Eleanor nodded brightly and Babbie returned to the matter in hand. "We shall never get a date this way," she declared. "Let's put all the days of next week after Monday into Bob's cap. The first one that K. draws out will be the 'Merry Hearts' afternoon; and the next the Moonshiners' evening. Those that can't come at the appointed times will have to stay at home."

Everybody agreed to this, and Madeline gallantly sacrificed a leaf from her philosophy note-book to write the days on.

"Friday," announced Katherine, drawing out a slip, "and Thursday."

"Those are all right for me," said Madeline.

"And for me."

"Same here."

"And here."

"We'd much better have drawn lots in the first place," said Babbie. "Now if it only doesn't rain on Thursday and spoil the full moon! Tell the others, won't you, girls? I'm due at the Science Building this very minute."

It didn't rain on Thursday. Indeed the evening was an ideal one for a long gallop, with an open-air supper to follow. This was to be cooked and eaten around a big bonfire that would take the chill off the spring air and keep the mosquitoes at a respectful distance. Most of the Moonshiners belonged to the Golf Club, and they had gotten permission to have their fire in a secluded little grove behind the course. Babbie, who had organized the Moonshiners and was their mistress of ceremonies, held many secret conferences with Madeline Ayres and the two spent a long afternoon sewing behind locked doors, on some dark brown stuff, which Babbie subsequently tied into a big, untidy parcel and carried up to Professor Henderson's. So the Moonshiners expected a "feature" in addition to the familiar delights of a bacon-roast, and they turned out in such numbers that Bob had to ride a fat little carriage horse and Babbie bravely mounted the spirited mare "Lady," who had frightened her so on Mountain Day. But there was no storm this time to agitate Lady's nerves, and they kept clear of the river and the ferries; so everything went smoothly and the Moonshiners cantered up to the Club house at half past eight in the highest possible spirits.

They could see the grove as they dismounted and every one but Babbie was surprised to find the fire already lighted. The dishes and provisions had been carried out in big hampers in the afternoon, and the wood gathered, so there was nothing to do now but stroll over to the fire and begin.

"Why, somebody's there," cried Betty suddenly. She was walking ahead with Alice Waite. "I can see two people. They're stooping over the fire. Why, Alice, it's two dear little brown elves."

"Just like those on my ink-stand," cried Alice, excitedly. "How queer!"

Everybody had seen the picturesque little figures by this time, and the figures in their turn had spied the riding-party and had begun to dance merrily in the fire-light. They were dressed in brown from head to foot, with long ears on their brown hoods and long, pointed toes curling up at the ends of their brown shoes. They looked exactly like the little iron figures of brownies that every Harding girl who kept up with the prevailing fads had put on her desk that spring in some useful or ornamental capacity. They danced indefatigably, pausing now and then to heap on fresh wood or to poke the fire into a more effective blaze, and looking, in the weird light, quite fantastic enough to have come out of the little hillside behind the fire, tempted to upper earth by the moonlight and the great pile of dry wood left ready to their hands. For a few minutes after the Moonshiners' arrival the trolls resolutely refused to speak.

"'Cause now you'll know we ain't real magic," explained Billy Henderson indignantly, when his chum had fallen a victim to Bob's wiles and disclosed his identity.

The fire was so big and so hot by this time that it threatened to burn up the whole grove, so the small boys were persuaded to devote their energies to toasting thin slices of bacon, held on the ends of long sticks, and later to help pass the rolls and coffee that went with the bacon, and to brown the marshmallows, which, with delicious little nut-cakes, made up the last course.

The Moonshiners had spent so much time admiring Babbie's brownies that they had to hurry through the supper and even so it bid fair to be after ten before they reached the campus. Betty, Bob, and Madeline happened to get back to the horses first and were waiting impatiently for the rest to come when Bob made a suggestion.

"Mr. Ware is helping stamp out the fire. Let's get on and start for home ahead of the others. Then we can let most of them in if they're late. Our matron will rage if she catches us again this week."

"All right," agreed Madeline. "Mr. Ware said he had told a man to be at the Westcott, ready to take some of the horses. Let's not tell any one. They'll be so surprised to find three horses gone."

"We shall have to hurry then," whispered Betty. "They'll be here any minute."

"On second thought," said Madeline, "I don't believe I can pick out my own horse. It's inky dark here under the trees." Madeline had ridden all her life but she seldom went out at Harding, and so hadn't a regular mount, like most of the other Moonshiners.

"Of course you can, Madeline," scoffed Betty. "You rode Hero, that big black beast hitched to the last post, next to my horse. Don't you remember tying him there?"

Bob backed her sturdy cob out from between two restless companions, and with much laughter and whispering and many injunctions to hurry and to be "awfully still," the three conspirators mounted and walked their horses quietly down the drive.

"My stirrups seem a lot too long," Betty whispered softly, as they passed down the avenue, dusky with the shadows of tall elms. "Whoa, Tony! Wait just a minute, girls. Why—oh, Bob, Madeline,—I've got the wrong horse. Somebody must have changed them around. This is Lady."

Whether it was Betty's nervous clutch on the reins as she made this dire discovery and remembered Lady's antics on the ferry-boat, or whether the saucy little breeze which chose that moment to stir the elm branches and set the shadows dancing on the white road, was responsible, is a matter of doubt. At any rate Lady jerked back her pretty head impatiently, as if in answer to her name, shivered daintily, reared, and ran. She dodged cat-like, between Bob and Madeline and out through the narrow gateway, turned sharply to the right, away from Harding, and galloped off up the level road that lay white in the moonlight, between the Golf Club and a pine wood half a mile away.

Betty had presence of mind enough to dig her knees into Lady's sides, and so managed somehow, in spite of her mis-fit stirrups, to stay on at the gate. She tugged hard at the reins as Lady flew along, and murmured soothing words into Lady's quivering ears. But it wasn't any use. Betty had wondered sometimes how it felt to be run away with. Now she knew. It felt like a rush of cold wind that made you dizzy and faint. You thought of all sorts of funny little things that happened to you ages ago. You wondered who would plan Jessica's costumes if anything happened to you. You wished you weren't on so many committees; it would bother Marie so to appoint some one in your place. You made a neat little list of those committees in your mind. Then you got to the pine wood, and something did happen, for Lady went on alone.

Madeline, straining her eyes at the gateway, waiting for Bob and Mr. Ware to come, couldn't see that.

"She was still on the last I could see," she told them huskily, and Mr. Ware whipped his horse into a run and rushed after Lady.

Madeline looked despairingly at Bob. "Let's go too," she said. "I can't stand it to wait here."

"All right."

They rode fast, but it seemed ages before they got to the pines. Mr. Ware was galloping far ahead of them.

"If she's gone so far she'll slow up gradually on that long hill," suggested Bob, trying to speak cheerfully.

"Isn't it—pretty—stony?" asked Madeline.

"Yes, but after she'd run so far she wouldn't try to throw Betty."

"Suppose we wait here. Oh, Bob, what shall we do if she's badly hurt?"

"She can't be," said Bob with a thick sob. "Please come on, Madeline. I've got to know if she's——" Bob paused over the dreadful word.

There was a little rustling noise in the bushes beside the road. "Did Mr. Ware have a dog?" asked Madeline.

"No," gulped Bob.

"There's something down there. Who's there?" called Madeline fearlessly, and then she whistled in case Bob had been mistaken about the dog.

"It's I—Betty Wales," answered a shaky little voice, with a reassuring suggestion of mirth in it. "I'm so glad somebody has come. I'm down here in a berry-patch and I can't get up."

Madeline was off her horse by this time, pushing through the briars regardless of her new riding habit.

"Where are you hurt, dear?" she asked bending over Betty and speaking very gently. "Do you suppose you could let me lift you up?"

Betty held out her arms, with a merry laugh. "Why, of course I could. I'm not one bit hurt, except scratched. The ferns are just as soft as a feather bed down here, but the thorns up above are dreadful. I can't seem to pull myself up. I'm a little faint, I guess."

A minute later she was standing in the road, leaning against Madeline, who felt of her anxiously and asked again and again if it didn't hurt.

"Hasn't she broken her collar-bone?" asked Bob, who was holding the horses. "People generally do when they have a bad spill. Are her arms all right?"

"I suppose I didn't know how to fall in the proper way," explained Betty, wearily. "I can't remember how it happened, only all at once I found myself down on those ferns with my face scratched and smarting. If Mr. Ware went by ahead of you I suppose I must have been stunned, for I didn't see him."

"He's probably hunting distractedly for you on the hill," said Bob, glad to have something definite to do. "I think he's caught Lady, and I'll go and tell him that we've caught you."

Just then Professor Henderson's surrey drove up. It had come for Billy, and Babbie had thoughtfully sent it on to bring back "whoiver's hurted," the groom explained. But he made no objection to taking in Betty, though, rather to Billy's disappointment, she did not come under that category.

"I never saw a broken arm, ner a broken leg, ner a broken anything," he murmured sleepily. "I thought I'd have a chance now. Say, can I please put my head in your lap?"

"My, but your knees wiggle something awful," Billy complained a minute later. "Don't you think they're cracked, maybe?"

So Madeline put the sleepy elves in front with the driver and got in herself beside Betty. Curled up in Madeline's strong arms she cried a little and laughed a good deal, never noticing that Madeline was crying, too. For just beyond the berry-patch there was a heap of big stones, which made everything that Bob and Madeline had feared in that dreadful time of suspense seem very reasonable and Betty's escape from harm little short of a miracle.

It was striking eleven when the riding party and the surrey turned up the campus drive and the B's noticed with dismay that the Westcott was brilliantly lighted.

"I know what's happened," wailed Babe. "Our beloved matron has found us missing and she's hunting for us under the beds and in all the closets, preparatory to calling in the police. Never mind! we've got a good excuse this time."

But the Westcott was not burning its lights to accommodate the matron. The B's had not even been missed. Katherine met them in the hall and barely listened to their excited accounts of their evening's adventure.

"There's been plenty doing right here, too," she said.

"What?" demanded the three.

"College thief again, but this time it's a regular raid. For some reason nearly everybody was away this evening, and the ones who had anything to lose have lost it—no money, as usual, only jewelry. Fay Ross thinks she saw the thief, but—well, you know how Fay describes people. You'd better go and see what you've lost."

Luckily the thief had neglected the fourth floor this time, so they had lost nothing, but they sat up for an hour longer, consoling their less fortunate friends, and listening to Fay's account of her meeting with the robber.

"I'm pretty sure I should know her again," she declared, "and I'm perfectly sure that I've seen her before. She isn't very tall nor very dark. She's big and she looks stupid and slow, not a bit like a crafty thief, or like a college girl either. She had a silk bag on her arm. I wish I'd asked her what was in it."

But naturally Fay hadn't asked, and she probably wouldn't see the thief soon again. Next morning Emily Lawrence telegraphed her father about her watch with diamonds set in the back, and he sent up two detectives from Boston, who, so everybody supposed, would make short work of finding the robber. They took statements from girls who had lost their valuables during the year and from Fay, prowled about the campus and the town, and finally went back to Boston and presented Emily's father with a long bill and the enlightening information that the case was a puzzling one and if anything more turned up they would communicate it.

Georgia Ames displayed no unusual interest in the robbery. She happened to tell Betty that she had spent the entire evening of the bacon-roast with Roberta, and Betty, watching her keenly, was almost sure that she knew nothing of the excitement at the Westcott until the B's came over before chapel to inquire for "the runaway lady" and brought the news of the robbery with them. The "runaway lady" explained that she wasn't even very lame and should have to go to classes just as usual. Then she hid her face for a minute on Bob's broad shoulder,—for though she wasn't lame she had dreamed all night of Lady and stones and briars and broken collar-bones,—and Bob patted her curls and told her that Lady was going to be sold, and that she should have been frightened to pieces in Betty's place. After which Betty covered her scratches with a very bewitching white veil and went to chapel, just as if nothing had happened.



CHAPTER XV

PLANS FOR A COOPERATIVE COMMENCEMENT

It was Saturday afternoon and time for the "Merry Hearts'" meeting, which had been postponed for a day to let every one recover from Thursday evening's excitement.

"Come along, Betty," said Roberta Lewis, poking her head in at Betty's half-open door. "We're going to meet out on the back campus, by Nita's hammock."

"Could you wait just a second?" asked Betty absently, looking up from a much crossed and blotted sheet of paper. "If I can only think of a good way to end this sentence, I can inform Madeline Ayres that my 'Novelists'' paper is done. She said I couldn't possibly finish it by five. See my new motto."

"'Do not let study interfere with your regular college career,'" read Roberta slowly. "What a lovely sentiment! Where did you get it?"

"Helen gave it to me for a commencement present," said Betty, drawing a very black line through the words she had written last. "Isn't it just like her?"

"Do you mean that it's like her to give you something for commencement that you won't have much use for afterward?"

"Yes," laughed Betty, "and to give it to me because she says I made her see that it's the sensible way of looking at college, although she thinks the person who got up these mottoes probably meant it for a joke. She wishes she could find out for sure about that. Isn't she comical?"

"Yes," said Roberta, "she is. You haven't written as much as you've crossed out since I came, Betty Wales. We shall be late."

Betty shut her fountain pen with a snap, and tossed the much blotted page on top of a heap of its fellows, which were piled haphazard in a chair beside her desk.

"Who cares for Madeline Ayres?" she said, and arm in arm the two friends started for the back campus, where they found all the rest of the senior "Merry Hearts" waiting for them. Dora Carlson couldn't come, Eleanor explained; and Anne Carter and Georgia thought that they were too new to membership in the society to have any voice in deciding how it should be perpetuated.

"It's rather nice being just by ourselves, isn't it?" said Bob.

"It's rather nice being all together," added Babbie in such a significant tone that Babe gave her a withering glance and summarily called the meeting to order.

The discussion that followed was animated, but it didn't seem to arrive anywhere. There were Lucile and Polly and their friends in the sophomore class who would be proud to receive a legacy from the seniors they admired so much; and there was a junior crowd, who, as K. put it, were a "jolly good sort," and would understand the "Merry Hearts'" policy and try to keep up its influence in the college. Everybody agreed that, if the society went down at all, it ought to descend to a set of girls who were prominent enough to give a certain prestige to its democratic principles, and who, being intimate friends, would enjoy working and playing together as the first generation of "Merry Hearts" had, and would know how to bring in the "odd ones" like Dora and Anne, when opportunity offered.

"But after all," said Rachel dejectedly, "it would never be quite the same. We are 'Merry Hearts' because we wanted to be. The idea just fitted us."

"And will look like a rented dress suit on any one else," added Madeline frivolously. "Of course I'm not a charter member of 19—, and perhaps I ought not to speak. But don't you think that the younger classes will find their own best ways of keeping up the right spirit at Harding? I vote that the 'Merry Hearts' has done its work and had its little fling, and that it would better go out when we do."

"Then it ought to go out in a regular blaze of glory," said Bob, when murmurs of approval had greeted Madeline's opinion.

"I know a way." Betty spoke out almost before she thought, and then she blushed vividly, fearing that she had been too hasty and that the "Merry Hearts" might not approve of her plan.

"Is it one of the things you thought of while you were being run away with?" asked Madeline quizzically.

Betty laughed and nodded. "You'd better make a list of the things I thought of, Miss Ayres, if the subject interests you so much."

"Was there one for every scratch on your face?" asked Katherine.

Betty drew herself up with a comical affectation of offended dignity. "I almost wish I'd broken my collar-bone, as Bob thought I ought to. Then perhaps I should get a little sympathy."

"And where would the costumes for the play have been, with you laid up in the infirmary for a month?" demanded Babbie with a groan.

"Do you know that's the very thing I worried about most when Lady was running," began Betty, so earnestly that everybody laughed again.

"Just the same it wouldn't have been any joke, would it, about those costumes," said Bob, when the mirth had subsided, "nor about all the other committee work that you've done and that nobody else knows much about."

"Not even to mention that we should hate to have anything happen to you for purely personal reasons," said Madeline, shivering in the warm sunshine as she remembered how that dreadful pile of white stones had glistened in the moonlight.

"I think this class would better pass a law: No more riding by prominent seniors," declared Katherine Kittredge. "If Emily Davis should get spilled, there would go our good young Gobbo and our Ivy Day orator, besides nobody knows how much else."

"Christy is toastmistress and Antonio."

"Kate is chairman of the supper committee and Portia."

"Everybody who's anything is a lot of things, I guess," said little Helen Adams. She herself was in the mob that made the background for the trial scene in "The Merchant of Venice," and she was as elated over her part as any of the chief actors could possibly be over their leading roles. But that wasn't all. She was trying for the Ivy song, which is chosen each year by competition. She had been working on her song in secret all through the year, and she felt sure that nobody had cared so much or tried so hard as she,—though of course, she reminded herself sternly it took more than that to write the winning song and she didn't mean to be disappointed if she failed.

"Order please, young ladies," commanded Babe, who delighted to exercise her presidential dignities. "We are straying far from the subject in hand—to adapt the words of our beloved Latin professor. Betty Wales was going to tell us how the 'Merry Hearts' could go out with a splurge."

"I object to the president's English," interrupted Madeline. "The connotation of the term splurge is unpleasant. We don't wish to splurge. Now go ahead, Betty."

"Why, it's nothing much," said Betty modestly, "and probably it's not at all what Bob is thinking of. It's just that, as Helen says, everybody who is in anything is in a lot of things and most of the class are being left out of the commencement plans. I thought of it first that day we had a lecture on monopolies in sociology. Don't you remember Miss Norris's saying that there were classes and masses and excellent examples of monopolies right here in college, and that we needn't wait until we were out to have a chance to fight trusts and equalize wages."

"Oh, that was just an illustration," objected Bob blandly. "Miss Norris didn't mean anything by it."

"She's a Harding girl herself," Betty went on, "and it's certainly true, even if she didn't intend it to be acted on. Thursday night when I went over the things I had to do about commencement and thought I couldn't do any of them I felt dreadfully greedy."

"But Betty," Rachel took her up, "don't you think it takes executive ability to be on committees and plan things? Commencement would be at sixes and sevens if the wrong girls had charge of it."

"Yes, of course it would," agreed Betty. "Only I wondered if all the left-out people are the wrong kind."

"Of course they're not," said Madeline Ayres with decision. "What is executive ability, anyway?"

"The thing that Christy Mason has," returned Bob promptly.

"Exactly," said Madeline, "and that is just practice in being at the head of things,—nothing more. Christy isn't much of a pusher, she isn't particularly brilliant or particularly tactful; but she's been on committees as regularly as clockwork all through her course, and she's learned when to pull and when to push, and when to sit back and make the rest push. It's a thing any one can learn, like French or bookkeeping or how to make sugar-cookies. I hate it myself, but I don't believe it's a difficult accomplishment."

"Perhaps not," protested Bob, "but it takes time, if it's anything like French or cookies—I never tried the bookkeeping. We don't want to make any experiments with our one and only commencement."

"Why, I'm an experiment," said Roberta hastily, as if she had just thought of it and felt impelled to speak.

"Yes, but you're the exception that proves the rule," said Nita Reese brusquely. Nita's reputation for executive ability was second only to Christy's and she was badly overworked, and tired and cross in consequence. "I don't think I quite get your idea, Betty. Do you want K., for instance, to give up her part in the play to Leslie Penrose, who was told she could have it at first and cried for a whole day when she found there had been a mistake?"

"Come, Nita," said Madeline lazily, but with a dangerous flash in her gray eyes. "That's not the way to take our last chance to make more 'Merry Hearts.' Let Betty tell us exactly what she does mean."

"Please do, Betty," begged Nita, half ashamed already of her ill-tempered outburst.

"Of course I don't want K. to give up her part," began Betty with a grateful look at Madeline and a smile for Katherine. "I only thought that some of us are in so many things that we're tired and rushed all the time, and not enjoying our last term half as much as we might."

"My case exactly," put in Nita repentantly.

"Whereas there are girls in the class who've never had anything to do here but study, and who would be perfectly delighted to be on some little unimportant commencement committee."

"But they ought to realize," said Babbie loftily, "that in a big college like Harding very few people can have a chance to be at the head of things. Our commencement is pretty enough to pay our families for coming even if the girls they are particularly interested in don't have parts. Being on a committee isn't a part anyway."

"Girls who are never on them think it is," said Helen Adams.

There was an ominous silence.

At the end of it Babbie slipped out of the hammock and sat down beside Betty on the grass. "It's no use at all fighting you, Betty Wales," she declared amiably. "You always twist the things we don't want to do around until they seem simple and easy and no more than decent. Of course it's true that we are all tired to death doing things that the left-outs will be blissful at the prospect of helping us with. But it's been so every year and no other class ever turned its play and its commencement upside down. And yet you make it seem the only reasonable thing to do."

"Lucky our class-meeting happened to be postponed," said Bob in matter-of-fact tones, "Makes it easier arranging things."

"A cooeperative commencement will send us out with a splurge all right," remarked Babe.

Thus the B's made a graceful concession to the policy of trying more experiments with 19—'s commencement.

"One man, one office—that's our slogan," declared Katherine, when Babe had announced that the vote in favor of Betty's plan was unanimous. "No hard and fast policy, but the general encouragement of passing around the honors. I haven't but one myself, so I shall have to look on and see that the rest of you do your duty."

"Let's make a list of the vacancies that will probably occur in our midst, as it were," suggested Rachel.

"I wonder if we couldn't lengthen the Ivy Day program and make room for a few more girls in that way," put in Eleanor. "The oration and the song don't take any time at all."

"Fine idea!" cried Madeline. "We have a lot of musical and literary talent in the class that isn't being used anywhere. We'll turn it over to the Ivy Day committee with instructions to build their program accordingly."

"But we must manage things tactfully," interposed Babbie, "as we did about the junior usher dresses. We mustn't let the left-overs suspect that we are making places for them."

"By the way," said Madeline, "have you heard that this year's junior ushers are going to keep up the precedent, out of compliment to us?"

"Pretty cute," cried Babe. "I hope they'll manage to look as well as we did."

"And as we are going to again this year in our sweet simplicity costumes," said Babbie, with a little sigh of regret for the wonderful imported gown that her mother had suggested buying as part of her commencement present.

It was growing late, so the "Merry Hearts" made a hasty outline of procedure, and delegated Rachel to see Marie Howard and ask her to help with the plan as far as she could at the approaching class-meeting. Luckily this was not until the following Tuesday, so there was plenty of time to interview all the right people and get the cooeperative campaign well established before Marie rose at the meeting to read what would otherwise have seemed an amazing list of committee appointments. Emily Davis gave up Gobbo at once and Christy, after weighing the relative glories of being toastmistress and Antonio decided that she could help more at the class supper. Both girls declared that they were delighted to be relieved of part of their responsibilities.

"Those toasts that I hadn't time to brown properly were getting on my nerves," Christy declared.

"And my Ivy oration was growing positively frivolous, it was so mixed up with young Gobbo's irresponsible way of changing masters," confessed Emily. "I've wanted to drop out of the play, but I was afraid the girls would think me as irresponsible as Gobbo. Leslie Penrose knows my part and she can step into the place as well as not."

It was a surprise to everybody when Kate Denise joined the movement, without even having been asked to do so. She gave up everything but her part as Portia, and used her influence to make the rest of the Hill girls do the same.

"I guess she remembers how we did them up last year on the dress business," chuckled Bob.

"She's a lot nicer than the rest of her crowd," Babbie reminded her, "and I think she's tired of acting as if she wasn't."

"I hate freaks," said Babe, "but it is fun to see them bustle around, acting as if they owned the earth. Leslie's whole family is coming to commencement, down to the youngest baby, and the fat Miss Austin is fairly bursting with pride just because she's on the supper committee. She has some good ideas, too."

"Of course they're proud," said little Helen Adams sententiously. "Things you've never had always look valuable to you."

Helen had won in the song contest. Her family would see her name and her song in print on the Ivy Day program, and May Hayward, a friend of hers and T. Reed's in their desolate freshman year, was to be in the mob in Helen's place.

All the changes had been made without any difficulty and no one was worrying lest experiments should prove the ruin of 19—'s commencement. Mr. Masters had protested hotly against Christy's withdrawal from the play, but the new Antonio was proving herself a great success and even Mr. Masters had to admit that the whole play had gained decidedly the minute that the actors had dropped their other outside interests. But the great difference was in the spirit of good-fellowship that prevailed everywhere. Everybody had something to do now, or if not, then her best friend had, and they talked it over together, told what Christy had suggested about the tables for class-supper, how Kate was having all her own dresses made for Portia and Nerissa couldn't afford to, so Eleanor Watson had lent her a beautiful blue satin, or what the new Ivy Day committees had decided about the exercises. There was no longer a monopoly of anything in 19—. Incidentally, as Katherine pointed out, nobody was resting her nerves at the infirmary.

Betty would have been perfectly happy if she hadn't felt obliged to worry a little about Georgia Ames. Ashley Dwight had been up to see her twice since the prom. Betty felt responsible for their friendship and wondered if she ought to warn Tom that she really didn't know anything about Georgia. For suppose Georgia hadn't had anything to do with the Westcott house robbery; that didn't prove anything about her having taken Nita's pin in the fall.

If Madeline had spoken to her protegee, as she intended to do, about excluding the Blunderbuss from her acquaintance, Georgia had paid the advice scant heed. The Blunderbuss came to see her more and more often as the term went on. To be sure Georgia was very seldom at home when the senior called. Indeed her roommate was getting to feel decidedly injured because Georgia never used her room except to sleep and dress in.



CHAPTER XVI

A HOOP-ROLLING AND A TRAGEDY

19— was having its hoop-rolling. This is the way a senior hoop-rolling is managed: custom decrees that it may take place on any afternoon of senior week, which is the week before commencement when the seniors' work is over though the rest of the classes are still toiling over their June exams. Some morning a senior who feels particularly young and frolicsome suggests to her friends at chapel that, as the time-honored official notice puts it,

"The day has come, the seniors said, To have our little fling. Let's buy our hoops and roll them round, And laugh and dance and sing."

If her friends also feel frolicsome they pass the word along, and unless some last year's girls have bequeathed them hoops, they hurry down-town to buy them of the Harding dealer who always keeps a stock on hand for these annual emergencies. The seniors dress for luncheon in "little girl" fashion, skirts up and hair down, and the minute the meal is over they rush out into the sunshine to roll hoop, skip rope, swing in the long-suffering hammocks under the apple trees, and romp to their hearts' content. Freshmen hurrying by to their Livy exam, turn green with envy, and sophomores and juniors "cramming" history and logic indoors lean out of their windows to laugh and applaud, finally come down to watch the fun for "just a minute," and forget to go back at all.

19— had its hoop-rolling the very first day of senior week. As Madeline Ayres said when she proposed it, you couldn't tell what might turn up, in the way of either fun or weather, for the other days, so it was best to lose no time. And such a gay and festive hoop-rolling as it was! First they had a hoop-rolling parade through the campus, and then some hoop-rolling contests for which the prizes were bunches of daisies, "presented with acknowledgments to Miss Raymond," Emily Davis explained. When they were tired of hoops they ran races. When they were out of breath with running they played "drop the handkerchief" and "London Bridge." After that they serenaded a few of their favorite faculty. Then they had a reformed spelling-match, to prove how antiquated their recently finished education had already become.

Finally they sat down in a big circle on the grass and had "stunts." Babbie recited "Mary had a little lamb," for possibly the thousandth time since she had learned to do it early in her junior year. Emily Davis delivered her famous temperance lecture. Madeline sang her French songs, Jane Drew did her ever-popular "hen-act," and Nancy Simmons gave "Home, Sweet Home," as sung into a phonograph by Madame Patti on her tenth farewell tour.

Most of these accomplishments dated back as far as 19— itself, and half the girls who heard them knew them by heart, but they listened to each one in breathless silence and greeted its conclusion with prolonged and vigorous applause. It was queer, Alice Waite said, but some way you never, never got tired of seeing the same old stunts.

When the long list of 19—'s favorites was finally exhausted and Emily Davis had positively refused to give the temperance lecture for a third time, the big circle broke up into a multitude of little ones. Bob Parker and a few other indefatigable spirits went back to skipping rope; the hammocks filled with exclusive twos and threes; larger coteries sat on the grass or locked arms and strolled slowly up and down the broad path that skirted the apple-orchard.

Betty, Helen and Madeline were among the strollers.

"One more of the famous last things over," said Madeline with a regretful little sigh. "I'm glad we had it before the alums, and the families begin to arrive and muddle everything up."

"Did I tell you that Dorothy King is coming after all?" asked Betty, who, in a short white sailor suit, with her curls flying and her hoop clutched affectionately in one hand, looked at least eight years too young to be a senior, and supremely happy.

"Has she told you, Helen?" repeated Madeline dramatically. "She tells me over again every time I see her. When is Mary Brooks scheduled to arrive?"

"Thursday," answered Betty, "so that she can see the play all three times."

"Not to mention seeing Dr. Hinsdale between the acts," suggested Madeline. "What do you two say to a picnic to-morrow?"

Helen said, "How perfectly lovely!" and Betty decided that if Helen and Madeline would come to the gym in the morning and help with the last batch of costumes for the mob, she could get off by three o'clock in the afternoon.

"That reminds me," she added, "that I promised Nerissa to ask Eleanor if she has any shoes to match her blue dress. The ones we ordered aren't right at all by gas-light."

"There's Eleanor just going over to the Hilton," said Helen.

"Find out if she can go to the picnic," called Madeline, as Betty hurried off, shouting and waving her hoop. "We'll be asking the others."

"El-ea-nor!" cried Betty shrilly, making frantic gestures with her hoop. But though Eleanor turned and looked back at the gay pageant under the trees, she couldn't single out any one figure among so many, and after an instant's hesitation she went on up the Hilton House steps.

So Betty stepped across the campus alone, and being quite out of breath by the time she got indoors went slowly up-stairs and down the long hall to Eleanor's room. The house was very still—evidently its inmates were all out watching the hoop-rolling. Betty found herself walking softly, in sympathy with the almost oppressive silence. Eleanor's door was ajar, so that Betty's knock pushed it further open.

"May I come in?" she asked, hearing Eleanor, as she supposed, moving about inside. Without waiting for an answer she walked straight in and came face to face with—not Eleanor, but Miss Harrison, champion Blunderbuss of 19—.

"Why, what are you doing here?" she asked, her voice sharp with amazement. "I beg your pardon," she added laughingly, "but I thought of course it was Eleanor Watson. She came into the house just ahead of me."

"She hasn't been in here yet," said the Blunderbuss. She had been standing when Betty first caught sight of her. Now she dropped hastily into a chair by the window. "I was sure she'd be back soon and I wanted to speak to her for a minute. But I guess I won't wait any longer. I shall be late to dinner."

"Why, no, you won't," said Betty quickly. "It isn't anywhere near dinner-time yet." She didn't care about talking to the Blunderbuss while she waited for Eleanor, but she had a great curiosity to know what the girl could want with Eleanor. "And I don't believe Eleanor will have any more idea than I have," she thought.

But the Blunderbuss rose nervously. "Well, anyway, I can't wait," she said. "I guess it's later than you think. Good-bye."

Just at that minute, however, somebody came swiftly down the hall. It was Eleanor Watson, carrying a great bunch of pink roses.

"Oh, Betty dear," she cried, not noticing the Blunderbuss, who had stepped behind a Japanese screen, "see what daddy sent me. Wasn't it nice of him? Why, Miss Harrison, I didn't see you." Eleanor dropped her roses on a table and came forward, looking in perplexity first at Miss Harrison and then around the room. "Betty," she went on quickly, "have you been hunting for something? I surely didn't leave my bureau drawers open like this."

Betty's glance followed Eleanor's to the two drawers in the chiffonier and one in the dressing table which were tilted wide open, their contents looked as if some one had stirred them up with a big spoon. She had been too much engrossed by her encounter with Miss Harrison to notice any such details before.

"No, of course I haven't been hunting for anything," she answered quickly. "I shouldn't think of doing such a thing when you were away."

"I shouldn't have minded a bit." Eleanor turned back to Miss Harrison. "Did you want to see me," she asked, "or did you only come up with Betty?"

The Blunderbuss wet her lips nervously. "I—I wanted to ask you about something, but it doesn't matter. I'll see you some other time. You'll want to talk to Miss Wales now."

She had almost reached the door, when, to Eleanor's further astonishment, Betty darted after her and caught her by the sleeve. "Miss Harrison," she said, while the Blunderbuss stared at her angrily, "I'm in no hurry at all. I can wait as well as not, or if you want to see Eleanor alone I will go out. But I think that you owe it to Eleanor and to yourself too to say why you are here."

The Blunderbuss looked defiantly from Betty's determined face to Eleanor's puzzled one. "I didn't know it was Miss Watson's room until you came in and asked for her," she vouchsafed at last.

"You didn't know it was her room?" repeated Betty coldly. "Why didn't you tell me that long ago? Whose room did you think you were in?"

"I thought—I didn't know whose it was."

"Then," said Betty deliberately, "if you admit that you were in here without knowing who occupied the room you must excuse me if I ask you whether or not you were looking through Eleanor's bureau drawers just before I came in."

There was a strained silence.

"You can have all the things back," said the Blunderbuss at last, as coolly as if she were speaking of returning a borrowed umbrella; and out of the pockets of the child's apron which she still wore she pulled a gold chain and a bracelet and held them out to Eleanor. "I don't want them," she said when neither of the others spoke. "I don't know why I took them. It just came over me that while all the others were out there playing it would be a good chance for me to go and look at their pretty things."

"And to steal the ones you liked best," added Betty scornfully.

The Blunderbuss gave her a vaguely troubled look. "I didn't think of it that way. Anyway it's all right now. Haven't I given them right back?"

"Suppose we hadn't come in and found you here," put in Eleanor. "Wouldn't you have taken them away?"

"I—I presume so," said the Blunderbuss.

"So you are the person who has been stealing jewelry from the campus houses all through this year." Betty's voice grew harder as she remembered the injustice she had so nearly done Georgia and Miss Harrison's self-righteous attack on Eleanor in that dreadful class-meeting.

The Blunderbuss accepted the statement without comment. "They could have had the things back if they'd asked for them," she said. "I couldn't very well give them back if they didn't ask."

"Will you give them back now?" asked Betty, astonishment at the girl's strange behavior gaining on her indignation.

The Blunderbuss nodded vigorously. "Certainly I will. I'll bring them all here to-night. I don't want them for anything. I never wanted them. I'm sure I don't know why I took them. Oh, there's just one thing," she added hastily, "that I can't bring. It isn't with the rest. But I've got everything else all safe and I'll come right after dinner. Good-bye."



The girls watched her go in a daze of bewilderment. Just outside the door she evidently bumped into some one, and her clattering laugh and loud, "Goodness, how you scared me!" sounded as light-hearted and unconcerned as possible.

"How did you ever guess that she was the one?" Eleanor asked at last.

"It just came over me," Betty answered. "But, why, she doesn't seem to care one bit!"

"About running into me?" asked Jean Eastman, appearing suddenly in the doorway. "Has she been doing damage in here, too?" No one answered and Jean gave a quick look about the room, noticing the rummaged drawers, the girls' excited, tragic faces, and the jewelry that Eleanor still had in her hand. Then she made one of her haphazard deductions, whose accuracy was the terror of her enemies and the admiration of her followers.

"Oh, I see—it's more college robber. So our dear Blunderbuss is the thief. I congratulate you, Eleanor, on the beautiful poetic justice of your having been the one to catch her."

"Yes, she's the thief," said Betty, before Eleanor could answer. She had a sudden inspiration that the best way to treat Jean, now that she guessed so much, was to trust her with everything. "And she acts so strangely—she doesn't seem to realize what she has done, and she doesn't care a bit that we know it. She said——" And between them they gave Jean a full account of their interview with Miss Harrison.

Jean listened attentively. "It's a pathetic case, isn't it?" she said at last, with no trace of her mocking manner. "I wonder if she isn't a kleptomaniac."

Betty and Eleanor both looked puzzled and Jean explained the long word. "It means a person who has an irresistible desire to steal one particular kind of thing, not to use, but just for the sake of taking them, apparently. I heard of a woman once who stole napkins and piled them up in a closet in her house. It's a sort of insanity or very nearly that. Of course jewelry is different from napkins, but Miss Harrison has taken so much more than she can use——"

"Especially so many pearl pins," put in Betty, eagerly. "Haven't you noticed what a lot of those have been lost? She couldn't possibly wear them all."

"Perhaps she meant to sell them," suggested Eleanor.

"But her family are very wealthy," objected Jean. "They spend their summers where Kate does, and she says that they give this girl everything she wants. She never took money either, even when it was lying out in plain sight, and her being so ready to give back the things seems to show that she didn't take them for any special purpose."

"Then if she's a——" began Betty.

"Kleptomaniac," supplied Jean.

"She isn't exactly a thief, is she?"

"No, I suppose not," said Jean doubtfully.

"But she isn't a very safe person to have around," said Eleanor.

"I'll tell you what," said Betty, who had only been awaiting a favorable opening to make her suggestion. "It's too big a question for us to try to settle, isn't it, girls? Let's go and tell Miss Ferris all that we've found out so far, and leave the whole matter in her hands."

Then Jean justified the confidence that Betty had shown in her. "You couldn't do anything better," she said, rising to leave.

"I wish I'd known her well enough to talk things over with her,—not public things like this, I mean, but private ones. Betty, here's a note that Christy Mason asked me to give you. That's what I came in for, originally. Of course this affair of Miss Harrison is yours, not mine, and I shan't mention it again, unless Miss Ferris decides to make it public, as I don't believe she will. By the way, I wonder if you know that Miss Harrison can't graduate with us."

"You mean that she has been caught stealing before?" asked Eleanor.

"Oh, no, but she couldn't make up the French that she flunked at midyears, and she must be behind in other subjects, too. I heard rumors about her having been dropped, and last week I saw the proof of our commencement program. Her name isn't on the diploma list."

"Oh, I believe I'm almost glad of that," said Betty softly. "It's dreadful to be glad that she has failed in every way, but I can't bear to think that she belongs in our class."

So it was Miss Ferris who met the Blunderbuss in Eleanor's room that night, who managed the return of the stolen property to its owners, with a suggestion that it would be a favor to the whole college not to say much about its recovery, and she who, finding suddenly that the noise of the campus tired her, spent the rest of the term at Miss Harrison's boarding place on Main Street, where she could watch over the poor girl and minimize the risk of her indulging her fatal mania again while she was at Harding. She was nonchalant over having been caught stealing, but her failure in scholarship had almost broken her heart. She had worked so hard and so patiently up to the very last minute in the hope of winning her diploma that, on the very morning of the hoop-rolling, she had been granted the privilege of staying on through commencement festivities and so keeping her loss of standing as much as possible to herself. After listening to Betty's and Eleanor's stories and talking to Miss Harrison herself, Miss Ferris was fully convinced that the Blunderbuss was not morally responsible for the thefts she had committed, and so she was unwilling to send her home at once and thus expose her to the double disgrace that her going just then would probably have involved. So she found her hands very full until the girl's mother could be sent for and the sad story broken to her as gently as possible.

It was the one unrelieved tragedy in 19—'s history; there seemed to be absolutely no help for it,—the kindest thing to do was to forget it as soon as possible.



CHAPTER XVII

BITS OF COMMENCEMENT

But Betty Wales couldn't forget it yet. It stood out in the midst of the happy leisure and anticipation of senior week like a skeleton at the feast,—a gaunt reminder that even the sheltered little world of college must now and then take its share of the strange and sorrowful problems that loom so much larger in the big world outside. But even so, it had its alleviating circumstances. One was Miss Ferris's hearty approval of the way in which Betty and Eleanor had managed their discovery, and another was Jean Eastman's unexpected attitude of helpfulness. She assumed her full share of responsibility, discouraging gossip and speculation about the thefts as earnestly and tactfully as Betty herself, and taking her turn of watching the Blunderbuss at the times when Miss Ferris couldn't follow her without causing too much comment. Betty and Eleanor tried to accept her help as if they had expected nothing else from her, and Jean for her part made no reference to that phase of the matter except to say once to Betty, "If Eleanor Watson can stand by her I guess I can. Besides you stood by me, and I didn't deserve it any more than this poor thing does. Please subtract it from all the times I've bothered you."

Betty was very generous with the subtraction. She was in a generous mood, wanting to give everybody the benefit of the doubt that, with a good deal of a struggle, she had managed to give Georgia. Of course the vindicating of the little freshman was quite the happiest result of the whole affair. It didn't take Betty long to identify the amethyst pendant as the one article which the Blunderbuss had said she couldn't return; and she was at once relieved and disappointed, on going over the stolen jewelry with Miss Ferris, to find that Nita's pin was certainly missing. Of course that left room for the possibility that the Blunderbuss had not taken it, and the next thing to do was to consult Georgia and make sure. Betty waited until after dinner that evening for a chance to see her alone and then, unable to stand the suspense any longer, broke abruptly away from her own friends and detached Georgia from a group of tired and disconsolate freshmen sympathizing over examinations.

"Let's go for a walk all by ourselves," she said.

"No fair, running off to talk secrets," Madeline called after the pair.

"Curiosity killed a cat," Betty chanted gaily back at her, leading the way to the back campus.

"It's awfully nice of you to ask me to come, when so many people want you," said Georgia shyly.

"Oh, no, it's not," protested Betty. "I shall have a whole week with the others after you've gone. Besides, there's something I especially want to talk to you about. Let's go and sit on the bank below the observatory."

They found comfortable seats among the gnarled roots of an old elm, where they could look across at Paradise and down on a bed of gorgeous rhododendrons, over which great moths, more marvelously colored than the flowers, flitted lazily in the twilight. Then Betty plunged into the thick of things.

"You remember the pendant that you wore on your chain the night of the Glee Club concert. You said it was a present. Would you mind telling me who gave it to you? I have good reason for asking."

Georgia flushed a little and made the answer that Betty had hoped for. "The senior Miss Harrison gave it to me last Christmas. I know you and Madeline don't like her, and I don't like her a bit better. But what can you do, Betty, when some one takes a fancy to you? You can't snub her just because she happens to be stupid and unpopular—not if you're a 'Merry Heart,' anyway."

"No," said Betty, "you can't. But if you don't like her you won't feel so bad about what I've got to tell you."

Georgia listened to the story aghast. "But I'm not so dreadfully surprised," she said. "It explains so many things. She started to take Caroline's class-pin one day in our room. I supposed she had picked it up without thinking, so when she went away I asked her for it and she acted so funny when she gave it back. And then the way she happened to give me this pin. I went to call on her once last fall, after she had asked me to dinner, and I noticed it shining under the edge of the carpet. When I called her attention to it she didn't seem to understand, so I picked it up myself. She acted queer then too, and when I admired it and said what a pretty pendant it would make she fairly insisted on my taking it. Of course I wouldn't, but she had it fixed to go on a chain and sent it to me for Christmas." Georgia interrupted herself suddenly. "It was ages after the Glee Club concert before you found out about Miss Harrison. What did you think of me all that time?"

"Why just at first I couldn't understand it," said Betty truthfully, "but after I'd thought it over I was sure you weren't to blame and I've been getting surer and surer all the time. But I am awfully glad to know how it all happened."

"And I am awfully glad that it was you who saw it," said Georgia fervently. "I never wore it but that once. I couldn't make her take it back, so I decided to send it to her after college was over—I knew mother wouldn't want me to take such a valuable present from a girl I knew so slightly, and I thought Miss Harrison would be glad to have it back then. You see," Georgia explained, "I think she did things for me in the hope that I would manage to get her in more with the girls I knew. She has been awfully lonely here, I guess. Well, I felt ashamed of having the pin and ashamed of knowing her, and the things Madeline said about her worried me dreadfully, but I couldn't seem to shake her off. Why, I've done everything I could, Betty, that wouldn't hurt her feelings. I've fairly lived in other people's rooms, so that she'd never find me at home, and that hurt my poor little roommate's feelings, so the other day I had to tell her what the matter was. I've never told any one else—I hate people who talk about that sort of thing—but I've been just miserable over it,—indeed I have! And now it seems worse than ever." Georgia's big brown eyes filled with tears.

But she smiled again when Betty assured her that she thought it was much better to be bothered and to have things come out all wrong than to be always thinking just of yourself.

"You see," Georgia confessed, "the first time I met her she seemed nice enough and I accepted her first invitations without thinking, so when she wanted to be intimate I felt as if I had been partly to blame for letting her begin it."

"Yes, you do have to be careful about not being too friendly at first," said Betty soberly, "but I think there are a lot of mistakes worse than that. I'm sorry though, if this has spoiled your first year here."

"Oh, it hasn't," said Georgia, eagerly; "it has just spotted it a little. It was a lucky thing, I guess, that I had something to bother me, or I should have been spoiled with all the good times you've given me. I did try to be a good 'Merry Heart,' Betty. Perhaps I shall have better luck next time."

"I'm sure you will," said Betty, heartily, and after they had arranged for the returning of Nita's pin in such a way as not to involve Miss Harrison, they started back to the Belden, Georgia to begin her packing and Betty to join the rest of the "Merry Hearts," who were spending the evening on the piazza.

But after all Betty slipped past them and went on up-stairs. She was in a very serious mood. She realized to-night as she never had before that her college days were over. The talk with Georgia had somehow put a period to a great many things and she wanted to be alone and think them over. Her little room was stiflingly hot and she threw the window wide open and sat down before it in the dark, leaning her elbows on the sill. The piazza was just below; she could hear the laughter and merriment, and occasionally a broken sentence or two drifted up to her.

"There's nothing left to do now but commence," declared Bob Parker, loudly.

"And when we have commenced we shall be finished," added Babe, and laughed uproariously at her bad joke.

That was just Betty's trouble,—"nothing left to do but commence," which was quite enough if you happened to be a member of the play committee. But before you "began to commence" all the tangled threads of the four happy years ought to be laid straight, and they weren't, or at least one wasn't. Betty had always felt sure that before Eleanor graduated she would get back her standing with the class. But if she had, there was nothing to prove it; the feeling of her classmates toward her had certainly changed but nothing had happened that would take away the sting of the Blunderbuss's insult last fall and of Jean's taunts at the time of the Toy Shop entertainment. Eleanor would go away feeling that on the whole she had failed. Well, it was too late to do anything now. Betty lit her gas long enough to hunt up a scarf that would furnish at least a lame apology for her delay, and went down to the gay group on the piazza. When thoughts will only go round in a circle, the best thing to do is to stop thinking them.

"I say, Betty," cried Bob eagerly, "did you know that Christy had gone home? I mean did you know she hasn't come back? She went just for senior week and now her mother is too ill to leave and she's got to stay."

"Poor Chris!" said Betty, suddenly remembering Christy's note which, in the excitement over the Blunderbuss she had forgotten to open. "How lucky that she gave up Antonio."

"Isn't it?" agreed Bob. "She's coming back for Tuesday of course to run the supper and get her precious little sheepskin. Her mother isn't dangerously sick, I guess, but there are lots of children and Christy seems to think she's the only one who can manage them."

"Think of her missing the play!" said Madeline.

"Perhaps she'll get back by Saturday night," suggested Eleanor, hopefully.

"I think she's a lot more likely not to come back at all," declared Babe, "but it's no use to worry about that yet. Who's going to meet Mary Brooks?"

"Everybody who isn't a 'star,' or hasn't got to be made up early must go," commanded Madeline. "She comes at four-ten, remember. Babbie and Roberta, go in out of this damp."

Up in her room again Betty closed the window against the invading June-bug and hunted high and low for Christy's note. She hardly expected to find it after so long a time, but it finally turned up hidden in the folds of a crumpled handkerchief which she had stuffed carelessly into her top drawer. And luckily it was not too late to do Christy's commission. She merely told of her hasty departure and wanted Betty to be sure that the supper cards, with the menu and toasts on them, were ready in time. The printer was about as dependable as Billy Henderson, Christy wrote; he needed reminding every morning and watching between times.

Betty dashed off a hasty note of sympathy and apology, promising to make the printer's life a burden until he produced the supper-cards, and went to bed.

Next day commencement began in earnest. Gay young alumnae carrying suit-cases, older alumnae escorting be-ribboned class-babies and their anxious nurses, thronged the streets; inconsiderate families began to arrive a whole day before there was anything in particular for them to do. All the afternoon the "mob" people and the other "sups" besieged the stage door of the theatre waiting their turns to be made up, and then, donning heavy veils hurried back up the hill. It was tiresome being made up so early and having to stay indoors all the hot afternoon, but it couldn't be helped, for there was only one make-up man and he must save plenty of time for the principal actors.

So the campus dinner-tables were patronized by young persons with heavily penciled eyebrows and brightly rouged cheeks, who ate cautiously to avoid smearing their paint and powder, and than ran up-stairs to jeer at the masculine contingent whose beards and moustaches had condemned them to privacy and scanty fare.

"I shall die of starvation," wailed Bob Parker, when she reached the theatre, confiding her sad story to Betty. "I said I didn't mind being a Jew and having my toes stepped on when the Christians hustle me out of court. But how can any one eat dinner with a thing like this," and she held up her flowing beard disdainfully.

"I'm sure I don't know," said Betty absently, consulting a messy memorandum as if she expected to find directions for eating with a beard among its items. "Bob, where is Roberta Lewis? The make-up man wants her this minute. It takes ages to fix on her nose."

"Portia is afraid she is going to be hoarse," announced another "supe" importantly.

"Then find the doctor," commanded Barbara Gordon swiftly, as Betty disappeared in search of Roberta. "Be careful, men. Look out for that gondola when you move the flies. Rachel, please keep the maskers off the stage."

"Why don't we begin?"

"Did you ever see such a mess?"

"Oh, it's going to be a horrible fizzle. I told you the scenery was too elaborate."

But two minutes later the "street in Venice" scene was ready and Antonio and "the Sals," as the class irreverently styled his friends, were chatting composedly together in front of it.

The house was packed of course and there was almost as much excitement in front as there was behind the scenes. Of course the under class girls and alumnae were delighted, but there was a distinguished critic from New York in the fifth row, and when Shylock appeared he was as enthusiastic as Mary Brooks herself. Even the cynical Richard Blake was pleased. He had come up to see the play and also, so he explained, to be a family to the bereft Madeline; but as Madeline was behind the scenes Eleanor Watson was obligingly looking after him. Her father and mother weren't coming until Saturday, and Jim could only make a flying trip between two examinations to spend Monday in Harding, so Eleanor had plenty of spare time with which to help out her busier friends.

"I'm going to make out a schedule of my hours," she told Mr. Blake laughingly, "for it would be dreadful if I should forget an engagement and promise to entertain two or three uncongenial people at the same time."

"Indeed it would," agreed Mr. Blake soberly. "To-night, for instance, it would have been fatal. I say, Miss Watson, keep an hour or two open Monday evening. If Madeline should urge me, I believe I'd run up again for that outdoor concert. It must be no end pretty. Ah, the carnival scene. I never saw that put on more effectively, Miss Watson."

The next night the fathers and mothers and cousins and aunts went into ecstasies over "that lovely Portia" and "sweet little Jessica," laughed at young Gobbo's every motion, and declared that Shylock was "just too wonderful for anything." A funny little old lady who sat next to Roberta's father even went so far as to ask him timidly if he didn't agree with her that Shylock was a man. "I've been telling my sister that no college girl could act like that. I guess I know an old man when I see one," she said, and blushed scarlet when he answered in his courtly way, "Pardon me, madam, but Shylock is my daughter. She will appreciate your unstudied compliment."

When the curtain finally went down on the last performance of the play the committee were almost too tired to realize that they were through, and Katherine Kittredge, alias Gratiano, sank down on the nearest grassy knoll (made of green cambric) and expressed the universal sentiments of the cast.

"Not for all the ducats in Belmont will I call Portia a learned judge again."

"You needn't, K., but please hop up," said Barbara Gordon wearily. "They're singing to us. Get into the centre, Roberta. We've got to let them see us again; they won't stop clapping till we do."

And then you should have heard the noise!

"Three cheers for good old Shylock," called somebody, and they were given with a will. Then they sang to her.

"Here's to you, Roberta Lewis, Here's to you, our warmest friend!"

Then they sang to Barbara and to Kate Denise, and to both the Gobbos.

"I say, ain't you folks goin' home till mornin'?" shouted a jovial stage-hand, thrusting his head out from the wings.

The crowd laughed and cheered him, then cheered everybody and went home, singing to Roberta all the way up the hill.

"But you can't blame them," said Betty Wales. "They don't realize how tired we are, and it's something pretty exciting to have given the play that Miss Ferris and Mr. Masters both say is the best yet."

"And to have had a perfectly marvelous Shylock," added Kate Denise warmly.

"And a splendid Portia," put in Roberta.

"Oh, wise young judges, please don't forget to mention Gratiano," said Katherine Kittredge, and set them all to laughing.

"It's been splendid fun," said Barbara. "Don't you wish we could give it all over again?"

Then they sat down on the green knolls and the gondolas and Portia's best carved chairs, and talked and talked, until, as Babbie said, they all felt so proud of themselves and each other and 19— that the stage wouldn't hold them. Whereupon they remembered that to-morrow was Baccalaureate Sunday and that most of their families had inconsiderately invited them out to breakfast,—two facts which made it desirable to go home and to bed as speedily as possible.

It always rains in the morning of Baccalaureate Sunday, but it generally clears up in time for the service, which is in the afternoon; and even if it doesn't the graduating class and its friends are willing to make the best of a bad matter because it would have been so much worse if the rain had waited for Ivy Day. 19—'s Baccalaureate was showery in an accommodating fashion that permitted the class to sleep late in the morning because their families wouldn't want them to go out in the rain, and cleared off just before and just after the service, so that they didn't need the carriages that they couldn't possibly have gotten, no matter how it poured.

And it cleared off for Ivy Day. Helen Adams was up at five o'clock anxiously inspecting the watery sunshine to see if it would last.

"For they can't plant the ivy in the rain," she thought, "and if they don't plant it how can they sing the song?"

But the sunshine lasted, Marie planted the ivy,—and the college gardener carefully replanted it later, "'cause them gals will be that disapp'inted if it don't live,"—the class sang Helen's song, and the odes, orations and addresses were all duly delivered.

Then, as Bob flippantly remarked, the fun began. For Mr. Wales had chartered three big touring cars and invited the "Merry Hearts" to go out to Smugglers' Notch for luncheon, with Mrs. Adams, who had never been in an auto before, for chaperon and himself, Will, and Jim Watson as escorts and chauffeurs.

By the time they got back the campus was festooned with Japanese lanterns, little tables ready for bowls of lemonade stood under all the biggest trees, and a tarpaulin dotted with camp chairs covered a roped-off enclosure near the back steps of College Hall.

"You've got tickets, father," Betty explained, "so you can sit down in there and listen to the music. Will, you're to call for me."

"For Miss Ayres," Will amended calmly. "Watson is going to take you."

Judge and Mrs. Watson had seats too, so Eleanor and Mr. Blake, Betty and Jim, and Madeline and Will wandered off together, two and two, enjoying snatches of the concert, exploring the campus, and engaging in a most exciting "Tournament"—Madeline's idea of course—to see who could drink the most lemonade. Will was ahead, with Madeline a close second, when a mysterious whistle sounded from the second floor of the Hilton.

"Oh, good-bye, Dick," said Madeline briskly, holding out her hand. "It's time for you to go. Shall I see you to-morrow or not till I get to New York?"

"Have we really got to go so soon?" asked Will sadly.

Betty nodded. "Or at least we've got to go and put on old dresses, so as to be ready to join in our class march."

"Why can't we march too?" demanded Mr. Blake.

"Because you're not Harding, 19—," said Madeline with finality.

And so, half an hour later, another procession assembled on the spot where the Ivy Day march had started that morning. But this time 19— was wearing its oldest clothes and heaviest shoes and didn't care whether it rained or not. Four and five abreast they marched, round the campus, up Main Street and back, round and round the campus again. "Just as if we hadn't torn around all day until we're ready to drop," Eleanor Watson said laughingly. It is a perfectly senseless performance, this "class march," which is perhaps the reason why every class revels in it.

But the procession was moving more slowly and singing with rather less enthusiasm, when a small A.D.T. approached the leaders. "Is Miss Marie Howard in this bunch?" he demanded. "She orter be at the Burton, but she ain't."

"Yes, here I am," called Marie quickly, and the small boy lit a sputtering match, so that she could sign his book and read her telegram. It was from Christy: "Awfully sorry can't come for supper. Writing."

"How perfectly dreadful," cried Marie, repeating the message to Bob, who was standing beside her. Bob passed on the bad news, and the procession broke up into little groups to discuss it.

"Why don't you appoint some one to take her place right now?" suggested Bob. "Then she can sit up all night and get her remarks ready. She won't have much time to-morrow."

Marie looked hastily around her and caught sight of Betty Wales standing under a Japanese lantern that was still burning dimly.

"Betty!" she called, and Betty hurried over to her.

"I think we ought to fill Christy's place now," whispered Marie. "Shall I appoint Eleanor Watson or have her elected?"

"Have her elected," said Betty, as promptly as if she had thought it all out beforehand.

"Then will you propose her?"

Betty shook her head. "That wouldn't do. Eleanor knows how I feel toward her. It must come from the people who haven't wanted her. They're all here, I think." Betty peered uncertainly through the gloom to make sure that Jean and her friends and the Blunderbuss were still out. "If the whole class wants her badly enough, they'll think of her."

Marie stepped out into the light of the one lantern and called the class to order. "It's a queer time to have a class-meeting," she said, "and I'm not sure that it's constitutional, but who cares about that? You all know about Christy and as Bob Parker says the new toastmistress ought to have all the time there is left. So please make nominations."

"Why don't you appoint some one, Marie?" called Alice Waite sleepily.

"Because the toastmistress who presides over our supper ought to be the choice of her class," said Marie firmly.

"Madam president,"—Jean Eastman's clear, sharp voice broke the silence. "It's a good deal to ask of any one, to step in at the last minute like this. Very few of us are capable of doing it,—of making a success of it, I mean. In fact I only know of one person that I should be absolutely sure of. Fortunately no one deserves such an appointment more truly. I nominate Eleanor Watson."

A little thrill swept over the "queer" class-meeting. Everybody had known more or less about the bitter feud between Jean and Eleanor, and very few people had had the least suspicion that it had ended. Indeed even Betty and Eleanor had not been sure how far Jean's friendliness could be counted upon. Betty, standing back in the shadows where Marie had left her, gave a little gasp of amazement and clutched Bob's arm so hard that Bob protested.

"I second that motion, Miss President." It was the Blunderbuss, and her stolid face grew hot and red in the darkness, as she wondered if any one who knew that she didn't belong to 19— now would question her right to take part in the meeting. "But I was bound to do it," she reflected. "I guess she isn't the kind of girl I thought she was. Anyhow I didn't mean to hurt her feelings before, and this will sort of make up."

"Any other nominations?" inquired Marie briskly.

There was silence and then somebody began to clap. In a minute the whole meeting was clapping as hard as it could.

"I guess we don't need ballots," said Marie, when she could be heard. "All in favor say aye."

There was a regular burst of ayes.

"Those opposed?"

Silence again.

"There's a unanimous vote for you," cried Bob Parker eagerly. "Speech from the candidate! Betty, you're killing my arm!"

"Speech!" The class took up Bob's cry.

"Where are you, Eleanor?" called Marie, and Eleanor, coming out from behind a big bush said, "I'll try to do my best—and—thank you." It wasn't a brilliant speech to come from the girl who has often been called Harding's most brilliant graduate, but it satisfied everybody, even Betty.

"I did it just to show you that I've got the idea," Jean Eastman muttered sulkily, jostling Betty in the crowd; and that was satisfactory too. Indeed when Betty went to bed that night she confided to the green lizard that she hadn't a single thing left to bother about at Harding.



CHAPTER XVIII

THE GOING OUT OF 19—

Next morning came the really important part of commencement,—the getting of your diploma, or, to speak accurately, the getting of somebody's else diploma, which you could exchange for your own later.

"Let's stand in a big circle," suggested Madeline Ayres, "and pass the diplomas round until each one comes to its owner."

It wasn't surprising that Eleanor Watson, with her newly acquired duties as toastmistress, should keep getting outside the circle to consult various toasters and members of the supper committee; but it did seem as if Betty Wales might stay quietly in her place. So thought the girls who had noticed that Carlotta Young, the last girl in the line that went up for diplomas had not received any. Carlotta was a "prod"; it was only because she came at the end of the alphabet that she was left out, but thanks to Betty's fly-away fashion of running off to speak to some junior ushers, and then calling the Blunderbuss, whose mother wanted to see her a minute, nobody could find out positively who it was that had been "flunked out" of 19—.

The next excitement took place when the class, strolling over to the Students' Building to have luncheon with the alumnae—why, they were alumnae themselves now!—met a bright-eyed, brown-haired little girl, walking with a tall young man whose fine face was tanned as brown as an Indian's.

"Don't you know me, 19—?" called the little girl gaily.

"Why, it can't be—it is T. Reed!" cried Helen Adams, rushing forward.

"And her Filipino," shrieked Bob Parker wildly.

"Of course I came. Do you think I'd have missed my own commencement?" said T., shaking hands with four girls at once. "Frank, this is Helen Adams, my best friend at Harding. Miss Parker, Mr. Howard. I'm sorry, Bob, but he's not a Filipino. He's just a plain American who lives in the Philippines."

"Have you forgotten how to play basket ball, T.?" called somebody.

T. gave a rapturous little smile. "Could we have a game this afternoon? That's what I came for, really. We meant to get here last week, but the boat was late. Yes, I'm sorry to have missed the play and the concert; but it's worth coming for, just to see you all." T.'s bright eyes grew soft and misty. "I tell you, girls, you don't know what it means to be a Harding girl until you've been half across the world for awhile. No, I'm not sorry I left, but it's great to be back!"

Mary Brooks, arrayed in a bewitching summer toilette, stood at the door of the Students' Building, and managed to intercept Betty and Roberta, as they went in.

"You may congratulate me now if you like," she said calmly, leading them off to a secluded corner behind a group of statuary, where their demonstrations of interest wouldn't attract too much attention. The news wasn't at all surprising, but Mary looked so pretty and so happy and assured them so solemnly that she had never dreamed of anything of the kind at Christmas, that there was plenty of excitement all the same.

"And of course I must have posts at my wedding," said Mary, whereat Betty hugged her and Roberta looked more pleased than she had when Mr. Masters called her a genius. "And bridesmaids," added Mary, with the proper feeling for climax. "Laurie is going to be maid-of-honor, and if you two can come and be bridesmaids and the rest of the crowd almost—bridesmaids, in the words of the poetical Roberta——"

She never finished her sentence for the rest of the crowd had discovered her retreat, and guessing at the news she had for them bore noisily down upon her.

"It's so convenient that she's going to be married this summer," said Babbie jubilantly. "We can have our first reunion at the wedding. I simply couldn't have waited until June to see you all again."

"We couldn't any of us have waited," declared Bob. "Somebody else must get married about Christmas time."

"Why don't you?" asked Babbie nonchalantly, while Madeline looked hard at Eleanor and wished New York and Denver weren't so dreadfully far apart. For how could Dick Blake, busy editor of "The Quiver," make love to the most fascinating girl in the world when she lived at that distance.

They had something to eat after a while, sitting on the stairs with Mary, while Dr. Hinsdale beamed on them all and brought them salad and ices.

"You mustn't talk about it, you know," Mary explained, "because it won't be announced until next week, and you mustn't think of running off and leaving us out here alone."

"All right," Katherine promised her. "We'll be the mossy bank for your modest violet act. Only do try not to look so desperately in love or everybody who sees you will guess the whole thing, and it will look as if we told."

Most of the seniors spent the afternoon at the station seeing their families off, but Betty left hers in Nan's care and went canoeing with Dorothy King in Paradise. Dorothy was just as jolly and just as sweet as ever. She wanted to know about everything that had happened at Harding since she left it, and especially all about Eleanor Watson.

"You've pulled her through after all, haven't you?" she said.

"No, she pulled herself through," Betty corrected her. "I only helped a little, and a lot of others did the same. Why even Jean helped, Dorothy."

Dorothy laughed. "I can't imagine Jean in that role," she said, "but I'll take your word for it. Let's go and see Miss Ferris."

Miss Ferris was alone and delighted to see her visitors.

"Everything has come out right, hasn't it?" she said, smiling into Betty's radiant face.

Betty nodded. "Just splendidly. Did you know about Eleanor's being toastmistress?"

"Yes, she came in to tell me herself. What has come over Jean Eastman, Betty?"

"I don't know," said Betty with a tell-tale blush that made Miss Ferris laugh and say, "I thought you were at the bottom of it."

"Dorothy used to be the person who managed things of this kind," she went on. "Who's going to take your place, Betty?"

"According to what I hear nobody can do that," said Dorothy quickly, and Betty blushed more than ever, until Miss Ferris took pity on her and asked about her plans for next year.

Betty looked puzzled. "Why, I haven't any, I'm afraid. I never get a chance to make plans, because the things that turn up of themselves take all my time. I'm just going to be at home with my family."

"Leave out the 'just,'" advised Miss Ferris. "So many of you seem to feel as if you ought to apologize for staying at home."

"Oh, I'm glad to hear you say that," said Betty soberly. "A lot of girls in our class who don't need to a bit are going to teach, and Carlotta Young said to me the other day that she thought we all ought to test our education in some such way right off, so as to be sure it was really worth something."

"And you are sure about yours without testing it?" asked Miss Ferris quizzically.

Betty smiled at her happily. "I'm sure I've got something," she said. "I'm afraid Carlotta wouldn't call it much of an education and I know I ought to be ashamed that it isn't more, but I'm awfully glad I've got it."

"I'm glad you have, too," said Miss Ferris so earnestly that Betty wondered what she meant. But she didn't get a chance to ask, for somebody knocked just then and the two girls said good-bye and hurried off to dress for their respective class suppers.

19—'s was held in the big hall of the Students' Building. The junior ushers had trimmed it with red and green bunting, and great bowls of red roses transformed the huge T-shaped table into a giant flower-bed.

"I hope they haven't more than emptied the treasury for those flowers," said Babe anxiously, when she saw them.

"Hardly," Babbie reassured her. "Judge Watson sent the whole lot, so you needn't worry about your treasury. He consulted me about the color. Isn't he a dear?"

"Yes, he is," said Bob, "and he evidently thinks his only daughter is another. Where's the supper-chart?"

"Out in the hall," explained Babbie, "with the whole class fighting for a chance at it. But I know where we sit. Betty thought we'd better keep things lively down at the end of the T."

"Well, I guess, we can do that," said Babe easily. "Where is Betty, anyway?"

"Here," answered Betty, hurrying up. "And girls, please don't say anything about it, but non-graduates don't generally come to the suppers and the seating committee forgot about T. Reed, so she hasn't any place."

"The idea!" cried Bob indignantly. "But she can have Eleanor's seat."

Betty hesitated. "No, because they changed the chart after they heard about Christy's not coming. But Cora Thorne is sick, so I'm going to let T. have my seat, right among you girls that she used to know——"

"You're not going to do anything of the kind," declared Babbie hotly. "Shove everybody along one place, or else put in a seat for T."

"The chairs are too close together now and Cora's place is way around at the other end. It would make too much confusion to move so many people. Here comes T. now. I shall be almost opposite Eleanor and Katherine, and I don't mind one bit."

So it happened that Betty Wales ate her class supper between Clara Madison and the fat Miss Austin, and enjoyed it as thoroughly as if she had been where she belonged, between Babbie and Roberta. The supper wasn't very good—suppers for two hundred and fifty people seldom are—but the talk and the jokes, the toasts and the histories, Eleanor's radiant face at the head of the table, the spirit of jollity and good-fellowship everywhere,—these were good enough to make up. Besides, it was the last time they would all be together. Betty hadn't realized before how much she cared for them all—for the big indiscriminate mass of the class that she had worked and played with these four years. She had expected to miss her best friends, but now, as she looked down the long tables, she saw so many others that she should miss. Yes, she should miss them all from the fat Miss Austin who was so delighted to be sitting beside her to the serious-minded Carlotta Young, with her theories about testing your education.

Katherine was reading the freshman history, hitting off the reception, with its bewildering gaiety and its terrifying grind-book, those first horrible midyears, made even more frightful by Mary Brooks's rumor, the basket-ball game—when that was mentioned they made T. Reed stand on her chair to be cheered, and then they cheered the rest of the team, who, as Katherine said, "had marched so gallantly to a glorious defeat." As Christy wasn't there, somebody read her letter, which explained that her mother was better but that the twins had come down with the measles and Christy was "standing by the ship." So they cheered the plucky letter and then they sang to its author.

"Oh, here's to our Christine, We love her though unseen, Drink her down, drink her down, Drink her down, down, down!"

When the team was finally allowed to sit down, Katherine went on to the joys of spring-term, with its golf and tennis, its Mary-bird club and its tumultuous packing and partings. When she had finished and been applauded and sung to, and finally allowed to sit down and eat a very cold croquette, Betty looked over at Emily Davis and the next minute for no reason at all she found herself winking back the tears. She had had such a good time that year and K. had picked out just the comical little things that made you remember the others that she hadn't mentioned.

Little Alice Waite was toasting the cast. Alice was no orator. She stammered and hesitated and made you think she was going to break down, but she always ended by saying or doing something that brought down the house.

"I think you ought to have given this toast to somebody else," she began innocently. "I can't act, and I can't speak either, as it happens. Besides words speak louder than actions. No, I mean actions speak louder than words, so I will let the cast toast themselves."

"Roast themselves, you mean," said Katherine, pushing back her chair.

And then began a clever burlesque of the casket scene in which Gratiano played Portia's part, Shylock was Nerissa, Gobbo Bassanio, and Jessica the Prince of Morocco. Next Alice called for the Gobbos and Portia and the Prince of Morocco "stood forth" and went through a solemn travesty of the scene between the father and son that left the class faint and speechless with laughter.

Then there were more toasts and when the coffee had been served they made the engaged girls run around the table. Betty was sorry then that she wasn't in her own place, to help get Babbie Hildreth started. Her friends were all sure that she was engaged and she had hinted that she might tell them more about it at class-supper, but now she denied it as stoutly as ever. Finally Bob settled the question by getting up and running in her place,—a non-committal proceeding that delighted everybody.

After that came the last toast, "Our esprit de corps." Kate Denise had it, for no reason that Betty could see unless Christy had wanted to show Kate that the class understood the difference between her and the other Hill girls. And then Kate was one of 19—'s best speakers and so could do justice to the subject.

"I think we ought to drink this toast standing," she began. "We've drunk to the cast and the team, to our presidents, our engaged girls, our faculty. Now I ask you to drink to the very greatest pride and honor of this class,—to the way we've always stood together, to the way we stand together to-night, to the way we shall stand together in the future, no matter where we go or what we do. It's not every class that can put this toast on its supper-card. Not every class knows what it means to be run, not in the interest of a clique or by a few leading spirits, but by the good-feeling of the whole big class. And so I ask you to drink one more toast—to the girl who started this feeling of good-fellowship at a certain class-meeting that some of us remember, and who has kept it up by being a friend to everybody and making us all want to be friends. Here's to Betty Wales."

When Betty heard her name she almost jumped out of her chair with amazement. She had been listening admiringly to Kate's eloquent little speech, never dreaming how it would end and now they were all clapping and pushing back their chairs again, and Clara Madison was trying to make her stand up in hers.

"Speech!" shouted the irrepressible Bob and the girls sat down again and the big table grew still, while Betty twisted her napkin into a knot and smiled bravely into all the welcoming faces.

"I'm sure Kate is mistaken," she said at last in a shaky little voice. "I'm sure every girl in 19— wanted every other girl to have her share of the fun just as much as I did. The class cup, that we won at tennis in our sophomore year is on the table somewhere. Let's fill it with lemonade and sing to everybody right down the line. And while they're filling the cup let's sing to Harding College."

It took a long time to sing to everybody, but not a minute too long. Betty watched the faces of the girls when their turns came—the girls who were always sung to, like Emily Davis, and the girls who had never been sung to in all the four years and who flushed with pride and pleasure to hear their names ring out and to feel that they too belonged to the finest, dearest class that ever left Harding.

"Now we must have the regular stunts," said Eleanor. There was a shuffling of chairs and she and Betty and the people who had had toasts slipped back to their own particular crowds, leaving the top of the table for the stunt-doers. It was shockingly late, but they wanted all the old favorites. Who knew when Emily Davis would be back to do her temperance lecture or how long it would be before they could hear Madame Patti sing "Home, Sweet Home" through a wheezy gramophone?

"Was it all right?" Eleanor whispered to Betty as they hunted up their wraps a little later.

"Perfectly splendid," said Betty with shining eyes. "The loveliest end-up to the loveliest commencement that ever was."

"We haven't got to say good-bye yet," said somebody. "There's a class meeting to-morrow at nine, you know."

"Half of us will probably sleep over," said Babe in a queer, supercilious tone. Not for all the morning naps in the world would Babe have missed that good-bye meeting.



CHAPTER XIX

"GOOD-BYE!"

"And after commencement packing," said Madeline Ayres sadly, "and that's no joke either, I can tell you."

"Oh, I don't know," said Babe airily. "Give away everything that you can't sell, and you won't be troubled. That's what I've done."

"I couldn't give up my dear old desk," said Rachel soberly, "nor my books and pictures."

"Oh, I've kept a few little things myself," explained Babe hastily, "just to remember the place by."

"My mother wanted to stay and help me," laughed Nita. "She thought if we both worked hard we might get through in a day."

"Mary Brooks did hers in two hours," announced Katherine, "and I guess I'm as bright as little Mary about most things, so I'm not worrying."

"Isn't it time to start for class-meeting?" asked Betty, coming out on the piazza with Roberta.

"See them walk off together arm in arm," chuckled Bob softly, "just as if they knew they were going to be elected our alumnae president and secretary respectfully."

"Don't you mean respectively, Bob?" asked Helen Adams.

"Of course I do," retorted Bob, "but I'm not obliged to say what I mean now. I'm an alum. I can use as bad diction as I please and the long arm of the English department can't reach out and spatter my mistakes with red ink."

The election of officers didn't take long. It had all been cut and dried the night before, and the nominating committee named Betty for president and Shylock for secretary without even going through the formality of retiring to deliberate. Then Katherine moved that the surplus in the treasury be turned over to "our pet philanthropy, the Students' Aid," and Carlotta Young inquired anxiously whether the first reunion was to be in one or two years.

"In one," shouted the assembly to a woman, and the meeting adjourned tumultuously. But nobody went home, in spite of the packing that clamored for attention.

"Good-bye, you dear old thing!"

"See you next June for sure. I'm coming back then, if I do live away out in Seattle."

"You're going to study art in New York, you say? Oh, I'm there very often. Here, let me copy that address."

"Going abroad for the summer, you lucky girl? Well, rather not! I'm going to tutor six young wigglers into a prep. school."

"Wasn't last night fun? Don't you wish we could have it all over again,—except the midyears and the papers for English novelists."

"Good-bye!"

"Good-bye!"

"Good-bye!"

But these weren't the good-byes that came hardest; those would be said later in the dear, dismantled rooms or at the station, for very close friends would arrange to meet again there. But the close friendships would be kept up in letters and visits, whereas these casual acquaintances might never again be renewed.

"I've seen you nearly every day for three years," Madeline Ayres told little Miss Avery, whose name came next to hers on the class-list, "and now you're going to live in Iowa and I'm going to Italy. The world is a big place, isn't it?"