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Betty Wales, Freshman

by Edith K. Dunton · English · Gutenberg #31387 · 387,731 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Betty Wales, Freshman

Author: Edith K. Dunton


        
Release date: February 24, 2010 [eBook #31387]

Language: English

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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 tête-à-tête 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,
portières 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 frappé 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 blasé, 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 frappé
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
dénouement, 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 frappé
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 piêce 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

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