They had reached Miss Hale's boarding-place by this time, and Betty said good-night and hurried back to the campus, full of excitement over Nan's return.

"Just think," she told Helen, as she dressed for the Hilton House dance to which Alice Waite had invited her that evening, "Nan's ship came in to-day, and I pretty nearly forgot all about it. Oh, dear! it seems as if I must see her right off, and it's two whole weeks to vacation."

Just as she spoke, there was a knock at the door, and a maid held out a telegram. "For Miss Wales," she said.

"Oh, it's from Nan," cried Betty, snatching at the bit of yellow paper. "And she's coming to-night," she shrieked so loudly that the whole third floor heard her and flocked out into the corridor to see what in the world was the matter.

The message was provokingly short:—

"Meet the 7:10 to-night. "WILL."

"Oh, I wonder if he's going to stop too," said Betty, dropping the telegram into the wash-bowl and diving under the bed for her gold chain, which she had tossed there in her excitement. "How long do you suppose they'll stay?"

"I don't see that you can tell about that till they come," said Helen, practically. "Are you going to wear that dress to the station to meet them?"

Betty stopped short in her frantic efforts to fasten her belt, and stared blankly at her filmy white gown and high-heeled satin slippers. Then she dropped down on the bed and gave a long despairing sigh. "I haven't a bit of sense left," she said. "Tell me what else I've forgotten."

"Well, where are they going to sleep?"

"Goodness!" ejaculated Betty. "I ought to go out this minute and hunt for rooms."

"And what about the Hilton House dance? Oughtn't you to send word if you're not going?"

"Gracious!" exclaimed Betty. "Of course I ought. Alice has a card all made out for me."

Just then Mary Brooks and Madeline Ayres sauntered in. "Don't worry, child. You've got oceans of time," said Mary, when she had heard the great news. "We'll get you some rooms. I know a place just around the corner. And Helen can go and tell the gentle Alice Waite that you'll be along later in the evening with your family. If you want your brother to fall in love with Harding, you must be sure to have him see that dance. Men always go crazy over girl dances. And if I was offered sufficient inducement," added Mary, demurely, "I might possibly go over to the gallery myself, and help you amuse him—since none of my Hilton House friends have invited me to adorn the floor with my presence."

So Mary and Madeline departed in one direction and Helen in another, while an obliging senior who roomed across the hall put Betty's half of the room to rights—Helen's was always in order,—a freshman next door helped Betty into a white linen suit, which is the Harding girl's regular compromise between street and evening dress, and somebody else telephoned to Miss Hale that Nan was coming. And the pleasant thing about it was that everybody took exactly the same interest in the situation as if the guests and the hurry and excitement had belonged to her instead of to Betty Wales. It is thus that things are done at Harding.

As a matter of fact, Will did not wait until he had seen the Hilton House dance to become enamored of Harding College. When he and Nan arrived they announced that they had only stopped over for the evening, and should go west on the sleeper that same night. But as they were sitting in the Belden House parlor, while Nan and Betty discussed plans for showing Will as much as possible of the college in one evening, Mary Brooks sauntered through the hall, ostensibly on her way to do an errand at the Westcott House. Of course Betty called her in, and five minutes later Will announced that he couldn't think of not occupying the room which Miss Brooks had been good enough to engage for him; and he and Mary went off to the gymnasium gallery, which is as near as man may come to the joys of a "girl dance" at Harding. There Betty promised to join them as soon as Miss Hale arrived to spend the evening with Nan. And Miss Hale had no sooner appeared than Nan telephoned for her trunks and made a dinner engagement that would keep her until the next night at least. In the morning Will remembered that John Parsons was still at Winsted, and announced that he should spend the following day on an exploring tour over there. And Mr. Parsons insisted that you could not see Winsted properly unless you had some Harding girls along, and as the first snow of the season had just fallen, he organized a sleighing party, with Nan and Miss Hale as chaperons. Then Will gave a return dinner at Cuyler's, which took another day, so that a week sped by before Betty's guests could possibly get away from Harding.

"And now," said Betty to Will on the afternoon before the one set for their departure, "I think you'd better stay another week and see me."

"Wish we could," said Will absently. "I haven't had time to call on Miss Waite. I've only been snow-shoeing once with Miss Ayres, and I've got to have another skate with Miss Kittredge. She's a stunner on the ice. I say, Betty, you don't suppose she'd get up and go before breakfast, do you? I'd ask her to cut chapel, only I promised to take Miss Brooks."

"Indeed!" said Betty, with feigned indignation. "I guess that on the whole it's a good thing you're going to-morrow."

"Now why do you say that? Haven't I behaved like a scholar and a gentleman?" demanded Will gaily.

"It's your conduct as a brother that I object to," returned Betty severely. "Nobody pays any attention to me. Nan's gone off sleighing with Roberta, and you're only enduring my society until Dorothy King finishes her Lab, and you can go off walking with her. Then I shall be left to my own devices."

"To your studies you mean, my child," corrected Will. "Do you think that Nan and I would be so inconsiderate as to come down here and break up the regular routine of your college work?"

"How about the regular routine of Dorothy King's work?" inquired Betty saucily. "And Mary Brooks's?"

Will took out a card from his pocket and consulted its entries industriously. "I have only one date with Miss Brooks to-morrow, and none at all with Miss King, more's the pity."

"It's queer," said Betty reflectively. "You never can prophesy what girls men will take to. Now I should have supposed that you'd like Nita Reese and Eleanor Watson best of all the ones you've met. They're both so pretty."

"That's all right," said Will severely. "We men don't go so much by looks as some of you think we do. And anyhow Miss Brooks and Miss King are good-lookers too. Miss Reese is a nice girl, but she's a little too quiet for me, and Miss Watson—let's see, she was at that dance the first night, wasn't she? I didn't see much of her, but I remember she's a stunner."

"She's one of my best friends," said Betty, proudly. "Oh, here comes Dorothy," she added, glancing out the window. "I hope you'll have a nice walk."

"See here, little sister," began Will, blocking Betty's progress to the door. "You weren't in earnest about my having run off and left you so much?"

Betty laughed merrily. "I should think not," she said. "If you must know it, I'm awfully proud of my popular family. I hope you understand that Mary Brooks and Dorothy King don't take the trouble to entertain everybody's brother. Now hurry up, or she'll get way into the house before you can catch her."

"Wait a minute," commanded Will. "Have we anything on for to-night?"

"Nan has, but you and I haven't."

"Then let's eat a nice little dinner at Cuyler's," suggested Will. "Just you and I and one more for variety. You ask any one you like, and I'll call for you at six."

"Lovely! Don't you really care whom I ask?"

"Pick out a good-looker," called Will, striding off to meet Dorothy.

Betty had no trouble in choosing the third person to make up the dinner party. It should be Eleanor Watson, of course. Will would like her—men always did. She had been tired and not in a mood to exert herself the night of the Hilton House dance; and one thing or another had interfered with her joining in any of the festivities since.

"But she'll be all ready for a celebration to-day, with her story just out in the 'Argus,'" reflected Betty, and started at once for the Hilton House.

Eleanor was curled up in her easy chair by the window, poring over a mass of type-written sheets. "Studying my part for a little play we're giving next Saturday night," she announced gaily, as Betty came in. "So remember, you're not to stay long."

"I don't believe there's anything you can't do, Eleanor," declared Betty, admiringly. "I'm awfully proud of knowing such a star. I read your story in the 'Argus' the first thing after lunch, and I thought it was perfectly splendid."

"Did you?" said Eleanor, carelessly. "Well, I suppose it must be good for something, to have so much said about it; but I for one am thoroughly tired of it. I'm going to try to act so well on Saturday that people will have something else to talk to me about."

"You will," said Betty, with decision. "You made a splendid leading lady last year in Sherlock Holmes, and you didn't try at all then. Well," she added quickly, "you said I mustn't stay long, so I must hurry and tell you what I came for. I want you to have dinner with Will and me to-night at Cuyler's."

"That's very good of you," said Eleanor formally, "and I'm sorry that I can't come. But it's quite impossible."

"Oh dear!" There was nothing perfunctory about Betty's regret. "Couldn't you learn your part this evening? It won't take you any longer to eat at Cuyler's than it would here, and you can come right back."

"Oh, it's not the play," said Eleanor. "I could manage that; but Beatrice Egerton is going to be here for dinner."

"Oh, of course if you've asked any one to dinner—" began Betty.

"No," broke in Eleanor, impatiently, "I haven't asked her, but Lil Day has. She's invited me to sit with them, and she'd be awfully vexed if I ran off. You know," went on Eleanor, impressively, "Beatrice Egerton is the most prominent girl in the senior class."

"Oh!" said Betty, blankly.

"And I barely know her," continued Eleanor, "so this is my opportunity, you see. Lil thinks she'll like me. She's very influential, and she doesn't seem to have any particular friends in our class. Do you know her at all?"

Betty shook her head.

"But you're so solid with Dorothy King," said Eleanor. "She's just about as prominent as Bess Egerton. We have to look out for those things, don't we, Betty?"

"If you mean," began Betty, slowly, "that I like Dorothy King because she's an influential senior, why, please never think so again, Eleanor. I like her just as I like any one else, because she's so dear and sweet and such a fine, all-around girl."

Eleanor laughed scornfully. "Oh, of course," she said, "but you have your little plans, I suppose, like all the rest of the world. Anyhow, if you haven't, I have; and I put future honors ahead of present bliss, so I can't go with you to Cuyler's. Please tell your brother that I'm very sorry."

"Yes," said Betty. "He will be sorry, too. Good-bye, Eleanor."

It seemed a long walk back to the Belden House. The snow had turned to slush, and Betty sank into it at every step. The raw wind blew her hair into her eyes. The world looked dull and uninteresting all of a sudden. When she reached home, Helen was getting ready for gym.

"Helen Chase Adams," began Betty, savagely. "Do you see any use in ambition?"

"Why, yes," gasped Helen.

"What?" demanded Betty.

"Why—it helps you to get things," ventured Helen.

"May be they're not worth getting," snapped Betty.

"Well, isn't it better to try to get foolish things than just to sit around and do nothing?"

"No," answered Betty with emphasis. "People who just sit around and do nothing, as you call it, have friends and like them, and aren't all the time thinking what they can get out of them."

"I'm sorry, but I have to go to gym," said Helen. "I don't think ambitious people always depend on their friends."

Left to herself, Betty came to a more judicial state of mind. "I suppose," she said to the green lizard, "I suppose I'm the kind that just sits around and does nothing. I suppose we're irritating too. It makes Helen mad when I write my papers any old way, while she's toiling along, trying to do her best. And she makes me cross by fussing so. She has one kind of ambition and Eleanor has another. I haven't any, and I suppose they both wish I'd have some kind. Oh, dear! I don't believe Madeline Ayres is ambitious either, and Ethel Hale called her a splendid girl. I'll go and ask her to come to dinner with us."



CHAPTER VII

ON TO MIDYEARS

Exactly a week after Nan and Will left Harding, Betty herself was speeding west, with Roberta Lewis as traveling companion. Nan had discovered that Roberta's father was in California, and that she was planning to spend her Christmas vacation in solitary state at Mrs. Chapin's, without letting even her adored Mary Brooks know how matters stood. But Nan's arguments, backed by Betty's powers of persuasion, were irresistible; and Roberta finally consented to come to Cleveland instead.

It was amusing, and a little pathetic too, to watch the shy Roberta expand in the genial, happy-go-lucky atmosphere of the Wales household. A lonely, motherless child brought up by a father who loved her dearly, treated her as an equal, and was too absorbed in his own affairs to realize that she needed any companionship but his own, she had been absolutely swept off her feet by the rush of young life at Harding. The only close friend she had made there was Mary Brooks; and, though Mary fully reciprocated Roberta's fondness for her, she was a person of so many ideas and interests that Roberta was necessarily left a good deal to herself. During her first year, the sociable atmosphere of the Chapin house had helped to break down her reserve and bring her, in spite of herself, into touch with the college world. But now, in a house full of noisy, rollicking freshmen, who thought her queer and "stuck-up," she was bitterly unhappy. So she shut herself in with her books and her thoughts, wondered whether being on the campus would really make any difference in her feelings about college, and stayed on only because of her devotion to Mary and her unwillingness to disappoint her father, who was very proud of "my daughter at Harding."

Roberta loved children, and she and the smallest sister instantly became fast friends. Will frightened her dreadfully at first, but before the week was out she found herself chatting with him just as familiarly as she did with her Boston cousin, who was the only young man she knew well. And after she had helped Mrs. Wales to trim the smallest sister's Christmas tree, and been down town with Mr. Wales to pick out some books for him to give Nan,—"Because you and Nan seem to be cut out of the same piece of cloth, you see," explained Mr. Wales genially,—Roberta felt exactly like one of the family, and hoarded the days, and then the hours, that remained of this blissful vacation.

"It seems as if I couldn't go back," she told Betty, when the good-byes had all been said, and the long train was rumbling through the darkness toward Harding.

"I'm sorry to leave too," said Betty dreamily. "It's been a jolly old vacation. But think how we should feel if we couldn't go back at all—if the family fortune was swept away all of a sudden, or if we were sick or anything, and had to drop out of dear old 19—."

"Yes," said Roberta briefly.

Betty looked at her curiously. "Don't you like college, Roberta?" she asked.

"Betty, I can't bear it," declared Roberta in an unwonted burst of confidence. "I stay on because I hate people who give things up just because they don't like doing them. But it seems sometimes as if I couldn't stand it much longer."

"Too bad you didn't get on the campus. Perhaps you will this term." suggested Betty hopefully, "and then I know you'll fall absolutely in love with college."

"I don't believe that will make a bit of difference, and anyway Miss Stuart said I hadn't the least chance of getting on this year."

"Then," returned Betty cheerfully, "you'll just have to make the best of it where you are. Some of the Chapin house freshmen are dear. I love that cunning little Sara Westervelt."

"Isn't she pretty?" Roberta's drawl was almost enthusiastic. "But she never speaks to me," she added sadly.

"Speak to her," said Betty promptly. "You probably frighten her to death, and freeze her all up. Treat her as you did the smallest sister."

Roberta laughed merrily. "It's funny, isn't it, that I can get on with children and most older people, but not at all with those of my own age."

"Oh, you only need practice," said Betty easily. "Go at it just as you go at your chemistry problems. Figure out what those freshmen like and give it to them. Have a party and do the Jabberwock for them. They'd be your slaves for life."

"Oh, I couldn't," protested Roberta. "It would seem so like showing off."

"Don't think about yourself; think about them. And now," added Betty yawning, "as we were up till two last night, I think we'd better go to bed, don't you?"

"Yes," said Roberta, "and—and thank you for telling me that I'm offish, Betty. Could you come to the Jabberwock party Monday night, if I should decide to have it?"

Though Rachel was off the campus, her room was far and away the most popular meeting place for the Chapin house crowd. Perhaps it was because the quiet of the little white house round the corner was a relief after the noisy bustle of the big campus dormitories. But besides, there was something about Rachel that made her quite indispensable to all gatherings of the clan. Katherine was fun when you were in the mood for her; Roberta, if she was in the mood for you. Betty was always fascinating, always responsive, but in many ways she was only a pretty child. Helen and Eleanor, unlike in almost everything else, were at one in being self-centred. Rachel was as jolly as Katherine, as sympathetic as Betty, and far more mature than either of her friends. As Katherine put it, "you could always bank on Rachel to know what was what."

So it was no unusual thing to find two or three of the "old guard" as Rachel dubbed them, and perhaps two or three outsiders as well, gathered in her tiny room, in the dark of the afternoon, talking over the happenings of the day and drinking tea out of the cups which were the pride of Rachel's heart, because they were all pretty and none of them had cost more than ten cents.

One snowy afternoon in January Betty walked home with Rachel from their four o'clock class in history.

"Come in, children" called a merry voice, as they opened Rachel's door. "Take off your things and make yourselves at home. The tea will be ready in about five minutes."

"Hello, Katherine," said Betty, cheerfully, tossing her note-book on the bed and shaking the snow off her fuzzy gray tam.

"Isn't it nice to come in and find the duties of hostess taken off your shoulders in this pleasant fashion!" laughed Rachel. "I hope you've washed the cups," she added, settling herself cozily on the window seat. "They haven't been dusted for three weeks."

"Indeed I haven't washed them," answered Katherine loftily. "I'm the hostess. You can be guest, and Betty can be dish-washer."

"Not unless I can wiggle the tea-ball afterward," announced Betty firmly.

Katherine examined a blue and white cup critically. "I think you must be mistaken, Rachel," she said. "These cups don't need washing. They're perfectly clean, but I'll dust them off if you insist."

Then there was a grand scramble, in the course of which Betty captured the tea-ball and the lemons, and Katherine the teakettle, while Rachel secured two cups and retired from the scene of action to wash them for Betty and herself. Finally Katherine agreed that Betty might "wiggle the tea-ball" provided that she—Katherine—should be allowed two pieces of lemon in every cup; and the three lively damsels settled down into a sedate group of tea-drinkers.

"Do you know, girls," said Katherine, after they had compared programs for midyears, and each decided sadly that her particular arrangement of examinations was a great deal more onerous than the schedules of her friends,—"Do you know, I was just beginning to like Eleanor Watson, but I wash my hands of her now."

"Why? What's she done lately?" inquired Rachel.

"Oh, she hasn't done anything in particular," said Katherine. "It's her manner that I object to. It was bad enough last year, but now—" Katherine's gesture suggested indescribable insolence.

Betty said nothing. She was thinking of her last interview with Eleanor, whom she had not seen for more than a casual moment since the day of Will's dinner, and wondering whether after all Ethel Hale was right about her, and she was wrong. It did seem amazingly as if Eleanor was giving up her old friends for the new ones.

"But Katherine," began Rachel soothingly, "you must remember that her rather dropping us now doesn't really mean much. We should never have known her at all if we hadn't happened to be in the house with her last year. It was only chance that threw us together, so there really isn't any reason why she should keep up the acquaintance unless she wants to."

"Oh, no, not the slightest reason," agreed Katherine, wrathfully. "And on the same principle let us all proceed to cut Helen Chase Adams. She isn't exactly our kind. We should never have known her if we hadn't happened to be in the house with her last year. So let's drop her."

"Oh, you silly child," laughed Rachel. "Of course I don't approve of Eleanor Watson's way of doing things. I only wanted to explain what is probably her point of view. I can understand it, but it doesn't follow that I'm going to adopt it."

"I should hope not," snorted Katherine. "I met my lady this afternoon at Cuyler's. I was buying molasses candy for this function—by the way, I forgot to pass it around. Do have some. And she was in there with that high and mighty senior, Beatrice Egerton, ordering a dinner for to-morrow night. I had on my green sweater and an old skirt, and I don't suppose I looked exactly like a Fifth Avenue swell. But that didn't matter; the lady Eleanor didn't see me."

Rachel laughed merrily. "So that was it," she said. "I knew there was something personal behind your wrath, and I was waiting for it to come out. Never mind, K.; Betty and I won't cut you, even in your green sweater."

"That's good of you," said Katherine, spearing a thick slice of lemon for her third cup. "Seriously though, my green sweater aside, I do hate such snobbishness."

"But Eleanor Watson isn't exactly a snob," objected Rachel. "There's Dora Carlson."

"Dora Carlson!" repeated Katherine, scornfully. "You don't mean that she's taken you in with that, Rachel? Why, it's nothing but the most transparent sort of grand-stand play. I suppose the lady Eleanor had more sense than to think that the Dora Carlson episode would take in any one."

Betty had been sitting quietly in her corner of the window seat, not taking any part in the discussion, because there was nothing that she cared to say on either side of it. Now she leaned forward suddenly. "Oh, Katherine, please don't say that," she begged. "Indeed it isn't so! I know—Eleanor told me herself that she is awfully fond of Dora Carlson,— that she appreciates the way Dora feels toward her, and means to be worthy of it if she possibly can."

"Then I'm sure I beg her pardon," said Katherine heartily. "Only—when did she tell you that, Betty?"

"Oh, back in the fall, just a little while after the sophomore reception."

"I thought so, and I don't doubt that she meant it when she said it. But she's completely changed since then. Don't you remember how we used to count on her for all our little reunions? Why, she was quite one of the old guard for a month or two. But ever since that wonderful story of hers came out in the 'Argus,' she's gone in for the prominent sophomore act with such a vengeance—" Katherine stopped suddenly, noticing Betty's distressed expression. "Oh, well," she said, "there's no use going over it again. I suppose you and Rachel are right, and I'm wrong."

"Only you do resent the injustice done your green sweater," said Rachel, hoping to close the discussion with a laugh.

But Katherine was in deadly earnest. "I don't care how the lady Eleanor treats me and my green sweater," she said, "but there are some people who've done too much for her—Well, what I mean is, I hope she'll never go back on her real friends," she finished lamely.

"Well, if one prominent sophomore snubs us, we can always comfort ourselves with the thought that another is going to love us to the end," said Rachel, reaching over a mound of pillows to squeeze Betty's hand. "Did you know you're a prominent sophomore, Betty?"

"I'm not," said Betty, indignantly. "I wouldn't be such a thing for the world. I hate the word prominent, the way we use it here."

Katherine exchanged rapid glances with Rachel. "Something personal behind that, too," she reflected. "If the lady Eleanor dares to go back on Betty, I shall start out after her scalp."

So it was fortunate that Betty and Eleanor did not meet on their respective homeward ways until Katherine was well inside the Westcott House, out of hearing of their colloquy. Between the darkness and the flying snow the two girls were close together before they recognized each other. Then Eleanor was hurrying on with some commonplace about "the beastly weather," when Betty stopped her.

"We were just talking about you," she said, "Rachel and Katherine and I, over in Rachel's room, wondering why you never meet with the old guard any more."

"Why, I'm busy," said Eleanor, shortly. "Didn't you know that it's less than a week to midyears?"

"But all this term—" protested Betty, wishing she had said nothing, yet reluctant now to let the opportunity slip through her hands.

"Well, to tell the truth," broke in Eleanor, impatiently, "our interests are different, Betty,—they have been from the first. You like to be friends with everybody. I like to pick and choose. I don't really care anything about the rest of the Chapin house girls, and I can't see you without seeing them too."

"But this fall," began Betty.

"Well—the truth is this fall—" said Eleanor, fiercely, "this fall I forgot who I was and what I was. Now I've come to my senses again." And without giving Betty time to reply she swept off into the darkness.

Betty wasn't very hungry for dinner. As soon as possible she slipped out of the noisy dining-room, up to the silence of the deserted third floor.

"What I can't understand," she told the green lizard, "is the way her voice sounded. It certainly broke just as if she was trying not to cry. Now, why should that be? Is she sorry to have come to her senses, I wonder?"

The green lizard had no suggestions to offer, so Betty put on her new kimono with butterflies in the border and a bewitching pink sash—it was real Japanese and the envy of all her friends—and prepared to spend the evening cramming for her history exam, with Nita Reese.



CHAPTER VIII

THE "FIRST FOUR"

Midyears were safely over, and schedules for the new term more or less satisfactorily arranged. It was Saturday night—the gayest in all the week—and up on the fourth floor of the Belden House Nita Reese was giving a birthday spread. Until she came to Harding, Nita's birthday had always been in August. At the beginning of her sophomore year she announced that she had changed it to February ninth.

"I told the family," explained Nita, "that just because I happened to be born in August they needn't think they could get out of sending me a birthday box. Father wanted to know if that let him off from giving me a sailing party next August, and I said that I'd leave it to him. I knew he wouldn't miss that sailing party for anything."

Nita disappeared behind a screen, where, on the wash-stand, in lieu of a buffet, the good things from the birthday box were arranged on tin-box covers and wooden plates. There were nine china plates for the twelve guests, and a cup and a sherbet glass apiece, which is an abundance for any three-course supper, however elaborate.

"Girls, do you realize what's happening to-night?" said Nita, emerging from behind the screen with a plate of sandwiches in one hand and a tray of cake in the other. "Here, Betty Wales, have some cake. Or are you still on salad and sandwiches?"

"I'm still on salad and sandwiches, but I do want that big piece of chocolate cake before Madeline Ay—Oh, Madeline, aren't you ashamed? You've made me spill coffee on Nita's Bagdad."

"I can't help that," said Madeline Ayres, composedly. "You were implying that I'm a pig. I'm not; I'm only devoted to chocolate."

"What's happening to-night, Nita?" demanded Bob, popping up like a Jack- in-the-box from behind Madeline's back.

"There!" exclaimed Betty, resignedly. "I've spilled it again! Where have you been, Bob?"

"Oh, I've just been resting back there between the courses," said Bob, edging herself to the front of the couch and beginning on the nearest dish of strawberry ice. (The strawberry ice was not, strictly speaking, a part of the birthday box.) "I feel quite hungry again now. What's to- night, Nita?"

"Why, society elections, of course, goosie," answered Christy Mason from the window where she was cooling a pan of fudge. "Girls, this fudge is going to be elegant and creamy. Reach me the marsh-mallows, Babe, that's a dear. Shall I make it all over marsh-mallows, Nita?"

"Yes!" chorused the occupants of the couch, vociferously.

"To hear the animals roar, you wouldn't think they'd been eating steadily for an hour, would you, Nita?" laughed Christy, sticking in the marsh- mallows in neat, even rows, like white tents pitched across the creamy brown field of chocolate.

"It's not that we're hungry, Nita, dear, but we all like it better that way, because it's newer," explained Alice Waite, who never took a joke and couldn't bear to have Nita's feelings hurt.

"Hungry!" groaned Rachel, from her corner. "I don't believe I shall ever be hungry again. Who do you suppose will go in tonight?"

"Go in where, Rachel?" asked Bob, dropping back again on the pillows behind Madeline and Betty.

"Aren't you a sweet little innocent, Bob Parker?" mocked Babe, derisively. "As if you hadn't betted me six strawberry ices and three dinners at Cuyler's that you go into the Dramatic Club to-night, your ownself."

"When I get you alone," began Bob, wrathfully. Then her tone changed instantly to one of honeyed sweetness. "No," she said, "you're such an artistic prevaricator that I'll give you one dinner at Cuyler's as your well-earned reward."

Christy Mason dropped her pan of fudge, seized a candle from the chiffonier and held it close to Bob's prostrate form. "Girls," she shrieked, "it's true. Bob's blushing. She hasn't blushed since the president spoke to her about spilling salad all over the night watchman."

Then there was a scene of wild commotion. Shouts and laughter drowned out Bob's angry protests, until in despair she turned her attention to Babe, who took refuge on the fire-escape and refused to come further in than the window-seat even when order was partially restored.

"Girls," shouted Katherine Kittredge, as soon as she could make herself heard, "let's drink to the success of Bob's bet!"

There were clamorous demands for hot coffee, and then the toast was drunk standing, amid riotous enthusiasm.

"Speech!" called somebody.

"Speech! Speech!" chorused everybody.

"I never bet any such thing," responded Bob, sulkily. "You all know I didn't—and if I did, it was in fun."

"Never mind, Bob," said Nita, consolingly. "We won't tell any of the Dramatic Club girls about it. We're all sophomores here, but Madeline Ayres, and she's as good as a sophomore; so don't worry. You can trust us."

"What I object to," put in Katherine Kittredge, solemnly, "is the principle of the thing. It's not true sport to bet on a certainty, Bob. You know that you're sure to go in to-night, and it's a mean trick to deprive Babe of her hard-won earnings."

This sally was greeted with shrieks of laughter, for it was a standing joke with 19— that Babe was supposed by her adoring mother to be keeping a French maid at Harding. In October of her freshman year she had packed the maid off to New York and engaged Emily Davis to do her mending. But the maid's board and wages were paid unquestioningly by her mother, who lamented every vacation that she could get no such excellent seamstresses as her daughter was always able to find at Harding. Meanwhile Babe rented a riding horse by the term, reveled in dinners at Cuyler's, and stilled her conscience with the thought that Emily Davis needed the money more than any maid.

"I wish," said Madeline Ayres, when the tumult had subsided again, "that you'd explain something to a poor, benighted little freshman. There's just one thing about Harding that I don't understand. Why should Bob mind having you know that she hopes she's going into the Dramatic Club?"

"Suppose she doesn't go?" suggested Christy. "Of course there's always a chance that she won't."

"Seems so nervy, anyhow," muttered Bob, who was still in the sulks.

"I don't see why," persisted Madeline. "When you all say that she's perfectly certain to go in. But in general, I mean, why will you never admit that you want a certain thing, or hope to get a certain thing?"

"It is funny, isn't it?" said Rachel. "Wild horses couldn't drag it out of any junior that she hopes for a place on the 'Argus' board, or the Senior Play committee."

"Nor out of any sophomore that she hopes to make a society," added Christy Mason.

"I suppose," said Babbie, "that it's because nothing is competitive here. You just take what people think you ought to have. You stand or fall by public opinion, and of course you are never sure how it will gauge you."

"College men aren't that way," said Katherine. "They talk about such things, and discuss their chances and agree to help one another along where they can. And if they lose they never seem to care; they joke about it."

"But we never admit we've lost, because we never admit we were trying for anything," put in Nita.

"I like the men's way best then," said Madeline decidedly.

"Let's try it," suggested Christy. "Girls, who of us here do you think will make Dramatic Club in the first two elections?"

There was an awkward silence, then a general laugh.

"It won't work, you see," said Christy. "Well, of those who aren't here, Marion Lustig will go in to-night of course,—she's our bright particular literary star. And what do you think about Eleanor Watson?"

"Wouldn't she be more likely to go into the Clio Club next week?" asked Nita Reese.

"Oh, no," objected Christy. "Didn't you know that Beatrice Egerton is rushing her? And she's the president of the Dramatic Club."

"I don't care," insisted Nita. "I think Eleanor Watson is more the Clio Club kind."

"That's another thing I want to know about," broke in Madeline Ayres. "What is the Clio Club kind? You say the Dramatic Club isn't particularly dramatic nowadays, but just amusing and literary, and the Clio Club is the same. Why aren't the members the same sort too?"

"They're not, exactly," answered Christy. "I can't describe the difference, but you'll notice it by the time you're a sophomore. The Clio girls—oh, they have more executive ability. They're the kind that know how to run things—all-around, capable, splendid girls. The Dramatic Club is more for the stunty, talented, artistic sort."

"But Dorothy King is vice-president of the Dramatic Club," objected Betty.

"She's the exception."

"Well, I still think," insisted Christy, "that which society a girl goes into simply depends on where her friends are. Both societies want executive ability, and they both want people who can write and act and sing and do parlor stunts. I don't know Eleanor Watson very well, but I have an idea that after her story in the 'Argus' the Dramatic Club will be afraid of losing her to Clio, and so they'll take her to-night."

"Oh, I hope so," said Betty Wales under her breath to Madeline.

Later in the evening she told Helen all about the spread.

"It was so exciting," she began.

"How can a spread be exciting?" demanded Helen, sceptically.

"Oh, in lots of ways," responded Betty. "There's excitement about whether the fudge will be done in time, and whether it will be good, and who's going to be there, and how much of a box it is. But the most excitement to-night was about society elections."

"Were they to-night?"

"Dramatic Club's was. It has first choice of the sophomores this year, you know, and Clio Club has second; and we were guessing who would go in to-night among the first four."

"Well, you know now, don't you?"

"Know? I should think not," said Betty impressively. "Helen Chase Adams, haven't you noticed that society elections aren't announced till the next Monday morning? Don't you remember last year how all that crowd of girls came up to Mrs. Chapin's after Mary Brooks, and she'd gone down-town to breakfast with Roberta, and was going to cut chapel; and how we all rushed down after her, and how I stayed at the Main Street corner, in case she'd left Cuyler's before the girls got there and come up the back way? And she did just that, and what a time I had keeping her till the girls got back!" Betty laughed heartily at the recollection.

"I didn't go down, but I do remember about it," admitted Helen. "Do they always do it that way?"

"Always, only the four girls who go into each society first—they elect only four at a time, you know—have about sixty times as much fuss made over them as the ones who go in later."

"Then you'd better put your part of the room in order to-morrow," said Helen significantly, glancing at the disorderly pile of books and papers on Betty's desk, and at the pictures which she had brought back at Christmas time and which still lay on the floor beside her couch, waiting for her to find time to hang them.

Betty's glance followed Helen's to the desk and down to the floor. "I'll hang those pictures this minute," she said, jumping up and rummaging energetically through her desk drawer. "That is, if I can borrow some picture wire" she added. "I remember now that mine is all gone. That's why I've left them on the floor so long. But somebody must have some." At the door she turned back suddenly. "But, Helen," she said, "I'm not fixing up for society elections. I shan't go in this time—not for a long while, if I ever do. And Helen—you know the girls never talk about going in themselves."

"All right," said Helen submissively. "Who do you think was taken in to-night?"

"Oh, the girls with one big talent. Didn't I tell you last year that every Harding girl has to find out her one talent before she can amount to anything? We think Bob will go in; she can do such beautiful pantomimes, and she's such a prod. and such jolly fun too. Then Marion Lustig because of her writing. Writing counts more than anything else, and so I'm hoping for Eleanor Watson. I can't even guess who the fourth one will be."

All day Sunday Mary Brooks and the other Dramatic Club juniors and seniors in the Belden House went about wearing a tantalizing, don't-you- wish-you-knew air, and after dinner when the whole house assembled in the parlors as usual for coffee and music, they gathered in mysterious little groups, which instantly dissolved at the approach of curious sophomores.

It seemed to Betty and Nita, interested on account of Eleanor and Bob, that Monday morning would never come. But it did dawn at last, and after an unconscionable delay—for the announcement committee went up to Marion Lustig's first, and she boarded away off on the edge of the meadows, and then to Emily Davis's, which was half a mile from the college in quite another direction—the committee and its escort finally reached the campus, and, gaining recruits at every step, made its picturesque and musical way to the Westcott House after Bob. At this point Betty and Nita joined it, and they had the exquisite pleasure of seeing Bob blush so red that there was no need for a candle this time, then turn very white, and clinging to the chairman's arm insist that there must be some blunder—it couldn't be she that they wanted. Finally, assured that the honor had indeed fallen to her, she broke into a war- whoop which shook the house to its foundation and brought the matron on the run to her door.

"Now Mrs. Alison, aren't you proud of your holy terror?" cried Bob in tremulous, happy tones, holding out her tie with the Dramatic Club pin on it. And in spite of the lateness of the hour and the wild desire of the procession to know where it was going next, Mrs. Alison's delight over the honor done her "holy terror" was well worth waiting to see.

And then—Betty squeezed Nita's hand till it ached. No—yes—they were going to the Hilton! They weren't stopping on the second floor. Then it must—oh, it must be Eleanor! And it was.

Margaret Payson was chairman of the announcement committee, but almost before she could give Eleanor her note of invitation to the society Beatrice Egerton had pressed forward and fastened her pin on Eleanor's shirtwaist.

After seeing Bob's frenzied excitement it was amusing to watch Eleanor Watson. She was perfectly composed. "Just as if she'd been expecting it," said little Alice Waite, who had joined the procession as it passed through her corridor. "But she was pleased—I never saw her so pleased before—and didn't it make her look lovely!"

As soon as the pin was safely fastened and the note read, there was another tumult of congratulations. Then Beatrice Egerton took off the great bunch of violets she was wearing,—"just till I could bring them to you," she explained,—and carried Eleanor off to sit among the seniors at chapel. Just opposite them was Emily Davis, with Dorothy King. Emily was also wearing violets, and her plain face was almost pretty, it was so full of happiness.

"Just to think," she whispered to Dorothy, "that you picked out me, when you could have any one in 19—. I can't realize it!" She glanced at her shabby coat, made over from Babe's discarded golf cape, and then at Eleanor Watson's irreproachable blue walking suit and braided toque to match. "Here all girls are really created free and equal, aren't they, Miss King?"

"Of course. Don't be silly," said Dorothy, with a queer little catch in her voice. Dorothy King was not at all sentimental, but the splendidly democratic spirit of her college sometimes brought a lump into her throat.

Only once that morning did the radiant smiles leave Eleanor Watson's lovely face. That was when Katherine Kittredge, on the way out of chapel, rallied her about her famous theme.

"Now aren't you glad Miss Raymond got up early that morning?" she said.

It was the first time that any one had referred to the story in connection with her election to the Dramatic Club. Eleanor frowned and turned to Beatrice Egerton, who was standing close beside her.

"Bess," she said, pouting, "did you run me in because of that footless little story? Wasn't it for myself that you wanted me? Do say that it was."

Miss Egerton smiled her lazy, enigmatical smile, which her admirers considered the secret of her tremendous popularity. "Of course we wanted you for yourself," she said, "but that footless little story, as you call it, is a rather important asset. We expect you to keep on writing footless little stories, remember."

"How tiresome!" said Eleanor, with a shrug of her shoulders. "That's the bother of doing anything up here. What you do once, you are expected to repeat indefinitely. Now my method is to do one thing as well as I can, and then go on to something else."

"Just do them all as well as you did the story, and we shan't complain," said Miss Egerton. "And now, Eleanor, I must be off to Psychology One. Do you suppose anybody will give a dinner for you to-night?"

"Yes, Miss Egerton," called Jean Eastman, appearing around the corner. "Kate and I are giving one, and we want you to come, of course. And Eleanor," she went on, after Miss Egerton had left them, "we want you to answer to a toast—'My Story and How I Wrote It.' Now be just as clever and amusing as you can. I thought I wouldn't spring it on you—"

"Jean," Eleanor broke in suddenly, "I won't answer to anything of the sort. And if you have that story mentioned—even mentioned, remember—to- night, I shall get up and leave. Give me your word that I shan't hear of it in any way,—or give up the dinner."

Jean stared in astonishment. "Why certainly, Eleanor," she said, "but I thought you had given up being so absurd. Is there any one in particular that you want asked tonight?"

"Dora Carlson," flashed Eleanor, and hurried off, murmuring something about a nine o'clock recitation at the other end of the main building.

Jean looked after her for a moment, her mouth twisted into a funny grimace, and then pursued her way to the college library. At the door she met Betty Wales. "Your face is one big smile," she said.

"Of course," laughed Betty. "Isn't it perfectly splendid about Eleanor and Emily?"

Jean grinned cheerfully. "Considering last year I thought it was more or less amusing to see the two of them sitting up there together on the front row at chapel. I wonder if Eleanor remembers any of the remarks she used to let drop about the genius of 19—. See here, Betty," she added quickly, "have you any idea why Eleanor is so touchy about that story? She won't even have it toasted tonight at the supper."

"No," said Betty. "I asked her, but she didn't tell me anything except that she didn't care for it."

"Well, most people would begin to care for it a little, after it had pulled them into the Dramatic Club among the first four," said Jean, opening the library door and tiptoeing over to the anthropological alcove. There she spent the hour, busily engaged in making out a new list of toasts, that should avoid all mention of the objectionable story.

"But they must have some point," reflected Jean, sadly, as she ran her pen through "My Story and How I Wrote It," and "The Rewards of Literature" and "Our Rising Young Novelist," which she had intended for herself and Kate Denise.

"Bother Eleanor's tantrums!" muttered Jean, as the ten o'clock gong rang, and she picked up her books and hurried off to recite a French lesson that, because of Eleanor's "tantrums," she had not learned.

And for Betty Wales Eleanor's election to the Dramatic Club also brought disappointment. She had hoped that once Eleanor's ambition was gratified and all her hard work and careful planning rewarded, the anxious lines would leave her face and the sweeter, softer expression that she had worn in September would come back. But though Eleanor professed the greatest pleasure in the election, it did not seem to make her any less haughty or capricious, or any better content with life. She still snubbed or patronized her train of adoring freshmen by turns, according to her mood. She was still a devoted admirer of Beatrice Egerton, and a member of her very exclusive set. She received Betty's congratulations just as cordially as she had every one's else,—it was one of Beatrice's principles to treat everybody well "up to a certain point,"—but she did not come to the third floor of the Belden House except on errands.



CHAPTER IX

THE COMPLICATIONS OF LIFE

By the middle of February basket-ball practice was in full swing again. The class teams had not yet been chosen, but every Wednesday and Saturday afternoon l9—'s last year's "regulars" and "subs" met in the gymnasium to play exciting matches. Of course there were some changes in the make- up of the teams. Two of the "sub" centres and a "regular" home had left college; the guard who sprained her ankle in the great game of the year before and whose place Katherine Kittredge had taken in the second half, was not allowed to risk another such injury; and one or two other players had lost interest in basket-ball and were devoting their energies to something else. So there was a chance for outsiders, and Betty Wales, who had almost "made" the freshman sub-team, was one of the new girls invited to play in the practice matches.

Helen Adams had cut basket-ball all her freshman year, because Miss Andrews never called the roll on basket-ball days. Now she could not get enough of it, nor of regular gym. On Wednesday and Saturday afternoons there were no classes, so she used to put on her gym. suit and go over to watch the teams. And if some player failed to appear or was late in arriving, T. Reed or Betty would suggest calling Helen down to take the absentee's place. Helen was painfully awkward and not very strong, but she had acquired T. Reed's habit of slipping under the outstretched arms of the enemy and T. Reed's fashion of setting her teeth and getting the ball in spite of opposition; and some of her plays were remarkably effective.

"I believe," Betty said to her one day, as they lay side by side in a sunny spot on the gym. floor, resting between the halves, "I believe, if you'd begun last year when the rest of us did, you might have been on one of the teams yourself."

Helen laughed a pleased little laugh. "Oh, no!" she said. "But I love to play with you sometimes, and I love to watch Theresa."

"Isn't she a wonder?" said Betty dreamily. "Do you remember that game, Helen? Wasn't it the most exciting thing? And this year it will be our turn to win. Bob Parker has seen the picked freshman teams play, and she thinks they haven't a chance against us."

"I hope you can be on the sub-team, Betty," said Helen.

"And I hope you can write your song for 19— to sing to its team," returned Betty gaily. "You haven't forgotten about our talk the day of the game, have you, Helen?"

"Oh, no!" said Helen, quickly. Not for worlds would she have let Betty know how much she counted on that song. She had written another little verse for her theme class, and that very morning it had come back with "Good work—charming lilt," scrawled across the margin. So Helen had high hopes for the song.

Just then the door of the gym. opened, and Lucy Merrifield, the president of 19—, came in.

"Hello, Lucy," chorused the group of sprawling figures nearest the door.

"You're just in time to see us do up the regular team," called Elizabeth West, who captained the "subs."

"Thank you," returned Lucy, "but I can't stay to see you do any such unbecoming thing. I came on an errand to Betty Wales. Isn't she here?"

"Here I am," called Betty, scrambling upright and brushing the hair out of her eyes.

"I came to tell you that you've been appointed to the Students' Commission, to serve until Christy Mason gets back," explained Lucy.

"Till Christy gets back?" repeated Betty in bewilderment.

"Yes, she's been called home very suddenly. Her mother is ill, and Christy is going to keep house and see to the children. She'll be away a month anyhow and perhaps all this term. And as there are a lot of important matters coming up just now, we decided that we would better appoint a substitute on the commission."

"I'm afraid I can't be much help," began Betty, doubtfully.

"Oh, yes, you can," declared Lucy. "Come to the meeting to-morrow at two, and we'll give you plenty to help about."

"Time's up," called the captain of the regulars, and Lucy ran for the door, leaving Betty in a state of pleased excitement. Dorothy King was president of her class this year, and therefore also president of the Students' Commission. Marion Lawrence was a representative from the junior class. To be even a temporary member of so august an assembly seemed to Betty a very great privilege. She was so busy wondering who had chosen her,—whether Lucy or the whole commission,—and what to-morrow's meeting would be like, that she deliberately threw the ball twice toward the wrong basket and never discovered her mistake until Elizabeth West begged her please to "come to" and help her own side a little just for variety.

On the way home Betty met Miss Ferris. "Come and have tea with me, little girl," she said.

"Could I, like this?" asked Betty wistfully, pulling back her rain-coat to show her gym. suit and the tightly braided pig-tails tucked inside.

Miss Ferris laughed. "I shouldn't mind, but some one else might drop in. It takes me ten minutes to make tea. Now run!"

Exactly nine minutes and a half later. Betty, looking very slender and stately in a clinging blue gown and a big plumed hat, her cheeks pink with excitement and her hair blown into fascinating ringlets from her brisk run across the campus, knocked timidly on Miss Ferris's door.

"Come in," called Miss Ferris. "You're early. The water hasn't boiled."

"It used to take me half an hour to dress, at the very fastest," said Betty, slipping into a low chair by the fire, where she could watch Miss Ferris making tea in a fat little silver pot, and pouring it into cups so thin and beautiful that Betty hardly dared touch hers, and breathed a deep sigh of relief when it was safely emptied and out of her hands.

Just as she was leaving, she told Miss Ferris about her appointment to the Students' Commission.

"Well," said Miss Ferris, "that won't be new work for you. You were an ex-officio member last year."

Betty looked puzzled.

"What you did for Miss Watson was Students' Commission work," explained Miss Ferris. "And judging by the position Miss Watson seems to be taking this year, I should call it very good work indeed."



"But you did it, not I," protested Betty.

"I did my part, you did yours," corrected Miss Ferris. "To be successful nowadays, you know, you must not only work yourself, but you must get other people to work for you."

"Yes," said Betty, vaguely. Then she laughed. "I'm afraid that I do the second more than the first, Miss Ferris. My roommate thinks that I get a great deal too much out of other people. And when I was at home Nan used to tell me to be more independent and see how I could get along if I were left on a desert island."

Miss Ferris smiled across the fire at her dainty little guest. "The best things in the world,—which fortunately isn't a desert island,—come about by cooperation," she said. "Be independent; think for yourself, of course, but get all the help you can from other people in carrying out your thoughts."

The dinner-bell began to jangle noisily in the hall and Betty rose hastily. "I've stayed too long," she said, "but I always do that when I come to see you. I shall tell my roommate what you said. Do you suppose I shall ever learn to think up arguments for myself?"

"Of course," said Miss Ferris, encouragingly. "That's one thing you're here for—to learn to argue and to dress in a hurry and to work on Students' Commissions. You'll master them all in time. Good-bye."

When Betty got back to the Belden House the bell had rung there too, and as the girls stood about in the halls and parlors waiting for Mrs. Cass, the matron, to lead them in to dinner, they were all discussing what Mary Brooks could mean by a "hair-raising."

"It sounds like a house-raising," said a girl from Nebraska. "I mean the sort of thing they have away out west, where laborers are scarce and the whole town turns out to help a man get up the timbers of his house."

"But there's no sense to that kind of a hair-raising," objected the Nebraskan's roommate, who was from Boston. "I think that Mary has invented a hair tonic and is going to try it on us before she has it patented."

"I'm sure I hope so," said Madeline Ayres, patting her diminutive twist of hair tenderly.

"Why, it's some kind of party she's giving for her mother," announced a stately senior, authoritatively.

"I don't see how that tells what it is, though," said Betty. "Am I invited?"

"Yes," explained Helen Adams. "Mary came in while you were out and asked us."

"But she hasn't said anything about expecting her mother."

At this everybody laughed and Marion Lawrence explained that Mary, being a very busy person, had a habit of putting away her letters unopened, until she found time to read them.

"And somehow she thought this was a book-bill from Longstreet's—you know how near-sighted she is—so she stuck it into her desk until she got her next month's allowance. But to-day she found some money that she'd put in her collar-case for safe-keeping and forgotten about; so she got out the bill to pay it, and it turned out to be a letter from her mother, saying she was coming up tonight. Mary wouldn't have her know for anything, so she decided to give a hair-raising to-night, as if she'd planned for it days ahead."

"But what is it?" demanded Betty.

If Miss Lawrence was in Mary's confidence she had no intention of betraying it; and there was nothing to do but wait for eight o'clock, the hour which Mary had mentioned in her invitations. Promptly on the moment all those bidden to the hair-raising made a rush for Mary's room.

"She hasn't come back from taking dinner with her mother," said Helen. "Her transom is dark."

But "come in, children," called Mary, sociably, and opening the door just wide enough to admit one girl at a time she disclosed a room absolutely dark save for a gleam of light from a Turkish lantern in one corner.

"Goodness!" cried Betty, who went in first. "What am I running into? Oh, it's a skeleton."

"I'm all mixed up with a snake," added Katherine. "I feel my hair rising already."

"Girls, I want you to meet my mother," said Mary, briskly.

"Here I am," called a sweet voice from the shadows. "Wouldn't you better turn on the lights for a moment, daughter?"

"No, indeed," retorted Mary, firmly. "They're nothing to see, dear, I assure you, but if you insist on seeing them you can all go across to Laurie's room and come back after you've had a general inspection."

So everybody filed over to Marion Lawrence's room, where it was discovered that Mary's mother was, as Betty Wales put it, "a perfect little darling." She was small, like Mary, and she looked so young that Katherine gravely asked Mary if she was quite sure she wasn't palming off a sister on them instead of a mother. She entered into all the absurdities of the hair-raising, which proved to be only a particularly diverting sort of ghost party, with as much zest as any of the girls, and her ghost stories were the feature of the evening.

"You see, dear," explained Mary, when the lights were finally turned on and the hair-raising had resolved itself into a spread, "you see I had a hair-raising because you tell ghost stories so well. Why, ever since I read your letter I've been planning how I should show you off—Oh, mother, it's too good to keep." And Mary regaled her mother with the story of the neglected book-bill.

"Speaking of lost letters," said Marion Lawrence, "there's a letter for Frances West over on the zoology bulletin board in Science Hall. It's been there for two weeks."

"What a funny place for it!" said Mary. "Frances never as much as sticks her head inside Science Hall. She thinks it's wrong to cut up frogs and angle-worms. How did it get there, Laurie?"

"Postman dropped it, probably, and somebody who didn't know any better stuck it up there—the janitor, maybe."

"Perhaps Frances dropped it herself," suggested Madeline Ayres.

Marion shook her head. "Anyhow if she did, she hasn't read it. I noticed that it hadn't been opened."

"Perhaps it's a letter like Mary's, saying that her mother is coming," suggested Helen Adams.

"Guess again. It can't be that, because her mother wouldn't direct a letter to the editor-in-chief of the 'Argus.'"

"Hear that, Dottie," called Mary Brooks to Dorothy King, who was sitting on the divan below the Turkish lantern, talking busily with Mrs. Brooks. "There's a letter for your chief over on the zoology bulletin board. You'd better stop in and get it for her."

"Isn't it funny," said Rachel Morrison, "that, as well as Frances West is known in college and as many juniors and seniors as look at that bulletin board, nobody has thought to take her the letter."

"Why didn't you take it to her, Laurie?" asked Mary severely.

"Oh, because I wanted to see how long it would stop there if I didn't take it," returned Marion easily. "I'm writing a theme on 'What's everybody's business is nobody's business,' and I want to get the psychology right. Oh, Mrs. Brooks," she called, getting up and going over to the divan, "did you know that Mary had set a fashion up here? Ever since her 'Rumor' story, we're all racking our brains to see if we can't get up some psychological experiments that will make Professor Hinsdale think we're clever too."

"And most of you," said Mary loftily, "just succeed in making your friends uncomfortable. I hope Frances' letter won't upset her the way mine did."

"Oh, I guess it isn't a hair-raiser," said Marion easily. "It's probably a bill for printer's ink or paper, or whatever they buy for the 'Argus.' You get it to-morrow, Dottie, and then you can tell us what is in it."

"I will," said Dorothy.

Just as she spoke the twenty-minute-to-ten bell clanged suggestively in the corridors, and the hair-raising came to an abrupt end.

"I don't think I care much for hair-raisings," said Betty, as she and Helen made hasty preparations for bed. "I think you have enough to worry about and be frightened over, without getting up a lot of extra things on purpose. I can hear that blood-hound panting under the window this very minute. Isn't Mrs. Brooks a wonderful story-teller?"

"Yes. I didn't suppose you were ever worried or frightened over things," said Helen.

"Well, I am," returned Betty. "I'm worrying this very minute about my to- morrow's recitations. I'd planned to study tonight but how could I hurt Mary's feelings by not going to the hair-raising? I suppose," went on Betty, when Helen did not answer, "I suppose you want to ask why I don't sit up to study? But if I did I should be breaking a rule, and besides," concluded Betty, yawning prodigiously, "I am altogether too sleepy to sit up, so I am just going to sleep and forget all my troubles." And Betty suited the action to the word.

A few moments later she roused herself. "Life is just full of things to decide, isn't it, Helen? And so often you can't tell which one is best— like me going to the hair-raising to-night, or Marion Lawrence and that letter."

"I think she ought to have delivered the letter," said Helen.

"But it was such fun not to," objected Betty. "And probably it was only an advertisement. Now I'm really going to sleep."



CHAPTER X

IN THE "ARGUS" SANCTUM

Dorothy King hurried down the steps of Science Hall and across the campus to the main building, carrying Frances West's belated letter in her hand. She stopped for a moment in Miss Stuart's office to tell her that the Students' Commission wanted to hold a mass-meeting of the whole college at the end of the month, and waited while Miss Stuart, who was an enthusiastic supporter of the commission, obligingly hunted up an available date for the meeting, and promised to hold it open until the final arrangements could be perfected. Outside the office door Dorothy hesitated and looked at her watch. Quarter past four; laboratory work was over for the afternoon, and there would be ten girls to one copy of Ward's "Poets" in the library.

"I'll go up there this evening," she decided swiftly, "and now for a skate before dinner," and she swung off toward the Hilton House to get her skates and her sweater. As she put out her hand to open the door, she suddenly noticed that she was still carrying Frances' letter, and gave an impatient little exclamation. "All out of my way," she thought, "so I might as well take it back now and get rid of it."

The editorial office of the "Argus" was in the Students' Building, over behind the gym. As she went, Dorothy congratulated herself that it was this errand, and not the one to Miss Stuart, which she had forgotten; for the main building was twice as far away. She wondered idly whether Frances would be in the "sanctum"; she often spent her free afternoons there, for the big building, which was used chiefly in the evening for club meetings, plays, and other social and semi-social functions, was generally silent and deserted earlier in the day; and the quiet and the view over Paradise river from the west windows of the sanctum appealed to the poetic soul of the chief editor. Dorothy, who was a very practical person herself, had a vast admiration for Frances' dreamy, imaginative temperament, and enjoyed her work as business manager of the "Argus" chiefly because it brought her into close contact with Frances; while Frances in her turn admired Dorothy's executive ability, and depended on her to soften the hearts of obdurate printers, stir the consciences of careless assistant editors, and in short to stand as a sort of buffer between her beloved "Argus" and a careless world. Dorothy hoped that Frances would be in the sanctum; it would be fun to tell her about the letter. But if not, all responsibility could be fulfilled by dropping it and a note of explanation into the editorial mail-box.

But Frances was there, and also Beatrice Egerton, who, as exchange editor of the "Argus," Dorothy had come to know well and to like for her quick wit and her daring, piquant ways, while she thoroughly disapproved of her worldly, self-seeking attitude toward college life.

"Hello, Dottie," called Beatrice, when Dorothy opened the door. "We thought you weren't coming, Frances and I."

"Why should I be coming?" inquired Dorothy curiously, tossing the letter into Frances' lap.

"Proof!" exclaimed Beatrice, with a funny little grimace.

Dorothy sank down on the long window seat, which ran across two sides of the sanctum, with a groan and a gesture of despair. "I entirely forgot," she said. "I was going skating. Could it possibly wait till to-morrow?"

Frances West looked helplessly at Beatrice. "I'm sure I don't know," she said. "You told me that to-day was the time. I always depend on you to keep track."

Beatrice laughed gaily. "I'm so glad I happened in," she said. "It's such a lovely spectacle to see the methodical Dottie King trying to persuade the poetical and always-behind-time Frances to put off till to-morrow what she ought to have done day before yesterday. Come, Dottie, take off your coat and go to work."

"I'm sorry I'm always late," said Frances, sweetly. "I've decided to try to be on time now that we've got our new rugs and these lovely green curtains. So I bought a calendar pad and put down my date for reading proof with you last week, when you first reminded me of it."

Dorothy had followed Beatrice's instruction to take off her coat. Now she sat down resignedly before the writing-table, pulled a long strip of printer's proof off the spindle, and dipped her pen in the ink, ready for work. "How do you happen to be here, Bess?" she asked.

"Came to read my mail," said Beatrice. "Some of the best exchanges are out about this time in the month. When you didn't come, I tried to correct proof with Frances, but we couldn't either of us remember the printers' marks; and our Webster's dictionary, that has them in the back, got lost in the shuffle of house-cleaning last vacation."

"Then if the dictionary is lost, you must stay," said Dorothy, "because I can correct proof, but I can't spell, and neither can Frances. Come, Frances, here's the copy for you to read."

Frances West's voice had a peculiarly charming quality, and her manner of reading was so absorbed and sympathetic that she never failed to interest her auditors; so that even the mechanical drudgery of correcting proof was endurable with her help. The work went on rapidly, Dorothy bending over the long printers' galleys, adding mysterious little marks here and there in the wide margins, Frances reading as expressively as though she were doing her best to entertain Beatrice Egerton, who curled herself up on the window-seat, listened, made flippant comments, perused her exchanges when the "Argus" articles did not interest her, and when appealed to by Dorothy, acted as substitute for the missing Webster's dictionary.

"Well, that's over," said Dorothy, at last, straightening in her chair and stretching out her cramped arms over her head. "Next month will be Laura Dale's turn again. I wonder if she'll do it."

"Poor Dottie!" mimicked Beatrice. "'Could you do it just once more? I can't seem to learn the marks.' That's what she'll say. You shouldn't be so capable, Dottie, and then you could go skating afternoons instead of doing your own work and the assistant business manager's too."

"Oh, I don't mind," said Dorothy, who was really very tired indeed, and so preferred not to talk about it. "Laura is a great deal of help with some parts of the work, and I don't blame any one for not wanting to correct proof—though I don't mind doing it so long as Frances will read for me. Aren't our new curtains lovely?"

"Such a cool, woodsy green," said Frances.

"Just right for poets to write behind," supplemented Beatrice, who loved to tease Frances, though in her heart she admired her as much as Dorothy did.

"Girls, it's long after six," said Dorothy, rising abruptly, "and I must go. I have an evening's work still before me."

As she picked up her gloves, she noticed Frances' letter still lying neglected on the window-seat. "Here, Frances," she said, "do just open this letter, and tell me that it's dreadfully important. I want to bother Laurie about it. She saw it on the zoology bulletin board last week and didn't trouble herself to bring it to you."

"Oh, I presume it's nothing," said Frances, dreamily. She was watching the sunset glowing gold and scarlet between the green draperies.

"Here, Frances," laughed Beatrice, thrusting the letter into her hands. "Read it by the light of the dying sun, if you prefer that to good green- shaded electricity. You owe it to Dorothy to take an interest when she bothered herself to bring it to you, and so got caught and deprived of her afternoon's fun. Poor Dottie! can't you go skating tomorrow?"

They were animatedly discussing the possibility of Miss Mills's neglecting to call for a recitation on Ward's "Poets" the next day, when Frances gave a little exclamation.

"Why, girls," she began, excitedly. "I don't understand. Isn't to-day the twentieth of February?"

"Yes, dear," said Beatrice. "You knew from that wonderful calendar pad, didn't you?"

Frances disregarded the question. "Then—Why, this letter is dated February second. Where has it been all the time?"

"I just told you," repeated Dorothy, "that Laurie saw it on the zoology bulletin board last week. Perhaps it was there a week or two before she saw it. Is it really important, Frances? Laurie supposed from the direction that it was just a bill or an advertisement. She'll be very sorry."

"Oh, I don't know what it is," declared Frances, in bewilderment. "Read it," and she held out the letter to Dorothy.

"Read it aloud," suggested Beatrice.

"Yes, do," added Frances. "I haven't any idea what it means."

"'The Quiver' Offices, "—Fulton St., New York, "Feb. 2, 19—.

"MISS FRANCES WEST, "Editor-in-Chief of Harding "College 'Argus':

"DEAR MADAME:—It always gives me great pleasure to see the merits of 'The Quiver' recognized, particularly in haunts of high culture, like your alma mater. Nevertheless, you will readily understand that the little tribute to the genius of one of our contributors, contained in your December number, which, owing to my prolonged absence from the city, has just now come under my observation, is, to speak bluntly, deserving of some return from me. I have no doubt that you will be glad to offer the proper explanation. If, however, you insist upon leaving the matter in my hands, I assure you that I shall not mince matters. College honor is a point about which I am very sensitive. We go to press on the twentieth inst. Until that time I am

"Yours confidentially, "RICHARD BLAKE."

"Well," said Dorothy, folding the letter carefully and putting it back in its envelope, "what do you make of that, Bess?"

"Nothing," said Beatrice, "nothing at all. Who in the world is Richard Blake?"

"I don't know. Don't you, Frances?"

Frances shook her head. "But 'The Quiver' is a magazine. I've seen a copy once or twice."

"Then," said Dorothy, promptly, "Richard Blake must be the editor, or one of them."

"Well, did we say anything about him in the December number?" pursued Beatrice. "Or anything about his magazine?"

"No," declared Dorothy, "of course not. 'The Quiver' isn't a college magazine, is it, Frances? It couldn't be on the list of exchanges?"

"Oh, no," said Frances, wearily. "'The Quiver' is a real magazine, Dorothy. It's new, I think, but I know Miss Raymond considers it very clever. I saw a copy once in her room."

"Clever or not clever," said Beatrice, calmly, "I'm sure this editor must be insane. There is absolutely no sense to his letter."

Dorothy unfolded Mr. Richard Blake's missive, read it through once more, and passed it without comment to Beatrice. Meanwhile Frances was rummaging through the files of the "Argus."

"Here it is," she said at last. "Didn't he say the January number?"

"No, December," corrected Beatrice, joining-Frances in her search for the missing magazine.

"There," said Frances, at last, reading down the table of contents. "'The Self-government System at Harding'—he wouldn't be mentioned in that. My poem is next—he certainly isn't in that. Then that story of Eleanor Watson's, and an essay on 'Sweetness and Light.'"

"Perhaps he's in that," suggested Dorothy, hopefully. "It sounds as if it might mean almost anything."

Beatrice Egerton giggled. "You didn't take the course in nineteenth century essayists, I guess, Dottie. He's not in 'Sweetness and Light,' unless Richard Blake is an alibi of Matthew Arnold's."

"And he couldn't possibly be in any of these sketches," went on Frances, anxiously, "nor in the editorials, nor in the alumnae notes."

"Of course not," agreed Beatrice, scornfully. "See here, girls," she added, referring again to the note, "he doesn't tell us the name of his contributor—the simpleton! That's what we ought to look for. He says we printed a tribute to the genius of one of his contributors."

"I have it!" declared Dorothy, pulling the December "Argus" out of Frances' hands. "The contributor is a member of the faculty, and the article is spoken of in the faculty notes. That's it, of course."

But diligent search of the faculty notes failed to unearth any item about an article in "The Quiver."

"Besides," added Beatrice, who had returned to the note once more, "that wouldn't explain what he says about college honor. And what is this about 'offering the proper explanation'? Are people supposed to explain compliments?"

"I don't know," said Frances. "I suppose I've made some dreadful blunder, and he noticed it. And to-day is the twentieth; he evidently wanted an answer by that time. Do you think I ought to telegraph?"

"No," said Dorothy, after a moment's thought "It wouldn't be any use. If he went to press—or 'The Quiver' went to press—to-day, it's gone hours ago. You'd better write him to-night. He'll get your letter in the morning, and then he'll understand."

"But what am I to write?" asked Frances, helplessly.

"Tell him to study Genung on clearness," suggested Beatrice, flippantly.

"Don't, Beatrice," broke in Dorothy. "This is evidently a serious matter. I should tell him that you didn't know what he meant by his letter, Frances, and of course explain why you haven't written before."

"Will you two stay while I write it?" asked Frances. "I should never dare to take the responsibility alone."

Dorothy sat down on the window-seat in silence, and Beatrice followed her example. There was no sound in the sanctum but the scratching of Frances' pen, moving swiftly over the paper. When the brief note was finished, the editor-in-chief handed it to her colleagues.

"That's all right," said Dorothy, reading it through.

"Infinitely better than his," added Beatrice. "His reminds me of that verse of Marion Lustig's that was more obscure than Browning—the one we persuaded you not to print."

"Don't you think," began Dorothy hesitatingly, "that, until we know exactly what Mr. Richard Blake means, it would be better not to mention his letter?"

"Not even to the rest of the 'Argus' board?" asked Beatrice, who had been anticipating the sensation that the story of the mysterious letter would create. "Dottie," she went on, looking keenly at Dorothy, "I believe you have another idea about what that note means."

"I know just as little about it as you do," said Dorothy quietly, "but I think eight girls are too many to keep a secret and—it's Frances' letter. She must decide."

"I think Dorothy is right," agreed Frances. "I believe that we would better wait before telling the others. If it's some dreadful blunder that I have made, perhaps I could correct it if only we three knew of it. Though I don't know whether that would be quite honest," she added sadly.

Beatrice put her arm around Frances' waist and led her to the door.

"You old dear," she said, "you're so proud of your beloved 'Argus.' I believe you worry over every word that goes into it."

"And over every s that is upside-down and isn't detected by my eagle eye," laughed Dorothy, locking the door and carefully hiding the key in the place where half the college knew it was kept.

It was seven o'clock—no use going home to dinner. Dorothy decided to get an early start with Ward's "Poets," and to dine later in the evening on ship's biscuit and a glass of milk. The library was very quiet. She read busily, concentrating her attention upon the pages before her, oblivious of her surroundings, forgetful even of the mysterious letter and the theory, which, despite her declaration to Beatrice Egerton, she had formed concerning it.

Presently some one tiptoed up behind her and clasped two hands tightly across her eyes.

"Who is it?" whispered a laughing voice.

"I don't know," answered Dorothy a trifle irritably.

"Did you give it to her?" demanded the voice imperturbably.

"Give what to whom?"

"The letter to Frances West."

"It's Mary Brooks," said Dorothy, pulling away the hands and turning to find Mary and Marion Lawrence standing behind her chair.

"Aren't you nearly through with that book?" asked Marion.

Dorothy nodded. "Leave me in peace for ten minutes and you may have it."

"Well, tell us first about the letter," demanded Mary. "Was it a hair- raiser?"

"Oh, no," answered Dorothy calmly. "It was—oh, a note of thanks, or something of the sort from some magazine that the 'Argus' had spoken of."

"Bother!" said Marion. "That's no good for an ending to my theme."

"No good at all," agreed Dorothy. "I shouldn't use it if I were you."

"I certainly shan't," said Marion. "I can invent a nicer ending than that. Come, Mary, leave her alone, so that I can have Ward. Oh, dear! I'm dreadfully disappointed about my theme."

The reply to Mr. Richard Blake, presumably editor of "The Quiver," had been dispatched on the evening of the twentieth. Two days later Frances, looking as if she had seen a ghost, stopped Dorothy on her way from morning chapel to her first recitation.

"Can you come to the sanctum right after lunch?" she asked. "Beatrice can come then."

"Yes," returned Dorothy. "You've got his answer?"

Frances nodded. "And oh, Dorothy, it's just dreadful!"

When Dorothy reached the sanctum that afternoon she found Beatrice and Frances there before her. Without a word Frances handed her the letter.

"MY DEAR MISS WEST—" it ran:

"Your note is received and the delay in sending it fully explained. I am sorry you could make nothing of my first letter. I intended to be vague, for I wanted to test your knowledge of the episode in question; but it seems I overshot the mark. So let me say, please, since you and your colleagues evidently do not read 'The Quiver' that a story in your December number by a Miss Eleanor Watson is practically a copy of one that appeared in our November issue, which I am sending you under separate cover. All I ask is that some public acknowledgment of the fact shall be made, either by you or by me. I have delayed the notice I intended to insert in our next number, until I hear from you.

"Let me say that I blame neither you nor your associates in the matter. 'The Quiver' is young, and plagiarists will happen.

"Yours very truly, "RICHARD BLAKE."

"Has the magazine come?" asked Dorothy, without exhibiting the least surprise at Mr. Blake's startling announcement.

"Yes," said Frances. "There must be some dreadful mistake."

"Can't you find the story he means?"

"Yes, but of course Eleanor Watson didn't copy it. No Harding girl would do such a thing."

"Eleanor Watson is different," said Dorothy.

"You mean you think she did it?" asked Beatrice Egerton. "You don't think it was a coincidence? Frances knew of something like it happening once, entirely by chance."

"This wasn't chance," said Dorothy slowly. "Oh, Beatrice—you know Eleanor Watson better than I—I don't want to be uncharitable. That was why I didn't tell you girls the other day, when it occurred to me that this was what Mr. Blake meant. Can't you see that it explains everything? Don't you remember I told you how queer she was about giving me the story; and before that, just after she handed it in, she went over to get it back."

"Yes," said Frances eagerly. "I remember. We thought it such a good joke. Oh, let us go and ask her how it was. She will surely be able to explain."

"But Frances," began Dorothy and stopped, glancing uncertainly at Beatrice.

"Oh, you needn't mind me," said Beatrice calmly. "If this is true, I wash my hands of Eleanor Watson." She turned to Frances, and her face softened. "You dear old idealist," she said, pulling Frances down on the seat beside her. "Can't you see that appealing to Eleanor Watson wouldn't do at all? Can't you see that if she is mean enough to plagiarize 'The Quiver's' story, she is probably capable of lying out of it? And how should we know whether or not she told the truth?"

"Or suppose that she did convince us," said Dorothy gently, "you see there is still Mr. Blake. I don't believe Eleanor's denial would satisfy him."

"Well," said Beatrice resignedly, "next to Eleanor Watson herself, I suppose I am the person who would profit most by having this whole affair hushed up. It's going to be mighty unpleasant for me, what with my having put her up for Dramatic Club and all that. But frankly, I don't see what there is to do but let Mr. Richard Blake go ahead and say what he pleases. Eleanor Watson will probably leave college. Some people will believe the story and some won't. Some won't even hear it—'The Quiver' seems to be a very obscure magazine. And in nine days every one will forget all about it."

"But Eleanor Watson will never forget," added Frances softly. To her art was sacred and the idea of stealing it horrible.

There was a silence broken at last by Dorothy.

"Frances," she said, "you're right, you always are. You divine things that the rest of us have to reason out. This affair is unpleasant for everybody concerned, but it isn't a vital matter to us or to Mr. Blake. The only person to be considered is Eleanor Watson. If the matter is made public—"

"It would serve her right, and it might be the best thing in the world for her," broke in Beatrice, who was growing more angry with Eleanor the longer she thought of the intimacy between them.

"That," said Dorothy, "is the question we have to decide. I for one am not at all sure what to think. Being publicly humiliated might be a good thing for her, or it might ruin her whole life."

"Oh, I can't bear to have people know about it," said Frances, her face white with horror. "Let us go home now and think it over, and let us be oh! so careful not even to hint at what has happened. We may have to confide in some others, but let us not give up the chance of keeping our secret by telling the wrong people now. And let us meet again tomorrow afternoon."

"In your room," suggested Beatrice. "This place is too conspicuous."

The three editors crept down the stairs like so many conspirators, separated with soft good-byes in the lower hall, and went their several ways, each feeling that the weight of the world rested on her shoulders. To Beatrice the affair was a personal one, involving her judgment and her status in the college world; Frances mingled pity for Eleanor with jealousy for the fair name of the "Argus"; Dorothy was going over the career of Eleanor Watson since she entered Harding, wondering whether it would be possible, by any method of treatment, to make her over into a trustworthy member of the student body, and whether she would ever be worth to the world what her evil influence had cost her college. All at once a bitter thought flashed upon Dorothy. She herself was partly responsible for Eleanor's downfall; for had she not persuaded her, against her will, to give the story to the "Argus"?



CHAPTER XI

A PROBLEM IN ETHICS

Betty Wales sat in Dorothy King's big wicker easy chair, an expression of mingled distress and perplexity on her usually merry face. Dorothy had sent word that she was ill and wanted to see her little friend, and Betty had hurried over in her first free period, never guessing at the strange story that Dorothy had summoned her to hear. The story was told now. It remained only for Betty to decide what she should do about it.

"It's the most annoying thing," Dorothy was saying from the bed where she lay, pale and listless, among the pillows. "I've heard of girls being ill from overwork, and I always thought they were good-for-nothings, glad of an excuse to stay in bed for awhile. But I can't get up, Betty. I tried hard this morning before the doctor came, and it made me so sick and faint—you can't imagine. So there was nothing to do but submit when she insisted upon my going to the infirmary for two weeks."

"I'm so sorry," murmured Betty sympathetically.

"She tried to make me promise not to see any one except the matron before I was moved," went on Dorothy, "but I told her I must talk to you for half an hour. I promised on my honor not to keep you longer than that, and we haven't but ten minutes left. Now won't you decide to go and see Mr. Blake?"

"Oh, I don't know what to decide!" cried Betty in despairing tones. "It's so dreadful that Eleanor should have done it. That's all I can think of."

"But listen to me, Betty," began Dorothy patiently. "Let me show you just how matters stand. Frances can't go down to New York alone—you can see that. She doesn't know the city, and she'd get lost or run over, and ten to one come home without even remembering to see Mr. Blake. You can't believe how absent-minded she is, till you've worked with her as I have. Besides, she is too dreamy and imaginative to convince a man of Mr. Blake's type.

"And Bess Egerton mustn't go; Frances and I are agreed about that. She's too flighty. She'd be angry if Mr. Blake didn't yield his point immediately, and say something outrageous to him. Then she'd go off shopping and come back here in the best of spirits, declaring that there was nothing to be done because Mr. Blake was 'such a silly.' And I can't go."

"If you only could!" broke in Betty. "Then it would be all right. Isn't there any chance that you might be able to by the end of next week?"

Dorothy shook her head. "I couldn't get leave, on top of this two weeks' illness, without telling Miss Stuart exactly why I needed to go, and I don't want to do that. Miss Raymond knows all about it and approves, and we don't want to confide in any one else. Besides, I doubt if Mr. Blake will wait so long."

"Well then, Dorothy, why not write to him?"

Dorothy shook her head again. "We tried that. We wrote one letter, and when his answer came we tried again, but eight pages was the least we could get our arguments into. No, it's a case where talking it out is the only thing to do. You could take him unawares and I'm sure you'd bring him round."

"That's just it," broke in Betty eagerly. "I know you're mistaken, Dorothy. I couldn't think of a thing to say to him—I never can. It would be just a waste of time for me to try."

Dorothy took a bulky envelope from under her pillows and held it out to Betty. "Here," she said. "These are the letters we wrote. We all three tried. Here are arguments in plenty."

"But I should forget them all when I got there."

"You mustn't."

"Besides, it would look so queer for me to go, when I'm not on the 'Argus' board, and have nothing to do with the trouble."

"Didn't I tell you why we chose you?" exclaimed Dorothy. "No? I am so stupid to-day; I put everything the wrong way around. Why, there were two reasons. One is because you are so fond of Eleanor and understand her so well. Nobody on the 'Argus' staff, except Beatrice and myself, has more than a bowing acquaintance with her, whereas you can tell Mr. Blake exactly what sort of girl she is, and why we want to save her from this disgrace. The other reason is that, while Christy is away, you are one of the two sophomores on the Students' Commission; Eleanor is a sophomore and either you or Lucy Merrifield is the proper person to act in her interests in a case of this kind. Because you know Eleanor best, we chose you—and for some other reasons," added Dorothy, truthfully, remembering the confidence they had all felt in Betty's peculiar combination of engaging manner and indomitable pluck and perseverance, where a promise or a friend was concerned.

"Oh, Dorothy!" sighed Betty, feeling herself hopelessly entangled in the web of Dorothy's logic.

"There is a third reason," went on Dorothy, inexorably, "just between you and me. Of course you understand that I feel personally to blame about this trouble. If I hadn't lost my horrid temper and said something disagreeable to force her hand, Eleanor Watson might never have allowed the story to be printed and the worst complications would have been avoided. Now I personally ask you, as the person I can best trust, to go to Mr. Blake for me. You know Eleanor. You agree with us that it is very likely to spoil her whole life if this is made public—"

"But, Dorothy, I'm not sure it's right to keep it a secret," broke in Betty.

"I believe you will feel sure when you have had a chance to think over all sides of the question," resumed Dorothy, "and to see how much to blame I am. Then you are a typical Harding girl, the right sort to represent the college to Mr. Blake, who seems to be very much interested in knowing what sort of girl Harding turns out."

"Oh, no!" demurred Betty. "I'm not the right kind at all."

"Besides, you have a way of getting around people and persuading them to do what you want," concluded Dorothy.

"Never," declared Betty.

Dorothy smiled faintly. "You have the reputation," she said. "Of course I don't know how you got it; but now that you have it you're bound to live up to it, you know. And if you don't go, we shall have to risk writing and I am perfectly certain that no letter will keep Mr. Blake from publishing his notice next month, whereas I think that if he were to talk over the matter with you, he might very easily be persuaded to give it up."

Dorothy lay back on her pillows and closed her eyes. "It does certainly seem like shirking to be ill just now," she said.

Betty rose hastily and came over to the bed. "Dorothy," she began, "I must go this minute. You are all tired out. I wish I could promise now, but I must think it over—whether I can do what you want of me and whether I ought. I'll tell you what," she went on eagerly, "I can't see you again, but I'll send you a bunch of violets the first thing in the morning, and I'll tuck in a note among the flowers, saying what I can do. And it will be the very best I can do, Dorothy."

"I know it will," said Dorothy. "Don't think that I don't realize how much we're asking of you."

"I like to be trusted," said Betty, ruefully, "but it seems to me there are hundreds of girls in college who could do this better than I. Good- bye—and look out for the violets, Dorothy."