And next came Bohemia. Before they had quite reached Washington Square Madeline tumbled her guests hastily off their car.

"I forgot to tell Mrs. McLean when to expect us," she explained. "She is our cook. So we'll hunt her up now and we might as well buy the luncheon as we go along."

So first they found Mrs. McLean, a placid old Scotch woman who was not at all surprised when Madeline announced that she was giving a house-party for five and had forgotten to mention it sooner. She had a delicious Scotch burr and an irresistible way of standing in the dining-room door and saying, "Come awa', my dears," when she had served a meal. Like everything else connected with the Ayres establishment, she was always there when you wanted her; between times she disappeared mysteriously, leaving the kitchen quite clear for Madeline and her guests, and always turning up in time to wash the fudge-pan or the chafing-dishes.

From Mrs. McLean's they went down a dirty, narrow street, stopping at a number of funny, foreign-looking fruit and grocery shops, where they bought whatever anybody wanted.

"Though it doesn't matter what you have to eat," said Roberta later, pouring cream into her coffee from an adorable little Spanish jug, "as long as you have it on this lovely old china."

They had their coffee in the studio, sitting around the open fire, and while they were drinking it people began to drop in—Mr. Blake, who roomed just across the Square, a pretty, pale girl, who was evidently an artist because every one congratulated her on having some things "on the line" somewhere, three newspaper men from the flat above, who being on a morning daily had just gotten up and stopped in to say "Happy New Year" on their way down to Park Row, and a jolly little woman whom the others called Mrs. Bob.

"She's promised to chaperon us," Madeline explained to her guests. "She lives down-stairs, so we can't go in or out without falling into her terrible clutches."

Mrs. Bob, who was in a corner playing with the little black kitten that seemed to belong with the house, like Mrs. McLean, stopped long enough to ask if they had heard about the theatre party. They had not, so Mr. Blake explained that by a sudden change of bill at one of the theatres Mr. Sothern and Miss Marlowe were to give "The Merchant of Venice" that evening.

"And I understand from Miss Watson that you people are particularly interested in that play," he added, "so I've corraled some tickets and Mrs. Bob and a bunch of men."

"And the Carletons will have an early dinner," put in Mrs. Bob. "Oh, I forgot. You don't know about that either. Mrs. Carleton won't be back from the country until four o'clock, so she asked me to give you the invitation to have New Year's dinner with them."

"But did she know there were six of us?" asked Betty anxiously, whereupon everybody laughed and Mrs. Bob assured her that Mrs. Carleton had mentioned seven to her, and hadn't seemed in the least worried.

That was the way things went all through their visit. Mrs. Bob took them shopping, with frequent intermissions for cakes and tea at queer little tea-rooms, with alluring names like "The London Muffin Room," or the "Yellow Tea-Pot." Her husband escorted them to the east-side brass-shops, assuring them solemnly that it wasn't everybody he showed his best finds to, and mourning when their rapturous enthusiasm prevented his getting them a real bargain. The newspaper men gave a "breakfast-luncheon" for them—breakfast for themselves, and luncheon for their guests—which was so successful that it was continued that same evening by a visit to a Russian puppet-show and supper in a Chinese restaurant. The pretty artist sold one of her pictures and invited them to help her celebrate, just as if they were old friends, who knew how hard she had struggled and how often she hadn't had money enough to buy herself bread and butter, to say nothing of offering jam—in the shape of oysters on the half-shell and lobster Newburg—to other people.

It was all so gay and light-hearted and unexpected—the way things happened in Bohemia. Nobody hurried or worried, though everybody worked hard. It was just as Madeline had told them, only more so. The girls said a sorrowful good-bye to Mrs. Bob, Mrs. McLean and the little black kitten and journeyed back to Harding sure that there never had been and never would be another such vacation for them.

"How can there be?" said Bob dejectedly. "At Easter we shall all have to get clothes, and after that we shan't know a vacation from mid-year week."

"Which delightful function begins in exactly fourteen days," said Katherine Kittredge. "Is there anybody here present whose notes on Hegel have the appearance of making sense?"

19— took its senior midyears gaily and quite as a matter of course, lectured its underclass friends on the evils of cramming, and kept up its spirits by going coasting with Billy Henderson, Professor Henderson's ten-year-old son, who had admired college girls ever since he found that Bob Parker could beat him at steering a double-runner. Between times they bought up the town's supply of "The Merchant of Venice,"—"not to learn any part, you know, but because we're interested in our play," each purchaser explained to her friends.

For there is no use in proclaiming your aspirations to be a Portia or a Shylock until you are sure that your dramatic talent is going to be appreciated. Of course there were exceptions to this rule, but the girl who said at a campus dinner-table, "If I am Portia, who is there tall enough for Bassanio?" became a college proverb in favor of keeping your hopes to yourself, and everybody was secretly delighted when she decided that she "really didn't care" to be in the mob.



CHAPTER X

TRYING FOR PARTS

"Teddie Wilson has gone and got herself conditioned in psych.," announced Bob Parker, bouncing unceremoniously through Betty's half-open door.

"Oh, Bob!" Betty's tone was fairly tragic. "Does that mean that she can't try for a part in the play?"

Bob nodded. "Cast-iron rule. And she'd have made a perfect Gobbo, young or old, and a stunning Gratiano. Well, her being out of it will give K. a better chance."

"But I'm sure Katherine wouldn't want her chance to come this way," said Betty sadly. "Besides—oh, Bob, have you looked at the bulletin-board this afternoon?"

"Babe did," said Bob with a grin, "so you needn't worry yet, my child. Ted says she ought to have expected it, because she'd cut a lot and let things go awfully,—depended on the—faculty—knowing—us—well—enough— by—this—time—to—pass—over—any small—deficiencies, and all that sort of talk. And this just shows, she says, how well they do know her. She's awfully plucky about it, but she cares. I didn't suppose Ted had it in her to care so about anything," declared Bob solemnly. "But of course it's a lot to lose—the star comedy part that was going to be handed out to her by her admiring little classmates, who think that nobody can act like Teddie. I wish I was as sure of a part in the mob."

"What are you going to try for, Bob?" asked Betty sympathetically.

Bob blushed. "Oh, I don't know," she said, with a fine assumption of indifference. "Everybody says that you ought to begin at the top and then the grateful committee won't forget to throw you a crumb when they get to passing out the 'supers.'" Bob paused and her air of unconcern dropped from her like a mask. "I say, Betty, I do want my family to be proud of me for once. Promise you won't laugh if I come up for Bassanio."

"Of course I won't," said Betty indignantly. "I'm sure you'll make love beautifully. Do you know who's going to try for Shylock?"

"Only Jean Eastman," said Bob, "and Christy and Emily are thinking of it. I came up from down-town with Jean just now. She thinks she's got a sure thing, though of course she isn't goose enough to say so. If Kate Denise gets Portia, as everybody seems to think she will, it will be quite like freshman year, with the Hill crowd on top all around. I think Jean has been aiming for that, and I also think—you don't mind if I say it, Betty?"

"I haven't the least idea what you're going to say," laughed Betty, "but I don't believe I shall mind."

"Well," said Bob earnestly, "I think Jean's counting on you to help her with her Shylock deal."

"I help her!" said Betty in bewilderment. "How could I?"

"What a little innocent you are, Betty Wales," declared Bob. "Have you forgotten that you are on the all-powerful play-committee, and that you five and Miss Kingston, head of the elocution department, practically decide upon the cast?"

"Oh!" said Betty slowly. "But I can't see why Jean should expect me to push her, of all people."

"She'll remind you why," said Bob, "or perhaps she expects me to do it for her. Can't you honestly think of anything that she might make a handle of?"

Betty considered, struggling to recall her recent meetings with Jean. "She has been extra-cordial lately," she said, "but she hasn't done anything in particular—oh, Bob, I know what you mean. She expects me to help her because she nominated me for the committee."

Bob nodded. "As if fifty other people wouldn't have done it if she hadn't. I may be wrong, Betty, but she had a lot to say all the way up from Cuyler's about how glad she was that you were on the committee, how she felt you were the only one for the place and was glad the girls agreed with her, how hard she had talked you up beforehand, and so on,—all about her great and momentous efforts in your behalf. I told her that Miss Ferris said once that you had a perfect command of the art of dress and that every one knew you planned the costumes for the Belden play and for the Dramatic Club's masque last spring, also that Barbara Gordon particularly wanted you on if she was chairman, so I didn't see that you needed any great amount of talking up. But she laughed her horrid, sarcastic little laugh and said she guessed I hadn't had much experience with class politics."

Betty's eyes flashed angrily. "And in return for what she did, she expects me to work for her, no matter whether or not I think she would make the best Shylock. Is that what you mean, Bob?"

"Yes, but perhaps I was mistaken," said Bob soothingly, "and any way I doubt if she ever says anything to you directly. She'll just drop judicious hints in the ears of your worldly friends, who can be trusted to appreciate the debt of gratitude you owe her."

"Bob." Betty stared at her hard for a moment. "You don't think—oh, of course you don't! The parts in the play ought to go to the ones who can do them best and the committee ought not to think of anybody or anything but that."

"And I know at least one committee woman who won't think of anybody or anything but that," declared Bob loyally. "I only thought I'd tell you about Jean so that, if she should say anything, you would be ready for her. Now I must go and study Bassanio," and Bob departed murmuring,

"'What find I here? Fair Portia's counterfeit?'"

in tones so amorous that Belden House Annie, who was sweeping on the stairs, dropped her dust-pan with a clatter, declaring that she was "jist overcome, that she was!"

"Which was the only compliment my acting of Bassanio ever got," Bob told her sadly afterward.

Betty was still hot with indignation over Bob's disclosures when Roberta Lewis knocked on the door. Roberta was wrapped up in a fuzzy red bath-robe, a brown sweater and a pink crepe shawl, and she looked the picture of shivering dejection.

"What in the world is the matter?" demanded Betty, emptying her history notebooks out of the easy-chair and tucking Roberta in with a green and yellow afghan, which completed the variegated color scheme to perfection.

"Please don't bother about me," said Roberta forlornly. "I'm going back in a minute. I've lost my wedding-pin—Miss Hale's wedding-pin—well, you know what I mean,—and caught a perfectly dreadful cold."

"You don't think that your pin was stolen?" asked Betty quickly. There had been no robberies in the college since Christmas, and the girls were beginning to hope that the mysterious thief had been discouraged by their greater care in locking up their valuables, and had gone off in search of more lucrative territory.

"Yes, I do think so," said Roberta. "I almost know it. You see I hadn't been wearing my pin. I only took it out to show Polly Eastman, because she hadn't happened to see one. Then K. came and we went off to walk. I left the pin right on my dressing-table and now it's gone. But the queerest part is that Georgia Ames was in my room almost all the time, because hers was being swept, and before that she was in Lucy Mann's, with the door wide open into the hall, and my door open right opposite. And yet she never saw or heard anything. Isn't it strange?"

"She was probably busy talking and didn't notice," said Betty. "People are everlastingly tramping through the halls, until you don't think anything about it. Have you looked on the floor and in all your drawers? It's probably tumbled down somewhere and got caught in a crack under the dressing-table or the rug."

"No, I've looked in all those places," said Roberta with finality. "You know I haven't as many things to look through as you."

"Please don't be sarcastic," laughed Betty, for Roberta's belongings were all as trim and tailor-made as herself. "How did you get your cold?"

"Why K. and I got caught in a miserable little snow flurry," explained Roberta, pulling the pink shawl closer, "and—I got my feet wet. My throat's horribly sore. It won't be well for a week, and I can't try for the play."

Roberta struggled out of the encumbering folds of the green afghan and trailed her other draperies swiftly to the window, whose familiar view she seemed to find intensely absorbing.

"Oh, yes, you can," said Betty comfortingly. "Why, your throat may be all right by to-morrow, and anyway it's only the Portia and Shylock trials that come then. Were you going to try for either of those parts?"

"Yes," gulped Roberta thickly.

Behind Roberta's back Betty was free to pucker her mouth into a funny little grimace that denoted amusement, surprise and sympathy, all together. "Then I'll ask Barbara Gordon to give you a separate trial later," she said kindly. "Nothing will be really decided to-morrow. We only make tentative selections to submit to Mr. Masters when he comes up next week. He's the professional coach, you know."

But Roberta turned back from the window to shake her head. "I wouldn't have you do that for anything," she said, brushing away the tears. "I'll try for something else if I get well in time. I'm going to bed now. Will you please ask Annie to bring up my dinner? And Betty, don't ever say I meant to try for Shylock. I don't know why I told you, except that you always understand."

Betty felt that she didn't quite understand this time, but she promised to tell Annie and come in late herself to conduct another search for the missing pin. She had just succeeded in dismissing Ted, Jean and Roberta from her mind and concentrating it on the next day's history lesson, when Helen Adams appeared.

"Helen," began Betty solemnly, "if you've got any troubles connected with trying for parts in the play, please don't divulge them. I don't believe I can stand any more complications."

"Poor thing!" said Helen compassionately. "I know how you feel from the times I have with the 'Argus.' Well, I shan't bother you about trying for a part. I should just love to act, but I can't and I know it. I only wanted to borrow some tea, and to tell you that Anne Carter has come to return my call. You know you said you'd like to meet her."

So Betty brushed her curls smooth and, stopping to pick up Madeline on her way, went in to meet Miss Carter, whose shyness and silence melted rapidly before Betty's tactful advances and Madeline's appreciative references to her verses in the last "Argus."

While Helen made the tea, Miss Carter amused them all with a droll account of her efforts to learn to play basket-ball, "because Miss Adams says it throws so much light on the philosophy of college life."

"Then you never played before you came here?" asked Betty idly, stirring her tea.

Miss Carter shook her head. "I prepared for college in a convent in Canada. The sisters would have been horribly shocked at the idea of our tearing about in bloomers and throwing a ball just like the boys."

"Oh!" said Betty, with a sudden flash of recognition. "Then it was at the convent where you got the beautiful French accent that mademoiselle raves over. You're in my senior French class. I ought to have remembered you."

"I'm glad you didn't," said Miss Carter bitterly, and then she flushed and apologized. "I'm so ugly that I'm always glad not to be remembered or noticed. But I didn't mean to say so, and I do hope you'll come to see me, both of you,—if seniors ever do come to see sophomores."

The girls laughingly assured her that seniors did sometimes condescend so far, and she went off with a happy look in her great gray eyes.

"We must have her in the 'Merry Hearts,'" said Madeline. "She's our kind if she can only get over that morbid feeling about her scar."

"But we must be very careful," Helen warned them, with a vivid remembrance of her first interview with Miss Carter. "We mustn't ask her to join until most of us have been to see her and really made friends. She would just hate to feel that we pitied her."

"We'll be careful," Betty promised her. "I'll go to see her, for one, the very first of next week," and she skipped gaily off to dress for dinner. After all there were plenty of things in the world besides the class play with its unhappy tangle of rivalries and heartburnings.

"And what's the use of borrowing trouble?" Betty inquired the next evening of the green lizard. "If you do, you never borrow the right kind."

Jean, to be sure, had done a good deal to justify Bob's theory. She had remembered an urgent message from home which must be delivered to Polly immediately after luncheon, and she kept her innocent little cousin busily engaged in conversation in the lower hall of the Belden House until Betty appeared, having waited until the very last minute in the vain hope of avoiding Jean. But when they opened the door there was Barbara Gordon, also bound for Miss Kingston's office, and much relieved to find that her committee were not all waiting indignantly for their chairman's tardy arrival. So whatever Jean had meant to say to Betty in private necessarily went unsaid.

And then, after all her worriment, Jean was the best Shylock!

"Which is perfectly comical considering Bob's suspicions," Betty told the green lizard, the only confidant to whom she could trust the play committee's state-secrets.

All the committee had been astonished at Jean's success, and most of them were disappointed. Christy or Emily Davis would have been so much pleasanter to work with, or even Kitty Lacy, whom Miss Kingston considered very talented. But Emily was theatrical, except in funny parts, Christy was lifeless, and Kitty Lacy had not taken the trouble to learn the lines properly and broke down at least once in every long speech, thereby justifying the popular inversion of her name to Lazy Kitty, a pseudonym which some college wag had fastened upon her early in her freshman year.

"And because she's Kitty, it isn't safe to give her another chance," said Miss Kingston regretfully, when the fifteen aspiring Shylocks had played their parts and the committee were comparing opinions. "Yes, I agree with Barbara that Jean Eastman is by far the most promising candidate, but——"

"But you don't think she's very good, now do you, Miss Kingston?" asked Clara Ellis, a rather lugubrious individual, who had been put on the committee because she was a "prod" in "English lit.," and not because she had the least bit of executive ability.

Miss Kingston hesitated. "Why no, Clara, I don't. I'm afraid she won't work up well; she doesn't seem to take criticism very kindly. But it's too soon to judge of that. At present she certainly has a much better conception of the part than any of the others."

"You don't think we've been too ambitious, do you, Miss Kingston?" asked Barbara, anxiously. Barbara knew Jean well and the prospect of managing the play with her capricious, selfish temperament to be catered to at every turn was not a pleasant one.

"I've thought so all along," put in Clara Ellis, decidedly, before Miss Kingston had had a chance to answer. "I think we ought to have made sure of a good Shylock before we voted to give this play. It will be perfectly awful to make a fizzle of it, and everything depends on getting a good Shylock, doesn't it, Miss Kingston?"

"A great deal certainly depends on that," agreed Miss Kingston. "But it's much too early to decide that you can't get a good Shylock."

"Why, who else is there?" demanded Clara, dismally. "Surely every possible and impossible person has tried to-day."

Nobody seemed ready to answer this argument, and Betty, glancing at the doleful faces of her fellow-workers felt very much depressed until a new idea struck her.

"Miss Kingston," she said, "there have been fifteen senior plays at Harding, haven't there? And hasn't each one been better than any of those that came before it?"

"So each class and its friends have thought," admitted Miss Kingston, smiling at Betty's eagerness, "and in the main I think they have been right."

"Then," said Betty, looking appealingly at Clara and Barbara, "I guess we can safely go on thinking that our play will be still better. 19— is the biggest class that ever graduated here, and it's certainly one of the brightest."

Everybody laughed at this outburst of patriotism and the atmosphere brightened immediately, so Betty felt that perhaps she was of some use on the committee even if she couldn't understand all Clara's easy references to glosses and first folio readings, or compare Booth's interpretation of Shylock with Irving's as glibly as Rachel did.

Just then there was a smothered giggle outside the door and six lusty voices chanted, "By my troth, our little bodies are a-weary of these hard stairs," in recognition of which pathetic appeal the committee hastily dismissed the subject of Shylock in order to hear what the impatient Portias had to say. They did so well, and there was such a lively discussion about the respective merits of Kate Denise, Babbie Hildreth and Nita Reese that the downcast spirits, of the committee were fully restored, and they went home to dinner resolved not to lose heart again no matter what happened, which is the most sensible resolution that any senior play committee can make.

When Betty got home she found a note waiting for her on the hall table addressed in Tom Alison's sprawling hand and containing an invitation to Yale commencement.

"I'm asking you early," Tom wrote, "so that you can plan for it, and be so much the surer not to disappoint me. Alice Waite is coming with Dick Grayson, and some of the other fellows will have Harding girls. My mother is going to chaperon the bunch.

"Do you remember my kid roommate, Ashley Dwight? He's junior president this year. He's heard a lot about Georgia Ames, real and ideal, and he's crazy to see what the visible part of her is like. I think he meditates asking her to the prom, and making a sensation with her. Can't I bring him up to call on you some day when the real Miss Ames will probably be willing to amuse Ashley?"

As Betty joyously considered how she should answer all this, she remembered the four box tickets for the Glee Club concert that Lucile Merrifield had promised to get her—Lucile was business manager of the mandolin club this year. Betty had intended to invite Alice Waite and two Winsted men, but there was no reason why she shouldn't ask Georgia, Tom, and the junior president instead. So she went straight to Georgia's room.

"All right," said Georgia calmly, when Betty had explained her project. "I was going to stand up with a crowd of freshmen, but they won't care."

"Georgia Ames," broke in her roommate severely, "I should like to see you excited for once. Don't you know the difference between going stand-up with a lot of other freshmen, and sitting in a box with Miss Wales and two Yale men?"

"Of course I know the difference," said Georgia, smiling good-naturedly. "Didn't I say that I'd go in the box? But you see, Caroline, if you are only a namesake of Madeline Ayres's deceased double you mustn't get too much excited over the wonderful things that happen to you. Must you, Betty?"

"I don't think you need any pointers from me, Georgia," said Betty laughingly. "Has Caroline seen you studying yet?"

"Once," said Georgia sadly.

"But it was in mid-year week," explained the roommate, "the night before the Livy exam. She mended stockings all the evening and then she said she was going to sit up to study. She began at quarter past ten."

"Propped up in bed, to be quite comfortable," interpolated Georgia.

"And at half-past ten," went on her roommate, "she said she was so sleepy that she couldn't stand it any longer. So she tumbled the books and extra pillows on the floor and went to sleep."

"Too bad you spoiled your record just for those few minutes," laughed Betty, "but I'll take you to the concert all the same," and she hurried off to dress.

At dinner she entertained her end of the table with an account of Georgia's essay at cramming.

"But that doesn't prove that she never studies," Madeline defended her protegee. "That first floor room of theirs is a regular rendezvous for all the freshmen in the house, so she's very sensible to keep away from it when she's busy."

"Where does she go?"

"Oh, to the library, I suppose," said Madeline. "Most of the freshmen study there a good deal, and she camps down in Lou Waterson's room, afternoons, because Lou has three different kinds of lab. to go to, so she's never at home."

"Well, it's a wonder that Georgia isn't completely spoiled," said Nita Reese. "Just to think of the things that child has had done for her!"

And certainly if Georgia's head had not been very firmly set on her square shoulders, it would have been hopelessly turned by her meteoric career at Harding. For weeks after college opened she was a spectacle, a show-sight of the place. Old girls pointed her out to one another in a fashion that was meant to be inobtrusive but that would have flattered the vanity of any other freshman. Freshmen were regaled with stories about her, which they promptly retailed for her benefit, and then sent her flowers as a tribute to her good luck and a recognition of the amusement she added to the dull routine of life at Harding. Seniors who had been duped by the phantom Georgia asked her to Sunday dinner and introduced her to their friends, who did likewise. Foolish girls wanted her autograph, clever ones demanded to know her sensations at finding herself so oddly conspicuous, while the "Merry Hearts" amply fulfilled their promise to make up to her for unintentionally having forced her into a curious prominence. But Georgia took it all as a mere matter of course, smiled blandly at the stories, accepted the flowers and the invitations, wrote the autographs, and explained that she guessed her sensations weren't at all remarkable,—they were just like any other freshman's.

"All the same," Madeline declared, whenever the subject came up, "she's absolutely unique. If the other Georgia had never existed, this one would have made her mark here."

But just how she would have done it even Madeline could not decide. The real Georgia was not like other girls, but in what fundamental way she was different it was difficult to say. Indeed now that the "Merry Hearts" came to know her better, she was almost as much of a puzzle to them as the other Georgia had been to the rest of the college.



CHAPTER XI

A DARK HORSE DEFINED

"Did you see Mr. Masters in chapel this morning with Miss Kingston?"

This was the choice tid-bit of news that 19— passed from hand to hand as it took its way to its various nine o'clock classes.

"I thought he wasn't coming until to-morrow," said Teddie Wilson, who followed every move of the play committee with mournful interest.

"He wasn't," explained Barbara Gordon, "but he found he could get off better to-day. It's only for the Shylocks and Portias, you know. We can't do much until they're definitely decided, so we can tell who is left for the other parts."

"Gratiano and the Gobbos will come in the next lot," sighed Teddie. "Seems as if I should die to be out of it all!"

Jean Eastman was just ahead of them in the crowd. "Poor Teddie!" Barbara began, "I only wish—-" She broke off abruptly. She didn't want Jean for Shylock, but it would have been the height of impropriety to let even Teddie, whose misfortunes made her a privileged person, know it. "It's a perfect shame," she went on hastily. "You don't feel half so bad about it as we do."

Ted stared incredulously. "Don't I? I say, Barbara, did you know there was a girl in last year's cast who had had a condition at midyears? She kept still and somehow it wasn't reported to Miss Stuart until very late, and by that time it would have made a lot of trouble to take her out. So they hushed it up and she kept her part. A last year's girl wrote me about it."

"I don't believe she had much fun out of it, do you, Ted?" asked Barbara. "Anyhow I'm sure you—"

"Oh, of course not," interrupted Ted with emphasis.

"What in the world are you two talking about?" demanded Jean Eastman curiously, dropping back to join them.

"Talking play of course!" laughed Barbara, trying to be extra cordial because she had so nearly said a disagreeable thing a minute before.

Meanwhile Ted, who felt that she should break the tenth commandment to atoms if she stayed in Jean's neighborhood another minute, slipped off down a side hall and joined a group of her classmates who were bound like herself for Miss Raymond's English novelists. They were talking play too, of course,—it was in the air this morning,—and they welcomed Ted joyously and deferred to her opinion as that of an expert.

"Who'll be Shylock, Teddie?" demanded Bob Parker. "That's the only thing I'm curious about."

"Jean," returned Ted calmly, "or at least the committee think so. I can tell by the way Barbara looks at her."

"Beastly shame," muttered Bob. "Why couldn't Emily and Christy have braced up and got it themselves?"

"Now, Bob," Nita Reese remonstrated, "don't you think you're a bit hard on Jean this time? I know she's a good deal of a land-grabber, but now she's gone into an open competition just like any one else, and if she wins it will be because she deserves to."

"Ye-es," admitted Bob grudgingly. "Yes, of course it will. I know that as well as you do, Nita Reese. Just the same she's never any good in Gest and Pant, is she, Teddie?"

"In what?" demanded Helen Adams and Clara Madison together.

"Gest and Pant—short for Gesture and Pantomime, senior course in elocution," explained Teddie rapidly. "Oh, I don't know. I think she's done some pretty good things once in a while. And anyhow she can't fool the committee and Mr. Masters."

"Of course not," agreed Bob.

"Just the same," said Madeline Ayres, who had come up in time to hear the end of the argument, "we'll stand for her if she gets the part, but until she does we can hope against hope for a dark horse, can't we, Bob?"

"What's a dark horse?" asked Clara Madison in her funny, slow drawl.

"Your vocabulary's getting a big increase this morning, isn't it, Clara?" said Madeline quizzically. "Gest and Pant, short for Gesture and Pantomime; dark horse, short for a person like—— Girls, run in, quick. She's begun calling the roll."

It was a long morning. The committee watched its hours go by complacently enough. They had heard Jean again and liked her better; and the two girls who were to compete with her had improved, too, on second trial. There was no doubt that the Portias were good. They were also nervous. Kate Denise didn't even pretend to "Take notes, young ladies," though Dr. Hinsdale looked straight at her when he said it, and Babbie Hildreth made herself the butt of endless jibes by absent-mindedly mentioning Nerissa instead of Napoleon in History 10. Jean, on the other hand, was as cool as possible. She sat beside Teddie Wilson in philosophy, much to the annoyance of that unhappy young person, and added insult to injury by trying to discuss the play. Teddie was as unresponsive as she thought consistent with the duty of being lady-like, but Jean didn't seem to mind, for she went off to lunch smiling a satisfied, triumphant little smile that seemed to say she had gotten just what she wanted out of Teddie.

At two o'clock Mr. Masters and Miss Kingston met the play committee in Miss Kingston's office, and the Shylock trials began. At ten minutes before three the great Mr. Masters appeared in the door of the office and tossing a careless "Back at four-thirty sharp" over his shoulder, ran down the stairs as lightly as though he were not leaving riot and ruin behind him. A minute later Barbara Gordon came to the door and explained to the Portias who were waiting to come on at three, that it had been found necessary to delay their appearance until evening. Barbara always looked calm and unruffled under the most trying circumstances, but she shut the door unnecessarily hard and the Portias exchanged amazed glances.

"Something's happened," declared Babe, sagely.

"'Oh, wise young judge!'" quoted Nita. "Why don't you tell us what it is?"

"I must go if we have to come back this evening," said Kate Denise, and hurried off to find Jean, who had promised to meet her in the library.

Kate understood Jean very well and often disapproved of her, but she had known her a long time and was genuinely fond of her and anxious for her success. Jean had complained of a headache at luncheon and seemed nervous and absent-minded. Kate wondered if she could possibly have broken down and spoiled her chance with Mr. Masters, thus disarranging the committee's plans.

But Jean scoffed at this idea. "I did my best," she declared, "and he was awfully nice. You'll like him, Katie. I suppose he had an engagement, or was tired and wanted to go off somewhere and smoke. He gets up plays all the time, you know. It must be horribly boring."

Meanwhile Miss Kingston and the play committee sat in mournful conclave. Nobody had much to say. Clara Ellis looked "I told you so" at the rest, and the rest looked back astonishment, dismay and annoyance at Clara.

"Is he generally so—so decided and, well,—so quick to make up his mind?" asked Betty, finally.

Miss Kingston laughed at Betty's carefully chosen adjectives and shook her head. "He's generally very patient and encouraging, but to-day something seems to have spoiled his temper. I don't believe, though, that his irritability has affected his judgment. I agree perfectly with what he said about Miss Eastman."

"Yes," agreed Barbara, "he put into words what we all felt when we first heard her. Afterward we wanted so much to think she was good that we actually cheated ourselves into thinking so."

"Do tell me what happened," begged Rachel Morrison. She had been kept at home by a belligerent sophomore who insisted upon being tutored at her regular hour, and had arrived only just in time for Mr. Masters's dramatic exit.

"Why, he was perfectly calm while the Shylocks were performing," explained Barbara. "We had Jean come last because we thought that would give them all the best chance. He smiled blandly while she was going through her part and bowed her out as if she had been a second Booth. Then he sat back and looked at me and said 'Well?' and I said, 'Do you like her best, Mr. Masters?' He glared at me for a minute and then began to talk about the seriousness of giving a Shakespearean play and the confidence he'd felt in us to advise us to give this one, and the reasons why none of the girls he'd heard would do at all for Shylock. When he was through he just picked up his hat and coat and told us to go and get the other girls who tried, as he'd be ready to see them at half-past four. After that he apologized to Miss Kingston if he'd been 'in the least abrupt'—and went."

"And what are we to do now?" demanded Clara, wearily.

"Get them—the forlorn hopes, as he called them," said Barbara, determined to be cheerful, "and hope that we shall be happily disappointed in them. Somebody's got to be Shylock, you know. Betty, will you go for these three girls on Main Street?" She handed Betty a slip of paper. "Clara, will you try to find Emily Davis? Rachel, you look tired to death. Go home and rest. Josephine and I can manage the campus people."

"There's no use in your getting the Miller girls," said Clara, decisively. "One lisps and the other stammers."

"That's true," agreed Barbara, cheerily. "We'll leave them out, and Kitty Lacy has gone home ill. I wish we could think of some promising people who haven't tried at all. Eleanor Watson used to act very cleverly. Betty, do you suppose she would be willing to come and read the part?"

Betty shook her head. "I don't think she would take a part under any circumstances, but certainly not if she had to compete with Jean. They're such old friends."

"How about Madeline Ayres?"

"She's set her heart on being the Prince of Morocco," laughed Betty, "because she wants to be blackened up. Anyway I don't think—"

"No, I don't either, Betty," interposed Miss Kingston. "Miss Ayres couldn't do a part like Shylock."

"Then I don't believe there is any one else who didn't try before," said Barbara. "We must just hope for the best, that's all."

Betty had opened the door preparatory to starting on her rounds when she happened to remember Roberta and her exaggerated disappointment over missing the last week's trials.

"Barbara," she began timidly, closing the door again, "I know some one who intended to try but she was sick with the grippe and couldn't. It's Roberta Lewis. She told me not to speak of her having wanted to try, but I don't see why she shouldn't have a chance now, do you? She couldn't be worse than some of them."

"She certainly couldn't," laughed Barbara.

"She did awfully well in that little girl play you had," said Clara Ellis, condescending to show a little real interest in the question at issue. "Did you see it, Miss Kingston?"

Miss Kingston hadn't seen "The Little Princess" and didn't know Roberta; but she agreed that there was no reason why any girl who was willing to take it shouldn't have a chance to show what she could do toward satisfying Mr. Masters.

"But it isn't that I think she will do particularly well," Betty explained, honestly. "Only I was sorry for her because she seemed to care such a lot. Shall I stop and ask her on my way?"

Barbara said yes and Betty hurried over to the Belden. Roberta was out, but a neat sign pinned to her door promised that she would be "Back in a few minutes," so Betty scribbled a hasty note to explain matters and hurried off again. She had not much idea that Roberta would care to try for Shylock now, but she was glad she had thought of giving her the chance. Roberta was so quiet and self-contained and so seldom expressed a wish or a preference that it was worth while taking a little trouble to please her.

"Even if there isn't much sense in what she wants," thought Betty, as she tramped up Main Street.

The Main Street Shylocks all lived in the same house and not one of them was in. Betty pursued them back to the campus, caught one at the library and another in chemistry "lab.," and followed the third down town where she was discovered going into Cuyler's for an ice. As this last captive happened to be the most promising Shylock, next to the ones that Mr. Masters had already seen, Betty led her back to the campus in triumph, too thankful at having her safe to notice that it was fully a quarter to five before they reached college hall.

Roberta was sitting by herself on a low window-seat near Miss Kingston's door. She looked pale and frightened and hardly smiled in answer to Betty's gay little nod and wave of the hand.

"Goodness, I hope she'll do decently," thought Betty, and was opening the door as softly as possible when somebody gave it a quick push from the other side. It was the great Mr. Masters coming out again.

"Oh, Miss Lewis," he called over to Roberta, "have you learned the Portia scenes too? I forgot to ask you. Well, suppose you come over and read them to-night. We should all like to hear you."

Betty stared in amazement; so did the Shylocks who crowded the stairs and windowledges. There was no mistaking the fact that this time the great Mr. Masters was genuinely pleased. He held the door open for Betty to pass into the office, assured Roberta once more that he should expect to see her in the evening, and went inside himself, leaving a buzz of excitement behind him and meeting a similar buzz that hushed politely as he came forward.

"Well, Miss Kingston," he said, rubbing his hands together with an air of supreme satisfaction, "we've found our Shylock. I'm glad you let her in first this time. I was really getting worried. May I ask why you young ladies kept her up your sleeves so long?"

Barbara explained.

"But you must have known about her," Mr. Masters persisted. "Why, she's marvelous. She'd save your play for you, single-handed. Hasn't she taken part in any of your college performances?"

Barbara explained about that too.

"Then how did she happen to come to light at all?" he demanded.

This time Barbara looked at Betty, who blushed and murmured, "I didn't suppose she could act very much. I really didn't."

Mr. Masters laughed heartily at this. "Well, she seems to be a thorough mystery," he said. "And now the only question is where we need her most, in case I don't like your first choice in Portias any better than I did your Shylocks. We ought to have these other people in, I suppose. Of course there's no question about Miss Lewis, but we'd better know what they can all do, especially if there are any more of Miss Wales's dark horses among them."



By dinner time the astonishing news had spread over the campus. Roberta Lewis was going to be Shylock. She hadn't been in but one play since she entered college and then she took somebody's place. Nobody had thought she would get it. Nobody knew she could act except Betty Wales. Betty found out about her somehow—she was always finding out what people could do,—and she got her in at the last minute because Mr. Masters didn't like Jean's acting,—or somebody didn't. Roberta's was magnificent. They wanted her for Portia too. Mr. Masters had said it was a great pity there weren't two of her. How did she take it? Why, she acted shy and bored and distant, just as usual. She seemed to have expected to be Shylock!

But she wasn't "just as usual." She was sitting by her window in the dark, with Mary Brooks's picture clutched tightly in one hand and her father's in the other, and she was whispering soft little messages to them.

"Dear old daddy, you were in all the fraternities and societies, and on all the college papers and the 'varsity eight. Well, I'm on one thing now. You'll have one little chance to be proud of me, perhaps, after all these four years.

"Now, Mary Brooks, do you see what I can do? I couldn't write and I couldn't be popular or prominent or a 'star' in any of the classes. I'm not that kind. But after all I shall be something but just one of the Clan before I leave.

"Oh, I wonder if Mary and father would like to sit together at the play."

While Roberta was considering the probability that they would, Betty knocked her soft little knock on the door. Roberta always knew Betty's knock.

"Come," she called in a queer, trembly voice. How was she ever going to thank Betty for seeing what no one else saw, and helping her to stick to it and get her chance in a nice quiet way that wouldn't make her feel awkward if she failed?

But Betty didn't give her time to open her mouth. "You dear old thing!" she cried. "Oh, I am so happy! I never thought you'd get it. Honestly, I didn't. I just thought you might as well try. Roberta, you ought to hear the things Mr. Masters has been saying about you."

Roberta laughed happily. "It's nice, isn't it?" she said. "Didn't you think I could get a part? You were the one who told me I ought to try."

"Yes," said Betty solemnly, "I thought you'd get one of the Sals probably—you know the ones I mean,—Solanio, and the others that sound like him. We call them the Sals for short, I never dreamed of your being Shylock, any more than I planned for you to be Ermengarde. You did it every bit yourself, Roberta Lewis, by just happening to come around at the right times."

"And by coming to the right person," added Roberta.

But Betty only laughed at her. "It's bad enough to be blamed for things you've done," she said. "I simply won't be praised for things I haven't done. I never was so pleased in my life. Roberta, Miss Kingston says you're a genius. To think of my knowing a genius! I must go and tell Helen Chase Adams."

Down-stairs Madeline was telephoning to Clara Madison, who, owing to her strong prejudice against bed-making, still lived off the campus. "A dark horse," she explained, "is a person like Roberta Lewis. I didn't have time to tell you this morning. Good-b——Oh! haven't you heard? She's going to be Shylock. No, the committee haven't announced it yet, but Mr. Masters shouted it aloud in the corridor at college hall. Don't forget what a dark horse is, Clara."

The B's, innocently supposing that Roberta was out because her windows were dark, were celebrating in Nita's room, while they awaited her return. This meant that Babbie was doing a cake-walk with an imaginary partner, Babe a clog-dance, and Bob a highland fling, while Nita hugged her tallest vase and her prettiest teacup and besought them to stop before Mrs. Kent came to see who was tearing the house down.

Bob stopped first, though not on account of Nita's bric-a-brac or a possible visit from Mrs. Kent.

"Nita," she demanded breathlessly, "did you say Betty thought of Roberta?"

"Yes," Nita assented. "Nobody else on the committee knows her at all except Rachel, and she is as surprised as the rest of us."

"Gee!" Bob's tone was deep with meaning. "Then I know who won't like it."

"Who?" Babe ended her dance to ask.

"Jean Eastman," said Bob solemnly.

Babe gave her a disdainful glance. "How much brains do you think it takes to find that out, Bob Parker? Of course she won't like it."

But Bob only smiled loftily and declared that if Roberta hadn't come in by this time they must all go straight home to dinner.



CHAPTER XII

CALLING ON ANNE CARTER

Pleasant things generally submerged the unpleasant ones at Harding, so Betty's delight in Roberta's unexpected success quite wiped out her remembrance of Bob's theories about Jean, until, several days after the Shylock trials, Jean herself confirmed them.

"I want to be sure that you know I'm going to try for Bassanio," she said, overtaking Betty on the campus between classes, "so you can have plenty of time to hunt up a rival candidate. I can't imagine who it will be unless you can make Eleanor Watson believe that it's her duty to the class to try. But this time I hope you'll come out into the open and play fair, or at least as nearly fair as you can, considering that you ought to be helping me. I may not be much on philanthropy, but I don't think I can be accused of entirely lacking a sense of honor."

"Why Jean," began Betty, trying to remember that Jean was hurt and disappointed and possibly didn't mean to be as rude as her words sounded, "please don't feel that way. It wasn't that I didn't want you for Shylock. Of course Roberta is one of my best friends and I'm glad to have her get the big part in the play, because she's never had anything else; but I didn't dream that she would get it."

"Then why did you drag her in at the last minute?"

Betty explained how that had happened, but Jean only laughed disagreeably. "I consider that it was a very irregular way of doing things," she said, "and I think a good many in the class feel the same way about it. Besides—but I suppose you've entirely forgotten that it was I who got you on the play committee."

"Listen, Jean," Betty protested, anxious to avoid a discussion that would evidently be fruitless. "It was Mr. Masters, and not I or any of the other girls, who didn't like your acting, or rather your acting of Shylock. And Mr. Masters himself suggested that you would make a better Bassanio. Didn't Barbara tell you?"

"Oh, yes," said Jean, "she told me. That doesn't alter the fact that if you hadn't produced Roberta Lewis when you did, Mr. Masters might have decided that he liked my Shylock quite well enough."

"Jean," said Betty, desperately, "don't you want the play to be as good as it possibly can?"

"No," retorted Jean, coolly, "I don't. I want a part in it. I imagine that I want one just as badly as Roberta Lewis did. And if I don't get Bassanio, after what Barbara and Clara Ellis have said to me, I shall know whom to blame." She paused a moment for her words to take effect. "My father says," she went on, "that women never have any sense of obligation. They don't think of paying back anything but invitations to afternoon tea. I must tell him about you. He'll find you such a splendid illustration. Good-bye, or I shall be late to chemistry." Jean sped off in the direction of the science building.

"Oh, dear," thought Betty, sadly, "I wish I weren't so stupid and so meek. Madeline can always answer people back when they're disagreeable, and Rachel is so dignified that Jean wouldn't think of saying things like that to her."

Then she smiled in spite of herself. It was all such a stupid tangle. Jean insisted on blaming her, and Roberta and the committee had insisted on praising her for finding 19— a Shylock, when she never intended or expected to do anything of the kind. "It just shows," thought Betty, "that the things that seem like deep-laid schemes are very often just happenings, and the simple-looking ones are the schemes. Well, I certainly hope Jean will get Bassanio. Eleanor's window is open. I wonder if she can hear me."

"Oh, Eleanor," she called, when the window had been opened wider in response to her trill, "there isn't any committee meeting this afternoon. Don't you want to go with me to see Anne Carter? Let's start early and take a walk first. It's such a lovely glitter-y day."

The "glitter-y" day foregathered with a brisk north wind after luncheon, and it was still mid-afternoon when Betty and Eleanor ran up Miss Carter's front steps, delighted at the prospect of getting in out of the cold. At the door they hesitated.

"It's so long since I've regularly called on anybody in college," laughed Betty, "that I've forgotten how to act. Don't we go right up to her room, Eleanor?"

"Why yes. That's certainly what people used to do to us in our freshman year. Don't you remember how we were always getting caught with our kimonos on and our rooms fixed for sweep-day by girls we'd never seen?"

"I should think so." Betty smiled reminiscently. "Helen Adams used to get so fussed when she was caught doing her hair. Then let's go right up. We want to be friendly and informal and make her feel at home. She has the front room on the second floor. Helen spoke of its being so big and pretty. I do hope she's in."

She was in, for she called a brisk "come" in answer to Betty's knock. She was sitting at a table-desk by the window, with her back to her door, and when it opened she did not turn her head. Neither did Jean Eastman who sat beside her, their heads together over the same book. Jean was reading aloud in hesitating, badly accented French, and paid even less attention to the intruders than Miss Carter, who called hastily, "In just one minute, Miss Harrison," and then cautioned Jean not to forget the elisions.

"But we're not Miss Harrison," said Betty laughingly, amazed and embarrassed at the idea of meeting Jean here.

At the sound of her voice both the girls turned quickly and Miss Carter came forward with a hearty apology for her mistake. "I was expecting some one else," she said, "and I thought of course it was she who came in. It was very stupid of me. Won't you sit down?"

"But aren't we interrupting?" asked Betty, introducing Eleanor.

"Nothing more important than the tail end of some French," answered Jean Eastman curtly, going to get her coat, which hung over a chair near the door. As she passed Miss Carter she gave her a keen, questioning look which meant, so Betty decided, that Jean was as much surprised to find that this quiet sophomore knew Betty Wales and her crowd, as Betty had been to see Jean established in Miss Carter's room on a footing of apparent intimacy.

"I've been here ever since luncheon," Jean went on, "and I was just going, wasn't I, Miss Carter? Oh, no, you're not driving me away—not in the least. I should be delighted to stay and talk to you both if I had time." And with a disagreeable little laugh Jean pinned on her hat, swept up her books, and started for the door.

Strange to say, Miss Carter seemed to take her hasty departure as a matter of course and devoted herself entirely to her other visitors, until, just as Jean was leaving, she turned to her with a question.

"Oh, Miss Eastman, I don't remember—did you say to-morrow at four?"

For a full minute Jean stared at her, her expression a queer mixture of anger and amused reproach. "No, I said to-morrow at three," she answered at last and went off down the stairs, humming a gay little tune.

Betty and Eleanor exchanged wondering glances. Jean was notorious for knowing only prominent girls. Her presence here and her peculiar manner together formed a puzzle that made it very difficult to give one's full attention to what Miss Carter was saying. There was also Miss Harrison. Was she the senior Harrison, better known as the Champion Blunderbuss? And if she was coming, why didn't she come?

Betty found herself furtively watching the door, which Jean had left open, and she barely repressed a little cry of relief when the Champion's ample figure appeared at the head of the stairs.

"I'm terribly late," she called out cheerfully. "I thought you'd probably get tired of waiting and go out. Oh," as she noticed Miss Carter's visitors, "I guess I'd better come back at five. I can as well as not."

But Betty and Eleanor insisted that she should do nothing of the kind.

"We'll come to see you again when you're not so busy," Betty promised Miss Carter, who gave them a sad little smile but didn't offer any objection to their leaving the Blunderbuss in possession.

"Well, haven't we had a funny time?" said Eleanor, when they were outside. "Did you know that Miss Carter tutored in French?"

"No," answered Betty. "Helen never gave me the impression that she was poor. Her room doesn't look much as if she was helping to put herself through college, does it?"

"Not a bit," agreed Eleanor, "nor her clothes, and yet Miss Harrison certainly acted as if she had come on business."

"Yes, exactly like Rachel's pupils. They always come bouncing in late, when she's given them up and we're all having a lovely time. Miss Carter acted businesslike too. She seemed to expect us to go."

"Well then, what about Jean?" asked Eleanor. "I couldn't make her out at all. Has she struck up some sort of queer friendship with Miss Carter or was she being tutored too?"

Betty gave a little gasp of dismay. "Oh, I don't know. I hoped you would. You see—she's trying for a part in the play."

"Then she can't be conditioned," said Eleanor easily. "Teddie Wilson has advertised the rule about that far and wide, poor child."

"And you don't think Jean could possibly not have heard of it?" Betty asked anxiously.

"Why, I shouldn't think so, but you might ask her to make sure. She certainly acted very much as if we had caught her at something she was ashamed of. Would you mind coming just a little way down-town, Betty? I want to buy some violets and a new magazine."

Betty was quite willing to go down-town, but she smiled mournfully at Eleanor's careless suggestion that she should speak to Jean. Asking Jean Eastman a delicate question, especially after the interview they had had that morning, was not likely to be a pleasant task. Betty wondered if she needed to feel responsible for Jean's mistakes. She certainly ought to know on general principles that conditions keep you out of everything nice from the freshman team on.

A visit from Helen Adams that evening threw some new light on the matter.

"Betty," Helen demanded, "isn't Teddie Wilson trying for a part in our play?"

"Helen Chase Adams," returned Betty, severely, "is it possible you don't know that she got a condition and can't try?"

"I certainly didn't know it," said Helen meekly. "Why should I, please?"

"Only because everybody else does," said Betty, and wondered if Jean could possibly belong with Helen in the ignorant minority. It seemed very unlikely, but then it seemed a sheer impossibility that Helen should have sat at the Belden House dinner-table day after day and not have heard Teddie's woes discussed. At any rate now was her chance to get some information about Miss Carter.

"While we are talking about conditions," she began, "does your friend Anne Carter tutor in French?"

Helen nodded. "It's queer, isn't it, when she has so much money? She doesn't like to do it either, but mademoiselle made her think it was her duty, because all the French faculty are too busy and there was no other girl who took the senior course that mademoiselle would trust. Anne thinks she'll be through by next week."

"Were many people conditioned in French?" asked Betty.

"Why, I don't know. I think Anne just said several, when she told me about it."

"What I mean is, are all those she tutors conditioned?"

"Why, I suppose so," said Helen, vaguely. "Seniors don't generally tutor their last term unless they have to, do they? There wouldn't be much object in it. Why are you so interested in Anne's pupils, Betty?"

"Oh, for no reason at all," said Betty, carelessly. "Eleanor and I went up to see her this afternoon, and some one came in for a lesson, as I understood it, so of course we didn't stay."

"What a shame! You'll go again soon, won't you?"

"Not until after she gets through tutoring," said Betty, decidedly.

"I wish Helen Adams had never seen that girl," she declared savagely to the green lizard after Helen had gone. "Or at least—well, I almost wish so. Whatever I do will go wrong. If I ask Jean whether she knows about the rule, she'll be horribly disagreeable, but if she gets Bassanio and then Miss Stuart reports her condition she'll probably come and tell me that I ought to have seen she was conditioned and warned her. Anyway I shall feel that I ought. It's certainly much kinder to speak to her than to ask Barbara to inquire of Miss Stuart. Eleanor can't speak to her. No one can but me." The lizard didn't even blink, but Betty had an inspiration. "I know what. I'll write to her."

Betty spent a long time and a great deal of note-paper on that letter, but at last it read to her satisfaction:

* * * * *

"DEAR JEAN:

"After you left this afternoon Miss Harrison came in, evidently to be tutored. So I couldn't help wondering if you could possibly have had the bad luck to get a condition, and if so, whether you know the rule about the senior play,—I mean that no one having a condition can take part. Please, please don't think that I want to be interfering or disagreeable. I know you would rather have me ask you now than to have anything come out publicly later.

"BETTY."

* * * * *

Two days later Jean's answer appeared on the Belden House table.

"If you thought I had a condition in French, why didn't you go and ask mademoiselle about it? She would undoubtedly have received you with open arms. Yes, I believe that Miss Carter, whom you seem to know so intimately all of a sudden, tutors the Harrison person. Just why you should lump me with her, I don't see. I know the rule about conditions and the play as well as you do, but being without either a condition or a part, I can't see that it concerns me particularly.

"Yours most gratefully, "JEAN REAVES EASTMAN."

* * * * *

Betty read this note through twice and consigned it, torn into very small pieces, to her waste-basket. But after thinking the whole matter over a little more carefully she decided that Jean had had ample grounds for feeling annoyance, if not for showing it, and that there would be just time before dinner to find her and tell her so.

Jean looked a good deal startled and not particularly pleased when she saw Betty Wales standing in her door; but Betty, accepting Jean's attitude as perfectly natural under the circumstances, went straight to the point.

"I've come to apologize for my mistake, Jean," she said steadily, "and to tell you how glad I am that it is a mistake. I don't suppose I can make you understand why I was so sure—or at least so afraid——"

"Oh, we needn't go into that," said Jean, with an attempt at graciousness. "I suppose Miss Carter said something misleading. You are quite excusable, I think."

"No," said Betty, "I'm not. I've studied logic and argument and I ought to know better than to depend on circumstantial evidence. I'm very, very sorry."

Jean looked at her keenly. "I suppose you and Eleanor have discussed this affair together. What did she think?"

"I haven't mentioned it to her since the afternoon we were at Miss Carter's, and she doesn't know that I wrote you. That day we both felt the same—that is, we didn't know what to think. If you don't mind, I should like to tell her that it's all right."

"Why in the world should you bother to do that?" asked Jean curiously.

"Because she'll be so glad to know, and also because I think it's no more than fair to all of us. You did act very queerly that afternoon, Jean."

"Oh, did I?" said Jean oddly. "You have a queer idea of fairness. You won't work for me when I've put you on a committee for that express purpose; but no matter how disagreeable I am to you about it, you won't take a good chance to pay up, and you won't let Eleanor take hers."

"Let Eleanor take hers?" repeated Betty wonderingly.

"Yes, her chance to pay up her score. She owes me a long one. You know a good many of the items. Why shouldn't she pay me back now that she has a good chance? You haven't forgotten Mary Brooks's rumor, have you? Eleanor could start one about this condition business without half trying."

"Well, she won't," Betty assured her promptly. "She wouldn't think of mentioning such a thing to anybody. But as long as we both misunderstood, I'm going to tell her that it's all right. Good-bye, Jean, and please excuse me for being so hasty."

"Certainly," said Jean, and Betty wondered, as she ran down-stairs, whether she had only imagined that Jean's voice shook.

The next afternoon Mr. Masters and the committee, deciding that Jean's Bassanio was possibly just a shade more attractive than Mary Horton's, gave her the part. Kate Denise was Portia, and everybody exclaimed over the suitability of having the lovers played by such a devoted pair of friends. As for Betty, she breathed a sigh of relief that it was all settled at last. Jean had won the part strictly on her merits, and she fully understood Betty's construction of a committee-woman's duty to the play. Nevertheless Betty felt that, in spite of all their recent contests and differences of opinion, they came nearer to being friends than at any time since their freshman year, and she wasn't sorry that she had gone more than halfway in bringing about this happy result.

Meanwhile the date of the Glee Club concert was fast approaching. Georgia Ames came in one afternoon to consult Betty about the important matter of dress.

"I suppose that, as long as we're going to sit in a box, I ought to wear an evening gown," she said.

"Why, yes," agreed Betty, "if you can as well as not. It's a very dressy occasion."

"Oh, I can," said Georgia sadly. "I've got one all beautifully spick and span, because I hate it so. I never feel at home in anything but a shirt-waist. Beside my neck looks awfully bony to me, but mother says it's no different from most people's. The men are coming, I suppose?"

"Oh, yes, they're coming," assented Betty gaily, "and between us we've been asked to every tea on the campus, I should think. So they ought to have a good time in the afternoon, and college men are always crazy over our concerts."

"Your man will be all right," said Georgia admiringly, "and I'll do my best for the other one. Truly, Betty, I am grateful to you. I think it's awfully good of you to ask me. Even if you asked me because I'm the other Georgia's namesake, you wouldn't do it if you didn't like me a little for myself, would you?"

"Of course not, you silly child," laughed Betty.

"I want you to have my reserved seat for the basket-ball game," went on Georgia. "The subs each have one seat to give away, and I've swapped mine with a sophomore, so you can sit on your own side."

"I shall clap for you, though," Betty told her, "and I hope you'll get a chance to play. The other Georgia wasn't a bit athletic, so your basket-ball record will never be mixed with hers."

Betty repeated Georgia's remark about being nothing but the other Georgia's namesake to Madeline. "I think she really worries about it," she added.

Madeline only laughed at her. "She hasn't seemed quite so gay lately—that probably means warnings from her beloved instructors at midyears. It must be awfully hard work to keep up the freshman grind with everybody under the sun asking you to do things. Georgia hates to snub people, so she goes even when she'd rather stay at home. Twice lately I've met her out walking with the Blunderbuss. I must talk to her about the necessity of being decently exclusive."



CHAPTER XIII

GEORGIA'S AMETHYST PENDANT

"Has your man come yet, Lucy?"

"Mine hasn't, thank goodness! He couldn't get off for the afternoon."

"Mine thought he couldn't and then he changed his mind after I'd refused all the teas."

"Oh, I wouldn't miss the teas for anything. They're more fun than the concert."

"Of course she wouldn't miss them, the dressy lady, with violets to wear and a new white hat with plumes."

"The Hilton is going to have an orchestra to play for dancing. Isn't that pretty cute?"

"But did you hear about Sara Allen's men? They both telegraphed her last evening that they could come,—both, please note. And now she hasn't any seats."

So the talk ran among the merry crowd of girls who jostled one another in the narrow halls after morning chapel. For it was the day of the Glee Club concert. The first installment of men and flowers was already beginning to arrive, giving to the Harding campus that air of festive expectancy which it wears on the rare occasions when the Harding girl's highest ambition is not to shine in her classes or star in the basket-ball game or the senior play, but only to own a "man."

Tom Alison and his junior roommate arrived at the Belden soon after luncheon. Tom looked so distinguished in a frock coat and high hat that Betty hoped her pride and satisfaction in taking him around the campus weren't too dreadfully evident.

Ashley Dwight was tall, round-shouldered, and homely, except when he smiled, which he did very seldom because he was generally too busy making every one within hearing of his low voice hysterical with laughter over his funny stories. He took an instant fancy to Georgia, and of course Georgia liked him—everybody liked Ashley, Tom explained. So Betty's last worriment vanished, leaving nothing to mar the perfection of her afternoon.

The Hilton girls' brilliant idea of turning their tea into a dance had been speedily copied by the Westcott and the Belden, and the other houses "came in strong on refreshments, cozy-corners, and conversation," as Ashley put it. So it was six o'clock before any one dreamed that it could be so late, and the men went off to their hotels for dinner, leaving the girls to gloat over the flower-boxes piled high on the hall-table, to gossip over the afternoon's adventures, and then hurry off to dress, dinner being a superfluity to them after so many salads and sandwiches, ices and macaroons, all far more appetizing than a campus dinner menu.

"I'll come down to your room in time to help you finish dressing," Betty promised Georgia. "My things slip on in a minute."

But she had reckoned without a loose nail in the stair-carpet, which, apparently resenting her hasty progress past it, had torn a yard of filmy ruching off her skirt before she realized what was happening.

"Oh, dear!" she mourned, "now I shall have to rush just as usual. Helen Chase Adams, the gathering-string is broken. Have you any pink silk? I haven't a thing but black myself. Then would you try to borrow some? And please ask Madeline to go down and help Georgia. Her roommate is going rush to the concert, so she had to start early."

Helen had just taken the last stitches in the ruffle and Betty was putting on her skirt again, when Tom's card came up to her. By the time she got down-stairs they were all waiting in the reception-room and Mr. Dwight was helping Georgia into her coat and laughing at the chiffon scarf that she assured him was a great protection, so that Betty didn't see Georgia in her hated evening gown until they took off their wraps at the theatre.

"Awfully sorry I couldn't come to help you," she whispered, as they went out to the carriage, "but I know you're all right."

"I did my little best not to disgrace you," Georgia whispered back. "My neck is horribly bony, no matter what mother thinks; but I covered some of it up with a chain."

When they got to the theatre, almost every seat was filled and a pretty little usher hurried them through the crowd at the door, assuring them importantly over her shoulder that the concert would begin in one minute and she couldn't seat even box-holders during a number. Sure enough, before they had fairly gotten into their places, the Glee Club girls began to come out and arrange themselves in a rainbow-tinted semicircle for the first number. They sang beautifully and looked so pretty that Tom gallantly declared they deserved to be encored on that account alone; and he led the applause so vigorously that everybody looked up at their box and laughed. Alice Waite had the other seats in it, and as the three men were friends and all in the highest spirits, it was a gay party.

"There's Jerry Holt," Tom would say, "see him stare at our elegance."

"Oh, we're making the rest of the fellows envious all right," Ashley would answer. "Who's the stunning girl in the second row, next the aisle? We don't miss a thing from here, do we?"

"Prettiest lay-out I've ever seen, this concert is," Alice's escort would declare fervently. "Sh, Tommie, the banjo club's going to play."

And then they would settle themselves to watch the stage and listen to the music for a while.

"It's all good, but what I'm looking forward to is this," said Ashley Dwight, pointing out the Glee Club's last number on his program. "I can't wait to hear 'The Fames of Miss Ames.'"

"The what?" asked Betty, consulting her card. "Why, Georgia Ames, is it about you? Did you know they were going to have it?"

Georgia nodded. "The leader came and asked me if I cared. She seemed to think it would take, so I told her to go ahead. But I didn't realize that this concert was such a big thing," she added mournfully, "and I didn't know I was going to sit in a box."

"Pretty grand to be sitting in a box with the celebrity of the evening, isn't it, Ashley?" said Tom.

And Ashley said something in a low voice to Georgia, which made her laugh and blush and call him "too silly for anything."

Finally, after the Mandolin Club had played its lovely "Gondolier's Song," and the Banjo Club its amusing and inevitable "Frogville Echoes," the Glee Club girls came out to sing "The Fames of Miss Ames," which a clever junior had written and a musical sophomore had set to a catchy melody. A little, short-haired girl with a tremendous alto voice sang the verses, which dealt in witty, flippant fashion with the career of the two Georgias, and the whole club came in strong on the chorus.

"And now she's come to life, (Her double's here). And speculation's rife, (It's all so queer). The ghost associations, Hold long confabulations, And the gaiety of nations Is very much enhanced by Georgia dear!"

It was only shameless doggerel, but it took. Topical songs always take well at Harding, and never had there been such a unique subject as this one. Between the verses the girls clapped and laughed, nodded at Georgia's box, and whispered explanations to their escorts; and when at last the soloist answered their vociferous demands for more with a smiling head-shake and the convincing statement that "there wasn't any more—yet," they laughed and made her sing it all over.

This time Georgia asked one of the men to change seats with her, and slipped quietly into the most secluded corner of the box, behind Betty's chair, declaring that she really couldn't stand it to be stared at any longer. She looked positively pretty, Betty thought, having a chance for the first time to get a good look at her. The sparkle in her eyes and the soft color in her cheeks that the excitement and embarrassment had put there were very becoming. So was the low dress, in spite of the fact that Georgia was undoubtedly right in considering herself a "shirt-waist girl." Her neck wasn't particularly thin, or if it was the lovely old chain that she wore twisted twice around it kept it from seeming so. Betty turned to ask her something about the song and noticed the pendant that hung from her chain. It was of antique pattern—an amethyst in a ring of little pearls, with an odd quaint setting of dull gold. It looked familiar somehow. It was—yes, it was just like Nita Reese's lost pin—the one that belonged to her great grandmother and that had disappeared just before the Belden House play—one of the first thefts to be laid to the account of the college robber. Only, instead of a pin this was a pendant, fastened to the chain by a tiny gold ring. That was the only difference, for—yes, even the one little pearl that Nita had lost of the circle was missing here.

Betty didn't hear Georgia's answer to her question. She turned back to the stage, which swayed sickeningly as she watched it. At last the song ended, and while she clapped mechanically with the rest she gave herself a little shake, and told herself sternly that she was being a goose, that it was absurd, preposterous, even wicked—this thought that had flashed into her head. Nita's pin wasn't the only one of its kind; there might be hundreds just like it. Georgia's great grandmother probably had had one too.

Betty talked very fast on the way up to the Belden. She was thankful that Tom and his friend were going back to New Haven that night and would have time for only the hastiest of good-byes.

"See you later, Miss Ames," Ashley Dwight called back as he ran down the steps after Tom.

"He's asked me to the prom, Betty. Think of that!" explained Georgia, her eyes shining.

"How—nice," said Betty faintly. "I'm awfully tired, aren't you?"

"Tired!" repeated Georgia gaily. "Not a bit. I should like to begin all over again this minute. I'm hot though. We walked pretty fast up the hill." She threw back her coat and unwound the scarf that was twisted over her hair and around her throat. It caught on the amethyst pendant and Georgia pulled it away carefully, while Betty watched in fascinated silence, trying to make up her mind to speak. She might never have a good chance again. Ordinarily Georgia wore no jewelry,—not a pin or a ring. She had certainly never worn this pendant before at Harding. It would be so easy and so sensible to say something about it now and set her uncomfortable thoughts at rest.

Betty wet her lips nervously, made an heroic effort, and began.

"What a lovely chain that is, Georgia." She hoped her voice sounded more natural to Georgia than it did to herself. "Is it a family heirloom?"

Georgia put up her hand absently, and felt of the chain. "Oh, that,—yes, it is. It really belongs to mother, but she let me bring it here. She's awfully fond of old jewelry, and she has a lot. I hate all kinds, but this covers my bones so beautifully."

"The pendant is lovely too," put in Betty hastily, as Georgia moved off toward her room. "Is that old too?"

"I don't know," said Georgia stiffly. "That isn't a family thing. It was given to me—by somebody I don't like."

"The somebody must like you pretty well," said Betty, trying to speak lightly, "to give you such a stunning present."

Georgia did not answer this, except by saying, "Good-night. I believe I am tired," as she opened her door.

Up in her own corridor Betty met Madeline Ayres. "Back so soon?" said Madeline, who refused to take Glee Club concerts seriously. "I've had the most delicious evening, reading in solitary splendor and eating apples that I didn't have to pass around. I'm sure your concert wasn't half so amusing. How did Georgia's song go?"

"Finely," said Betty without enthusiasm. "Did she tell you about it while you helped her dress?"

"No, for I didn't help her. I went over to the Hilton right after dinner. Lucile told me, in a valiant attempt to persuade me that I was foolish to miss the concert."

"Oh," said Betty limply, opening her own door.

Madeline hadn't seen the pendant then. Probably some freshman who didn't know about Nita's loss had helped Georgia to dress. Well, what did that matter? She had Georgia's own word that the pin was a gift. Besides it was absurd to think that she would take Nita's pin and wear it right here at Harding. And yet—it was just the same and the one little pearl was gone. But a person who would steal Nita's pin, wouldn't make a present of it to Georgia. Then the pin couldn't be Nita's.

"I'm getting to be a horrid, suspicious person," Betty told the green lizard. "I won't think about it another minute. I won't, I won't!"

And she didn't that night, for she fell asleep almost before her head touched the pillow. Next morning she woke in the midst of a long complicated dream about Georgia and the green lizard. Georgia had stolen him and put a ring around his tail, and the lizard was protesting vigorously in a metallic shriek that turned out, after awhile, to be the Belden House breakfast-bell jangling outside her door.

"They never ring the rising-bell as loud as that," wailed Betty, when she had consulted her clock and made sure that she had slept over. Before she was dressed Georgia Ames appeared, bringing a delicious breakfast tray.

"Helen said that you have a nine o'clock recitation," she exclaimed, "and I thought you probably hadn't studied for it and would be in a dreadful hurry."

Betty thanked her, feeling very guilty. Georgia was wearing a plain brown jumper dress, with no ornament of any kind, not even a pin to fasten her collar; and she looked as cool and self-possessed and cheerful as usual. In the sober light of morning it seemed even more than absurd to suppose that she was anything but a nice, jolly girl, like Rachel and K. and Madeline,—the sort of girl that you associated with Harding College and with the "Merry Hearts" and asked to box parties with a nice Yale man, who liked her and invited her to his prom.

In the weeks that followed Betty saw a great deal of Georgia, who seemed intent on showing her gratitude for the splendid time that Betty had given her. Betty, for her part, felt that she owed Georgia far more than Georgia owed her and found many pleasant ways of showing her contrition for a doubt that, do her best, she couldn't wholly stifle. The more she saw of Georgia, the more clearly she noticed that there was something odd about the behavior of the self-contained little freshman, and also that she was worrying a good deal and letting nobody know the reason.

"But it's not conditions or warnings or anything of that sort," Georgia's round-eyed roommate declared solemnly to Betty, in a burst of confidence about the way she was worrying over Georgia. "She sits and thinks for hours sometimes, and doesn't answer me if I speak to her. And she says she doesn't care whether she gets a chance to play in the big game or not. Just imagine saying that, Miss Wales."

"She's tired," suggested Betty loyally. "She'll be all right after vacation."

Meanwhile, in the less searching eyes of the college world, Georgia continued to be the spoiled child of fortune. She came back from the prom, with glowing tales of the good times she had had, and whether or not she cared about it she was the only "sub" who got a chance to play in the big game. She made two goals, while Betty clapped for her frantically and her class made their side of the gallery actually tremble with the manifestations of their delight.

It was just as Betty was leaving the gym on the afternoon of the game that Jean Eastman overtook her.

"Could you come for a walk?" she asked abruptly. "There is something I want to get settled before vacation. It won't take long. It's about Bassanio," she went on, when they had gotten a little away from the crowd. "I want to give up my part. Do you suppose Mary Horton would take it now?"

"You want to give up Bassanio?" Betty repeated wonderingly.

"Yes. There's no use in mincing matters. I did have a condition in French, and Miss Carter was tutoring me, just as you thought. I had worked it off the day I answered your note, but of course that doesn't alter anything. They say mademoiselle never hands in her records for one semester until the next one is almost over, so nothing would have come to light until it was too late for a new person to learn the part. Don't look so astonished, Betty. It's been done before and it may be done again, but I don't care for it myself." Then, as Betty continued to stare at her in horrified silence, "If you're going to look like that, I might as well have kept the part. The reason I decided to give it up was because I didn't think I should enjoy seeing your face at the grand denouement. You see, when you and Eleanor came in that afternoon I thought you'd guessed or that Barbara Gordon and Teddie Wilson, who knew of a similar case, had, and had sent you up to make sure. But after you'd apologized for your note and squared things with Eleanor, I—well, I didn't think I should enjoy seeing your face," ended Jean, with a little break in her voice. "I—told you I had a sense of honor, and I have."

Betty put out her hand impulsively. "I'm glad you changed your mind, Jean. It's too bad that you can't have a part, but you wouldn't want it in any such way."

"I did though," said Jean, blinking back the tears. "I knew it would come out in the end,—I counted on that, and I shouldn't have minded Miss Stuart's rage or the committee's horror. But you're so dreadfully on the square. You make a person feel like a two-penny doll. I don't wonder that Eleanor Watson has changed about a lot of things. Anybody would have to if they saw much of you."

Betty's thoughts flew back to Georgia. "I wish I thought so."

"Well," said Jean fiercely, "I do. That's why I've always hated you. I presume I shall hate you worse than ever to-morrow. Meanwhile, will you please tell Barbara? I can't help what they all think, and I don't care. I only wanted you to see that I've got a little sense of obligation left and that after I've let a person apologize—Don't come any further, please."

Jean ran swiftly down the steep path leading to the lower level of the back campus and Betty turned obediently toward home, feeling very small and useless and unhappy. Jean's announcement had been so sudden and so amazing that she didn't know what she had said in response to it, and she was quite sure that she hadn't done at all what Jean expected. Then this confirmation of her suspicions about Jean gave her an uneasy feeling about Georgia. That baffling young person was just leaving the gym as Betty got back to it, and the sight of her surrounded by a bevy of her admiring friends reassured Betty wonderfully. Nevertheless she decided to go and see Miss Ferris. There was something she wanted to ask about.

After half an hour spent in Miss Ferris's cozy sitting-room, she started out to find Barbara, armed with the serene conviction that everything would come out right in the end.

"How do people influence other people?" she had demanded early in her call. "There is some one I want to influence, if I could, but I don't know how to begin."

"That's a big question, Betty," Miss Ferris assured her smilingly. "In general I think the best way to influence people is to be ourselves the things we want them to be—honest and true and kind."

Betty mused on this advice as she crossed the campus. "That was a good deal what Jean said. I guess I must just attend to my own affairs and wait and let things happen, the way Madeline does. This about Jean just happened."

She passed Georgia's door on her way up-stairs. The room was full of girls, listening admiringly to their hostess's reminiscences of the afternoon. "That sophomore guard was so rattled. She kept saying, 'I will, I will, I will,' between her teeth and she was so busy saying it that she forgot to go for the ball. But she didn't forget to stick her elbow into me between times—not she. I wanted to slug her a little just for fun, but of course I wouldn't. I perfectly hate people who don't play fair."

Betty went on up the stairs smiling happily. She wanted to hug Georgia for that last sentence.



CHAPTER XIV

THE MOONSHINERS' BACON-ROAST

Jean's sudden retirement from the cast of "The Merchant of Venice" was the subject of a good deal of excited conjecture during the few days that remained of the winter term. Betty explained it briefly to Barbara, who in turn confided Jean's story to the rest of her committee. All of them but Clara Ellis thought better of Jean than they ever had before for the courage she had shown in owning herself in the wrong. Teddie Wilson, being in Jean's French division, remembered her letter from the last year's girl and made a shrewd guess at the true state of affairs; but realizing just how sorely Jean had been tempted she was generous enough not to ask any questions or tell anybody what she thought. So the Harding world was divided in its opinions, one party asserting that Jean's acting had proved a disappointment, the other declaring that she had wanted to manage the whole play, and finding that she couldn't had resigned her part in it. Jean herself absolutely refused to discuss the subject, beyond saying that she was tired and had found it necessary to drop something, and she was so sarcastic and ill-tempered that even her best friends began to let her severely alone. Toward Eleanor her manner was as contemptuous as ever, and she kept haughtily aloof from Betty. But one day when two of the Hill girls, gossiping in her room, made some slighting remarks about Betty's prominence in class affairs, Jean flashed out an indignant protest.

"She's one of the finest girls in 19—, and if either of you amounted to a third as much, you could be proud of it. No, I don't like her at all, but I admire her immensely, so please choose somebody else to criticise while you're in here."

Meanwhile the winter term had ended, the spring vacation come and gone, and the lovely spring term was at full tide in Harding. If you were a freshman, it made you feel sleepy and happy and utterly regardless of the future terrors of the conditioned state in comparison with the present joys of tennis and canoeing or the languorous fascination of a hammock on the back campus,—where one goes to study and remains to dream. If you were a senior it made a lump come in your throat,—the fleeting loveliness of this last spring term, when all the trials of being a Harding girl are forgotten and all the joys grow dearer than ever, now that they are so nearly past.

"But it's not going to be any daisy-picking spring-term for 19—," Bob Parker announced gaily to a group of her friends gathered for an after-luncheon conference on the Westcott piazza. "Isn't that a nice expression? Miss Raymond used it in class this morning. She wanted to remind us, she said, that the Harding course is four full years long. Then she gave out a written lesson on Jane Austen for Friday."

"What a bother!" lamented Babbie, who hadn't elected English novelists. "Now I suppose we can't have either the Moonshiners' doings or the 'Merry Hearts' meeting on Thursday."

"Who on earth are the Moonshiners?" asked Katherine Kittredge curiously.

"Learn to ride horseback and you can be one," explained Babbie. "They're just a crowd of girls, mostly seniors, who like to ride together in the cool of the evening and make a specialty of moonlight. We're going to have a bacon-roast the first moonlight night that everybody can come."

"Which will be the night after never," declared Madeline Ayres sagely.

"What's the awful rush about that bacon-roast?" asked Babe. "I should think it would be nicer to wait awhile and have it for a sort of grand end-up to the riding season."

"Why, there isn't but one more moon before commencement," explained Babbie, "and if we wait for that it may be too hot. Who wants to go on a bacon-roast in hot weather?"

"The 'Merry Hearts' are going to decide about passing on the society, aren't they?" asked Rachel. "That's a very important matter and we ought to get it off our hands before too many other things come up. Girls, do you realize that commencement is only five weeks off?"

"Oh, please don't begin on that," begged Babe, who hated sentiment and was desperately afraid that somebody would guess how tear-y she felt about leaving Harding. "I'll tell you how to settle things. Let's go over all the different afternoons and evenings and see which ones are vacant. Most of the 'Merry Hearts' are here and several Moonshiners. We can tell pretty well what the other girls have on for the different days."

"I'll keep tab," volunteered Katherine, "because I belong to only one of these famous organizations. Shall I begin with to-morrow afternoon? Who can't come then to a 'Merry Hearts' meeting?"

"We can't. Play committee meets," chanted Rachel and Betty together.

"Mob rehearsal from four to six," added Bob.

"Helen Adams has to go to a conference with the new board of editors," put in Madeline. "I heard her talking to Christy about it. It begins early and they're going to have tea."

"To-morrow evening—Moonshiners' engagements please," said Katherine briskly.

"Class supper committee meets to see about caterers," cried Babe. "We can't put it off either. Last year's class has engaged Cuyler's already,—the pills! That committee takes out me and Nita and Alice Waite."

"Rehearsal of the carnival dance in the play," added Babbie promptly, "and Jessica, alias me, has to go."

"Thursday as I understand it is to be devoted to picking, not daisies, but the flowers of Jane Austen's thought for Miss Raymond." Katherine looked at Babbie for directions. "Shall I go on to Friday afternoon?"

"Class meeting," chanted several voices at once.

"It won't be out a minute before six," declared Bob. "We've got to elect the rest of our commencement performers——"

"Which isn't very many," interposed Madeline.

"Well, there'll be reports from dozens and dozens of committees," concluded Bob serenely, "and there'll be quantities of things to discuss. 19— is great on discussions."

"In the evening," Betty took her up, "Marie is going to assign the junior ushers to the various functions, and she's asked most of us to advise her about it, hasn't she?"

Several girls in the circle nodded.

"Then we come to Saturday," proclaimed Katherine. "Evening's out, I know, for Dramatic Club's open meeting."

"I'm on the reception committee," added Betty. "We shall have to trim up the rooms in the afternoon."

"All the play people have rehearsals Saturday."

"Saturday seems to be impossible," said Katherine. "How about Monday afternoon?"

"The Ivy Day committee has a meeting," announced Rachel in apologetic tones. "But don't mind me, if the rest can come then."

"The Prince of Morocco has a special audience granted him by Miss Kingston for Monday at five," said Madeline. "But don't mind him."

"Dear me," laughed Betty. "I hadn't any idea we were such busy ladies. Is everybody in 19— on so many committees, do you suppose?"

"Of course not, simple child," answered Bob. "We're prominent seniors,—one of the leading crowds in 19—. I heard Nan Whipple call us to a freshman that she had at dinner last Sunday."

"And all of us but Madeline work early and late to keep up the position," added Babbie grandly.

"The Watson lady is an idler too," put in Madeline, with quick tact, remembering that Eleanor had mentioned no engagements. "We're content to bask in the reflected glory of our friends, aren't we, Eleanor?"