose."
+
+"Little goose! Is she so talented?"
+
+"Yes, indeed. She sings beautifully and plays the guitar rather
+well--she'd surely have made one of the musical clubs next year--and she
+can act, and write clever little stories. Oh, she'd have walked into
+everything going all right, if she hadn't been such a goose--muddled her
+work and been generally offish and horrid."
+
+"Too bad," said Miss Payson, rising with a groan. "Who do you think are
+the bright and shining stars among the freshmen, Lil?"
+
+"Why Marion Lustig for literary ability, of course, and Emily Davis for
+stunts and Christy Mason for general all-around fineness, and
+socially--oh, let me think--the B's, I should say, and--I forget her
+name--the little girl that Dottie King is so fond of. Here, take my arm,
+Margaret. You've got to get home some way, you know."
+
+Their voices trailed off into murmurs that grew fainter and fainter
+until the silence of the river and the wood was again unbroken. Eleanor
+sat up stiffly and stretched her arms above her head in sheer physical
+relief after the strain of utter stillness. Then, with a little sobbing
+cry, she leaned forward, bowing her head in her hands. Paradise--had
+they named it so because one ate there of the fruit of the tree of
+knowledge?
+
+"A little footless streak!"
+
+"An utter failure!"
+
+What did it matter? She had known it all before. She had said those very
+words herself. But she had thought--she had been sure that other people
+did not understand it that way. Well, perhaps most people did not. No,
+that was nonsense. Lilian Day had achieved a position of prominence in
+her class purely through a remarkable alertness to public sentiment.
+Margaret Payson, a girl of a very different and much finer type, stood
+for the best of that sentiment. Eleanor had often admired her for her
+clear-sightedness and good judgment. They had said unhesitatingly that
+she was a failure; then the college thought so. Well, it was Jean
+Eastman's fault then, and Caroline's, and Betty Wales's. Nonsense! it
+was her own. Should she go off in June and leave her name spelling
+failure behind her? Or should she come back and somehow change the
+failure to success? Could she?
+
+She had no idea how long she sat there, turning the matter over in her
+mind, viewing it this way and that, considering what she could do if she
+came back, veering between a desire to go away and forget it all in the
+gay bustle of a New York winter, and the fierce revolt of the famous
+Watson pride, that found any amount of effort preferable to open and
+acknowledged defeat. But it must have been a long time, for when she
+pulled herself on to her seat and caught up the paddle, she was
+shivering with cold and her thin dress was dripping wet with the mist
+that lay thick over the river. Slowly she felt her way down-stream,
+pushing through the bank of fog, often running in shore in spite of her
+caution, and fearful every moment of striking a hidden rock or snag.
+Soft rustlings in the wood, strange plashings in the stream startled
+her. Lower down was the bewildering net-work of islands. Surely there
+were never so many before. Was the boat-house straight across from the
+last island, or a little down-stream? Which was straight across? And
+where was the last island? She had missed it somehow in the mist. She
+was below it, out in the wide mill-pond. Somewhere on the other side was
+the boat-house, and further down was a dam. Down-stream must be straight
+to the left. All at once the roar of the descending water sounded in
+Eleanor's ears, and to her horror it did not come from the left. But
+when she tried to tell from which direction it did come, she could not
+decide; it seemed to reverberate from all sides at once; it was
+perilously near and it grew louder and more terrible every moment.
+
+Suddenly a fierce, unreasoning fear took possession of Eleanor. She told
+herself sternly that there was no danger; the current in Paradise River
+was not so strong but that a good paddler could stem it with ease. In a
+moment the mist would lift and she could see the outline of one shore or
+the other. But the mist did not lift; instead it grew denser and more
+stifling, and although she turned her canoe this way and that and
+paddled with all her strength, the roar from the dam grew steadily to an
+ominous thunder. Then she remembered a gruesome legend that hung about
+the dam and the foaming pool in the shadow of the old mill far below,
+and dropped her paddle in an agony of fear. She might hurry herself over
+the dam in striving to escape it!
+
+And still the deafening torrent pounded in her ears. If only she could
+get away from it--somewhere--anywhere just to be quiet. Would it be
+quiet in the pool by the mill? Eleanor slipped unsteadily into the
+bottom of her boat and tried to peer through the darkness at the black
+water, and to feel about with her hands for the current. As she did so,
+a bell rang up on the campus. It must be twenty minutes to ten. Eleanor
+gave a harsh, mirthless laugh. How stupid she had been! She would call,
+of course. If she could hear their bell, they could hear her voice and
+come for her. There would be an awkward moment of explanation, but what
+of that?
+
+"Hallo! Hallo--o-o!" she called. Only the boom of the water answered.
+
+"Hallo! Hallo--o-o!"
+
+Again the boom of the water swallowed her cry and drowned it.
+
+It was no use to call,--only a waste of strength.
+
+Eleanor caught up her paddle and began to back water with all her might.
+That was what she should have done from the first, of course. She was
+cold all at once and very tired, but she would not give up yet.
+
+She had quite forgotten that only a little while before it had not
+seemed to matter much what became of her. "But if I can't keep at it all
+night----" she said to the mist and the river.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+A LAST CHANCE
+
+
+Helen's choice of closed windows in preference to invading companies of
+moths and June-bugs had made the room so insufferably warm that between
+heat and excitement Betty could not get to sleep. Instead she tossed
+restlessly about on her narrow couch, listening to the banging of the
+trolleys at the next corner and wishing she were still sitting on the
+breezy front seat, as the car dashed down the long hill toward the
+station. At length she slipped softly out of bed and opened the door.
+Perhaps the breeze would come in better then. As she stood for a moment
+testing the result of her experiment, she noticed with surprise that
+Eleanor's door was likewise open. This simple fact astonished her,
+because she remembered that on the hottest nights last fall Eleanor had
+persisted in shutting and locking her door. She had acquired the habit
+from living so much in hotels, she said; she could never go to sleep at
+all so long as her door was unfastened. "Perhaps it's all right,"
+thought Betty, "but it looks queer. I believe I'll just see if she's in
+bed." So she crept softly across the hall and looked into Eleanor's
+room. It was empty, and the couch was in its daytime dress, covered with
+an oriental spread and piled high with pillows. "I suppose she stopped
+on the campus and got belated," was Betty's first idea. "But no, she
+couldn't stay down there all night, and it's long after ten. It must be
+half past eleven. I'll--I'd better consult--Katherine."
+
+She chose Katherine instead of Rachel, because she had heard Eleanor
+speak about going to Paradise, and so could best help to decide whether
+it was reasonable to suppose that she was still there. Rachel was
+steadier and more dependable, but Katherine was resourceful and
+quick-witted. Besides, she was not a bit afraid of the dark.
+
+She was sound asleep, but Betty managed to wake her and get her into the
+hall without disturbing any one else.
+
+"Goodness!" exclaimed Katherine, when she heard the news. "You don't
+think----"
+
+"I think she's lost in Paradise. It must have been pitch dark down there
+under the trees even before she got started, and you know she hasn't any
+sense of direction. Don't you remember her laughing about getting turned
+around every time she went to New York?"
+
+"Yes, but it doesn't seem possible to get lost on that little pond."
+
+"It's bigger than it looks," said Betty, "and there is the mist, too, to
+confuse her."
+
+"I hadn't thought of that. Does she know how to manage a boat?"
+
+"Yes, capitally," said Betty in so frightened a voice that Katherine
+dropped the subject.
+
+"She's lost up stream somewhere and afraid to move for fear of hitting a
+rock," she said easily. "Or perhaps she's right out in the pond by the
+boat-house and doesn't dare to cross because she might go too far down
+toward the dam. We can find her all right, I guess."
+
+"Then you'll come?" said Betty eagerly.
+
+"Why, of course. You weren't thinking of going alone, were you?"
+
+"I thought maybe you'd think it was silly for any one to go. I suppose
+she might be at one of the campus houses."
+
+"She might, but I doubt it," said Katherine. "She was painfully intent
+on solitude when she left here. Now don't fuss too long about dressing."
+
+Without a word Betty sped off to her room. She was just pulling a
+rain-coat over a very meagre toilet when Katherine put her head in at
+the door. "Bring matches," she said in a sepulchral whisper. Betty
+emptied the contents of her match-box into her ulster pocket, threw a
+cape over her arm for Eleanor, and followed Katherine cat-footed down
+the stairs. In the lower hall they stopped for a brief consultation.
+
+"Ought we to tell Mrs. Chapin?" asked Betty doubtfully.
+
+"Eleanor will hate us forever if we do," said Katherine, "and I don't
+see any special advantage in it. If we don't find her, Mrs. Chapin
+can't. We might tell Rachel though, in case we were missed."
+
+"Or we might leave a note where she would find it," suggested Betty.
+"Then if we weren't missed no one need know."
+
+"All right. You can go more quietly; I'll wait here." Katherine sank
+down on the lowest stair, while Betty flew back to scribble a note which
+she laid on Rachel's pillow. Then the relief expedition started.
+
+It was very strange being out so late. Before ten o'clock a girl may go
+anywhere in Harding, but after ten the streets are deserted and
+dreadful. Betty shivered and clung close to Katherine, who marched
+boldly along, declaring that it was much nicer outdoors than in, and
+that midnight was certainly the top of the evening for a walk.
+
+"And if we find her way up the river we can all camp out for the night,"
+she suggested jovially.
+
+"But if we don't find her?"
+
+Katherine, who had noticed Betty's growing nervousness, refused to
+entertain the possibility.
+
+"We shall," she said.
+
+"But if we don't?" persisted Betty.
+
+"Then I suppose we shall have to tell somebody who--who could--why, hunt
+for her more thoroughly," stammered Katherine. "Or possibly we'd better
+wait till morning and make sure that she didn't stay all night with Miss
+Day. But if we don't find her, there will be plenty of time to discuss
+that."
+
+At the campus gateway the girls hesitated.
+
+"Suppose we should meet the night-watchman?" said Betty anxiously.
+"Would he arrest us?"
+
+Katherine laughed at her fears. "I was only wondering if we hadn't
+better take the path through the orchard. If we go down by the
+dwelling-houses we might meet him, of course, and it would be awkward
+getting rid of him if he has an ordinary amount of curiosity."
+
+"But that path is spooky dark," objected Betty.
+
+"Not so dark as the street behind the campus," said Katherine decidedly,
+"and that's the only alternative. Come on."
+
+When they had almost reached the back limit of the campus Katherine
+halted suddenly. Betty clutched her in terror. "Do you see any one?" she
+whispered. Katherine put an arm around her frightened little comrade.
+"Not a person," she said reassuringly, "not even the ghost of my
+grandmother. I was just wondering, Betty, if you'd care to go ahead down
+to the landing and call, while I waited up by the road. Eleanor is such
+a proud thing; she'll hate dreadfully to be caught in this fix, and I
+know she'd rather have you come to find her than me or both of us. But
+perhaps you'd rather not go ahead. It is pretty dark down there."
+
+Betty lifted her face from Katherine's shoulder and looked at the black
+darkness that was the road and the river bank, and below it to the pond
+that glistened here and there where the starlight fell on its cloak of
+mist.
+
+"Of course," said Katherine after a moment's silence, "we can keep
+together just as well as not, as far as I am concerned. I only thought
+that perhaps, since this was your plan and you are so fond of
+Eleanor--oh well, I just thought you might like to have the fun of
+rescuing her," finished Katherine desperately.
+
+"Do you mean for me to go ahead and call, and if Eleanor answers not to
+say anything to her about your having come?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then how would you get home?"
+
+"Oh, walk along behind you, just out of sight."
+
+"Wouldn't you be afraid?"
+
+"Hardly."
+
+"But I should be taking the credit for something I hadn't done."
+
+"And Eleanor would be the happier thereby and none of the rest of the
+world would be affected either way."
+
+Betty looked at the pond again and then gave Katherine a soft little
+hug. "Katherine Kittredge, you're an old dear," she said, "and if you
+really don't mind, I'll go ahead; but if she asks me how I dared to come
+alone or says anything about how I got here, I shall tell her that you
+were with me."
+
+"All right, but I fancy she won't be thinking about that. The matches
+are so she can see her way to you. It's awfully hard to follow a sound
+across the water, but if you light one match after another she can get
+to you before the supply gives out, if she's anywhere near. Don't light
+any till she answers. If she doesn't answer, I'll come down to you and
+we'll walk on up the river a little way and find her there."
+
+"Yes," said Betty. "Where shall you stay?"
+
+"Oh, right under this tree, I guess," answered Katherine carelessly.
+
+"Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye."
+
+When Betty had fairly gone, doubts began to assail Katherine, as they
+have a habit of assailing impulsive people, after it is too late to pay
+heed to them. It occurred to her that she was cooperating in what might
+easily turn out to be a desperate adventure, and that it would have been
+the part of wisdom to enlist the services of more competent and better
+equipped searchers at once, without risking delay on the slender chance
+of finding Eleanor near the wharf. "Eleanor would have hated the
+publicity, but if she wants to come up here in the dark and frighten us
+all into hysteria she must take the consequences. And I'd have let her
+too, if it hadn't been for Betty."
+
+An owl hooted, and Katherine jumped as nervously as Betty would have
+done. Poor Betty! She must be almost at the landing by this time. At
+that very moment a little quavering voice rang out over the water.
+
+"Eleanor! Eleanor Watson! Eleanor! Oh, Eleanor, where are you?"
+
+For a long moment there was silence. Then the owl hooted again. That was
+too much. Katherine jumped up with a bound and started down the bank
+toward Betty. She did not stop to find the path, and at the second step
+caught her foot and fell headlong. Apparently Betty did not hear her.
+She had not yet given up hope, for she was calling again, pausing each
+time to listen for the answer that did not come.
+
+"Oh, Eleanor, Eleanor, aren't you there?" she cried and stopped, even
+the courage of despair gone at last. Katherine, nursing a bruised knee
+on the hill above, had opened her mouth to call encouragement, when a
+low "Who is it?" floated across the water.
+
+"Eleanor, is that you? It's I--Betty Wales!" shrieked Betty.
+
+Katherine nodded her head in silent token of "I told you so," and slid
+back among the bushes to recuperate and await developments.
+
+For the end was not yet. Eleanor was evidently far down toward the dam,
+close to the opposite bank. It was hard for her to hear Betty, and still
+harder for Betty to hear her. Her voice sounded faint and far off, and
+she seemed to be paralyzed with fear and quite incapable of further
+effort. When Betty begged her to paddle right across and began lighting
+matches in reckless profusion to show her the way, Eleanor simply
+repeated, "I can't, I can't," in dull, dispirited monotone.
+
+"Shall--I--come--for--you?" shouted Betty.
+
+"You can't," returned Eleanor again.
+
+"Non--sense!" shrieked Betty and then stood still on the wharf,
+apparently weighing Eleanor's last opinion.
+
+"Go ahead," called Katherine in muffled tones from above.
+
+Betty did not answer.
+
+"Thinks I'm another owl, I suppose," muttered Katherine, and limped down
+the bank to the wharf, frightening the nervous, overwrought Betty almost
+out of her wits at first, and then vastly relieving her by taking the
+entire direction of affairs into her own competent hands.
+
+"You go right ahead. It's the only way, and it's perfectly easy in a
+heavy boat. That canoe might possibly go down with the current, but a
+big boat wouldn't. Rachel and I tried it last week, when the river was
+higher. Now cross straight over and feel along the bank until you get to
+her. Then beach the canoe and come back the same way. Give me some
+matches. I'll manage that part of it and then retire,--unless you'd
+rather be the one to wait here."
+
+"No, I'll go," answered Betty eagerly, vanishing into the boat-house
+after a pair of oars.
+
+"She must be hanging on to something on shore," went on Katherine, when
+Betty reappeared, "and she's lost her nerve and doesn't dare to let go.
+If you can't get her into your boat, I'll come; but somebody really
+ought to stay here. I had no idea the fog was so thick. Hurry now and
+cross straight over. You're sure you're not afraid?"
+
+"Quite sure." Betty was off, splashing her oars nervously through the
+still water, wrapped in the mist, whispering over and over Katherine's
+last words, "Hurry and go straight. Hurry, hurry, go straight across."
+
+When she reached the other shore she called again to Eleanor, and the
+sobbing cry of relief that answered her made all the strain and effort
+seem as nothing. Cautiously creeping along the bank where the river was
+comparatively quiet, backing water now and then to test her strength
+with the current, she finally reached Eleanor, who had happened quite by
+chance to run near the bank and now sat in the frail canoe hanging by
+both hands to a branch that swept low over the water, exactly as
+Katherine had guessed.
+
+"Why didn't you beach the canoe, and stay on shore?" asked Betty, who
+had tied her own boat just above and was now up to her knees in the
+water, pulling Eleanor in.
+
+"I tried to, but I lost my paddle, and so I was afraid to let go the
+tree again, and the water looked so deep. Oh, Betty, Betty!"
+
+Eleanor sank down on the bank, sobbing as if her heart would break.
+Betty patted her arm in silence, and in a few moments she stood up,
+quieted. "You're going to take me back?" she asked.
+
+"Of course," said Betty, cheerfully, leading the way to her boat.
+
+"Please wait a minute," commanded Eleanor.
+
+Betty trembled. "She's going to say she won't go back with me," she
+thought. "Please let me do it, Eleanor," she begged.
+
+"Yes," said Eleanor, quickly, "but first I want to say something. I've
+been a hateful, horrid thing, Betty. I've believed unkind stories and
+done no end of mean things, and I deserve all that I've had to-night,
+except your coming after me. I've been ashamed of myself for months,
+only I wouldn't say so. I know you can never want me for a friend again,
+after all my meanness; but Betty, say that you won't let it hurt
+you--that you'll try to forget all about it."
+
+Betty put a wet arm around Eleanor's neck and kissed her cheek softly.
+"You weren't to blame," she said. "It was all a mistake and my horrid
+carelessness. Of course I want you for a friend. I want it more than
+anything else. And now don't say another word about it, but just get
+into the boat and come home."
+
+They hardly spoke during the return passage; Eleanor was worn out with
+all she had gone through, and Betty was busy rowing and watching for
+Katherine's matches, which made tiny, glimmering dots of light in the
+gloom. Eleanor did not seem to notice them, nor the shadowy figure that
+vanished around the boat-house just before they reached the wharf.
+
+From her appointed station under the pine-tree Katherine heard the
+grinding of the boat on the gravel, the rattle of oars thrown down on
+the wharf, and then a low murmur of conversation that did not start up
+the hill toward her, as she had expected.
+
+"Innocents!" sighed Katherine. "They're actually stopping to talk it out
+down there in the wet. I'm glad they've made it up, and I'd do anything
+in reason for Betty Wales, but I certainly am sleepy," and she yawned so
+loud that a blue jay that was roosting in the tree above her head
+fluttered up to a higher branch, screaming angrily.
+
+"The note of the nestle," laughed Katherine, and yawned again.
+
+Down on the wharf Betty and Eleanor were curled up close together in an
+indiscriminate, happy tangle of rain-coat, golf-cape, and very drabbled
+muslin, holding a conversation that neither would ever forget. Yet it
+was perfectly commonplace; Harding girls are not given to the expression
+of their deeper emotions, though it must not therefore be inferred that
+they do not have any to express.
+
+"Oh, Betty, you can't imagine how dreadful it was out there!" Eleanor
+was saying. "And I thought I should have to stay all night, of course.
+How did you know I hadn't come in?"
+
+Betty explained.
+
+"I don't see why you bothered," said Eleanor. "I'm sure I shouldn't
+have, for any one as horrid as I've been. Oh, Betty, will you truly
+forgive me?"
+
+"Don't say that. I've wanted to do something that would make you forgive
+me."
+
+"Oh, I know you have," broke in Eleanor quickly. "Miss Ferris told me."
+
+"She did!" interrupted Betty in her turn. "Why, she promised not to."
+
+"Yes, but I asked her. It seemed to me queer that she should have taken
+such an interest in me, and all of a sudden it flashed over me, as I sat
+talking to her, that you were at the bottom of it. So I said, 'Miss
+Ferris, Betty Wales asked you to say this to me,' and she said, 'Yes,
+but she also asked me not to mention her having done so.' I was ashamed
+enough then, for she'd made me see pretty plainly how badly I needed
+looking after, but I was bound I wouldn't give in. Oh, Betty, haven't I
+been silly!"
+
+"I didn't mean to hurt your feelings by what I said at that class
+meeting, Eleanor," said Betty shyly.
+
+"You didn't hurt them. I was just cross at things in general--at myself,
+I suppose that means,--and angry at you because I'd made you despise me,
+which certainly wasn't your fault."
+
+"Eleanor, what nonsense! I despise you?"
+
+A rustling on the bank reminded Betty that Katherine was waiting. "We
+must go home," she said. "It's after midnight."
+
+"So it is," agreed Eleanor, getting up stiffly. "Oh, Betty, I am glad
+I'm not out there hanging on to that branch and shivering and wondering
+how soon I should have to let go and end it all. Oh, I shall never
+forget the feel of that stifling mist."
+
+They walked home almost in silence. Katherine, missing the murmur of
+conversation, wondered if this last effort at reconciliation had failed
+after all; but near Mrs. Chapin's the talk began again.
+
+"I'm only sorry there isn't more of spring term left to have a good time
+in. Why, Eleanor, there's only two weeks."
+
+"But there's all next year," answered Eleanor.
+
+"I thought you weren't coming back."
+
+"I wasn't, but I am now. I've got to--I can't go off letting people
+think that I'm only a miserable failure. The Watson pride won't let me,
+Betty."
+
+"Oh, people don't think anything of that kind," objected Betty
+consolingly.
+
+"I know one person who does," said Eleanor with decision, "and her name
+is Eleanor Watson. I decided while I was out there waiting for you that
+one's honest opinion of herself is about as important as any outsider's.
+Don't you think so?"
+
+"Perhaps," said Betty gaily. "But the thing that interests me is that
+you're coming back next year. Why, it's just grand! Shall you go on the
+campus?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+LOOSE THREADS
+
+
+Betty Wales had to leave her trunk half packed and her room in
+indescribable confusion in order to obey a sudden summons from the
+registrar. She had secured a room on the campus at last, so the brief
+note said; but the registrar wished her to report at the office and
+decide which of two possible assignments she preferred.
+
+"It's funny," said Betty to Helen, as she extracted her hat from behind
+the bookcase, where she had stored it for safe keeping, "because I put
+in my application for the Hilton house way back last fall."
+
+"Perhaps she means two different rooms."
+
+"No, Mary says they never give you a choice about rooms, unless you're
+an invalid and can't be on the fourth floor or something of that kind."
+
+"Well, it's nice that you're on," said Helen wistfully. "I don't suppose
+I have the least chance for next year."
+
+"Oh, there's all summer," said Betty hopefully. "Lots of people drop out
+at the last minute. Which house did you choose?"
+
+"I didn't choose any because Miss Stuart told me I would probably have
+to wait till junior year, and I thought I might change my mind before
+then."
+
+"It's too bad," said Betty, picking her way between trunk trays and
+piles of miscellaneous debris to the door. "I think I shall stop on my
+way home and get a man to move my furniture right over to the Hilton."
+
+"Oh, wouldn't it be lovely if I'd got into the Hilton house too!" said
+Helen with a sigh of resignation. "Then perhaps we could room together."
+
+"Yes," said Betty politely, closing the door after her. Under the
+circumstances it was not necessary to explain that Alice Waite and she
+had other plans for the next year.
+
+It was a relief to stop trying to circumvent the laws of nature by
+forcing two objects into the space that one will fill--which is the
+cardinal principle of the college girl's June packing--and Betty
+strolled slowly along under the elm-trees, in no haste to finish her
+errand. On Main Street, Emily Davis, carrying an ungainly bundle,
+overtook her.
+
+"I was afraid I wasn't going to see you to say good-bye," she said.
+"Everybody wants skirt braids put on just now, and between that and
+examinations I've been very busy."
+
+"Are those skirts?" asked Betty.
+
+"Yes, two of Babbie's and one of Babe's. I was going up to the campus,
+so I thought I'd bring them along and save the girls trouble, since
+they're my best patrons, as well as being my good friends."
+
+"It's nice to have them both."
+
+"Only you hate to take money for doing things for your friends."
+
+"Where are you going to be this summer?" inquired Betty. "You never told
+me where you live."
+
+"I live up in northern New York, but I'm not going home this summer. I'm
+going to Rockport----"
+
+"Why, so am I!" exclaimed Betty. "We're going to stay at The Breakers."
+
+"Oh, dear!" said Emily sadly, "I was hoping that none of my particular
+friends would be there. I'm going to have charge of the linen-room at
+The Breakers, Betty."
+
+"What difference does that make?" demanded Betty eagerly. "You have
+hours off, don't you? We'll have the gayest sort of a time. Can you
+swim?"
+
+"No, I've never seen the ocean."
+
+"Well, Will and Nan will teach you. They're going to teach me."
+
+Emily shook her head. "Now, Betty, you must not expect your family to
+see me in the same light that you do. Here those things don't make any
+difference, but outside they do; and it's perfectly right that they
+should, too."
+
+"Nonsense! My family has some sense, I hope," said Betty gaily, stopping
+at the entrance to the Main Building. "Then I'll see you next week."
+
+"Yes, but remember you are not to bother your family with me. Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye. You just wait and see!" called Betty, climbing the steps.
+Half-way up she frowned. Nan and mother would understand, but Will was
+an awful snob. "He'll have to get used to it," she decided, "and he
+will, too, after he's heard her do 'the temperance lecture by a female
+from Boston.' But it will certainly seem funny to him at first. Why, I
+guess it would have seemed funny to me last year."
+
+The registrar looked up wearily from the litter on her desk, as Betty
+entered. "Good-afternoon, Miss Wales. I sent for you because I was sure
+that, however busy you might be you had more time than I, and I can talk
+to you much quicker than I could write. As I wrote you, I have reached
+your name on the list of the campus applicants, and you can go into the
+Hilton if you choose. But owing to an unlooked-for falling out of names
+just below yours, Miss Helen C. Adams comes next to you on the list. You
+hadn't mentioned the matter of roommates, and noticing that you two
+girls live in the same house, I thought I would ask you if you preferred
+a room in the Belden house with Miss Adams. There are two vacancies
+there, and she will get one of them in any case."
+
+"Oh!" said Betty.
+
+"I shall be very glad to know your decision to-night if possible, so
+that I can make the other assignment in the morning, before the next
+applicant leaves town."
+
+"Yes," said Betty.
+
+"You will probably wish to consult Miss Adams," went on the registrar.
+"I ought to have sent for her too--I don't know why I was so stupid."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," said Betty hastily. "I will come back in about
+an hour, Miss Stuart. I suppose there isn't any hope that we could both
+go into the Hilton."
+
+"No, I'm afraid not. Any time before six o'clock will do. I shan't be
+here much longer, but you can leave the message with my assistant. And
+you understand of course that it was purely on your account that I spoke
+to you. I thought that under the circumstances----" The registrar was
+deep in her letters again.
+
+But as Betty was opening the door, she looked up to say with a merry
+twinkle in her keen gray eyes, "Give my regards to your father, Miss
+Wales, and tell him he underrates his daughter's ability to take care of
+herself."
+
+"Oh, Miss Stuart, I hoped you didn't know I was that girl," cried Betty
+blushing prettily.
+
+Miss Stuart shook her head. "I couldn't come to meet you, but I didn't
+forget. I've kept an eye on you."
+
+"I hope you haven't seen anything very dreadful," laughed Betty.
+
+"I'll let you know when I do," said Miss Stuart. "Good-bye."
+
+Betty went out on to the campus, where the shadows were beginning to
+grow long on the freshly mown turf, and took her favorite path back to
+the edge of the hill, where she sat down on her favorite seat to
+consider this new problem. On the slope below her a bed of rhododendrons
+that had been quite hidden under the snow in winter, and inconspicuous
+through the spring, had burst into a sudden glory of rainbow
+blossoms--pink and white and purple and flaming orange.
+
+"Every day is different here," thought Betty, "and the horrid things and
+the lovely ones always come together."
+
+Helen would be pleased, of course; as she had hinted to the registrar,
+there was really no need of consulting Helen; the only person to be
+considered was Betty Wales. If only Miss Stuart had assigned her to the
+Hilton house and said nothing!
+
+From her seat Betty could look over to Dorothy King's windows. It would
+have been such fun to be in the house with Dorothy. Clara Madison was
+going to leave the campus and go to a place where they would make her
+bed and bring her hot water in the morning. Alice's room was a lovely
+big one on the same floor as Dorothy's, and she had delayed making
+arrangements to share it with a freshman who was already in the house,
+until she was sure that Betty did not get her assignment. Eleanor had
+applied for an extra-priced single there, too, to be near Betty.
+
+Helen was a dear little thing and a very considerate roommate, but she
+was "different." She didn't fit in somehow, and it was a bother always
+to be planning to have her have a good time. She would be lonely in the
+Belden; she loved college and was very happy now, but she needed to have
+somebody who understood her and could appreciate her efforts, to
+encourage her and keep her in touch with the lighter side of college
+life. She didn't know a soul in the Belden--but then neither did lots of
+other freshmen when they moved on to the campus. She need never hear
+anything about the registrar's plan, and she could come over to the
+Hilton as much as she liked.
+
+Nita Reese would be at the Belden, and Marion Lawrence; and Mary Brooks
+was going there if she could get an assignment. It was a splendid house,
+the next best to the Hilton. But those girls were not Dorothy King, and
+Miss Andrews was not Miss Ferris. It would have been lovely to be in the
+house with Miss Ferris.
+
+Would have been! Betty caught herself suddenly. It wasn't settled yet.
+Then she got up from her seat with quick determination. "I'll stop in
+and see Miss Ferris for just a minute, and then I shall go back and tell
+Miss Stuart right off, for I must finish packing to-night, whatever
+happens."
+
+Miss Ferris was in, and she and her darkened, flower-scented room wore
+an air of coolness and settled repose that was a poignant relief after
+the glaring sunshine outside and the confusion of "last days."
+
+"So you go to-morrow," said Miss Ferris pleasantly. "I don't get off
+till next week, of course. Are you satisfied?"
+
+"Satisfied?" repeated Betty. She had heard of Miss Ferris's habit of
+flashing irrelevant questions at her puzzled auditors, but this was her
+first experience of it.
+
+"With your first year at Harding," explained Miss Ferris.
+
+"Oh!" said Betty, relieved that it was no worse. "Why, y-es--no, I'm
+not. I've had a splendid time, but I haven't accomplished half that I
+ought. Next year I'm going to work harder from the very beginning,
+and----" Betty stopped abruptly, realizing that all this could not
+possibly interest Miss Ferris.
+
+"And what?"
+
+"I didn't want to bore you," apologized Betty. "Why, I'm going to try
+to--I don't know how to say it--try not scatter my thoughts so. Nan says
+that I am so awfully interested in every one's else business that I
+haven't any business of my own."
+
+"I see," said Miss Ferris musingly. "That's quite a possible point of
+view. Still, I'm inclined to think that on the whole we have just as
+much orange left and it tastes far better, if we give a good deal of it
+away. If we try to hang on to it all, it's likely to spoil in the pantry
+before we get around to squeeze it dry."
+
+Betty looked puzzled again.
+
+"You don't like figures of speech, do you?" said Miss Ferris. "You must
+learn to like them next year. What I mean is that it seems to me far
+better in the long run to be interested in too many people than not to
+be interested in people enough. Of course, though, we mustn't neglect to
+be sufficiently interested in ourselves; and how to divide ourselves
+fairly between ourselves and the rest of the world is the hardest
+question we ever have to answer. You'll be getting new ideas about it
+all through your course--and all through your life."
+
+There was a moment of silence, and then Betty rose to go. "I have to
+pack and I know you are busy. Miss Ferris, I'm going to be at the Belden
+next year."
+
+"I'm sorry you're not coming here," said Miss Ferris kindly. "Couldn't
+you manage it?"
+
+"Yes, but the--the orange seems to cut better the other way," said
+Betty. "That isn't a good figure, but perhaps you can see what it
+means."
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was worth most of what it had cost to see Helen's face when she heard
+the news. "Oh Betty, it's too good to be true," she cried, "but are you
+sure you want me?"
+
+"Haven't I given up the Hilton to be with you?" said Betty, with her
+face turned the other way.
+
+Alice was disappointed, but she would be just as happy with Constance
+Fayles. She found more "queer" things to like at Harding every day, and
+she considered Betty Wales one of the queerest and one of the nicest.
+
+Eleanor pleased Betty by offering no objection to the change of plan.
+"Only you needn't think that you can get rid of me as easily as all
+this," she said. "I shall camp down in the registrar's office until she
+says that 'under the circumstances,' which is her pet phrase, she will
+let me change my application to the Belden. By the way, Betty, Jean
+Eastman wants to see you after chapel to-morrow. She said she'd be in
+number five."
+
+After "last chapel," with its farewell greetings, that for all but the
+seniors invariably ended with a cheerful "See you next September," and
+the interview with Jean, in which the class president offered rather
+unintelligible apologies for "the stupid misunderstanding that we all
+got into," Betty went back to the house to get her bags and meet
+Katherine, who was going on the same train. Some of the girls had
+already gone, and none of them were in but Rachel, who was perched in a
+front window watching anxiously for a dilatory expressman, and
+Katherine, who was frantically stowing the things that would not go in
+her trunk into an already well-filled suit-case.
+
+"Well, it's all over," said Betty, sitting down on the window seat
+beside Rachel.
+
+"Wish it were," muttered Katherine, shutting the case and sitting down
+on it with a thud.
+
+"No, it's only well begun," corrected Rachel.
+
+"A lot of things are over anyway," persisted Betty. "Just think how much
+has happened since last September!"
+
+"Jolly nice things too," said Katherine cheerfully. She had quite
+unexpectedly succeeded in fastening the lock.
+
+"Weren't they!" agreed Betty heartily. "But I guess the nicest thing
+about it is what you said, Rachel--that it's 'to be continued in our
+next.' Won't it be fun to see how everything turns out?"
+
+"I wish that expressman would turn up," said Rachel ruefully.
+
+"We'll tell him so if we meet him," said Betty, shouldering her bag and
+her golf clubs, while Katherine staggered along with the bursting
+suit-case.
+
+As they boarded a car at the corner, Mary Brooks and the faithful
+Roberta waved to them energetically from the other side of Main Street.
+
+"Good-bye! Good-bye!" shrieked Katherine.
+
+"See you next September," called Betty, who had said good-bye to them
+once already.
+
+"Katherine Kittredge has grown older this year," said Mary critically,
+"but Betty hasn't changed a bit. I remember the night she came up the
+walk, carrying those bags."
+
+"She has changed inside," said Roberta.
+
+As the car whizzed by the Main Building, Betty wanted to wave her hand
+to that too, but she didn't until Dorothy King, appearing on the front
+steps, gave her an excuse.
+
+"Well," she said with a little sigh, as the campus disappeared below the
+crest of the hill, "you and Rachel may talk all you like, but I feel as
+if something was over, and it makes me sad. Just think! We can never be
+freshmen at Harding again as long as we live."
+
+"Quite true," said Katherine calmly, "but we can be sophomores--that is,
+unless the office sees fit to interfere."
+
+"Yes, we can be sophomores; and perhaps that's just as nice," said Betty
+optimistically. "Perhaps it's even nicer."
+
+
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+The Books in this Series are:
+
+  BETTY WALES, FRESHMAN
+  BETTY WALES, SOPHOMORE
+  BETTY WALES, JUNIOR
+  BETTY WALES, SENIOR
+  BETTY WALES, B. A.
+  BETTY WALES & CO.
+  BETTY WALES ON THE CAMPUS
+  BETTY WALES DECIDES
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BETTY WALES FRESHMAN***
+
+
+******* This file should be named 31387.txt or 31387.zip *******
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