As she passed the sophomore-senior line, one and another of her friends shouted out gay greetings.

"Hurry up, Jean, or we shall get in before you do."

"You sophomore ushers look like a St. Patrick's Day parade."

"Tell the people in there that their clocks are slow."

"All right," said Jean, hanging on to her unmanageable paper hat.

As she passed the end of the line, Beatrice Egerton detached herself from it, and followed her around the corner of the gym. "Oh, Miss Eastman," she coaxed. "Won't you let me go in with you? I shall never get a place to see anything from way back there in the line."

Jean eyed her doubtfully. She wanted to oblige the great Miss Egerton. "I'm afraid all the reserved seats are full by this time," she objected.

"Oh, I don't want a seat," said Beatrice easily. "I'll stand on the steps of the faculty platform. There's no harm in that, is there?"

"I guess not," said Jean. "Come on."

The doorkeeper had gone up-stairs for a moment, and the meek little freshman who had her place only stared when Jean and Miss Egerton ran past her without exhibiting their credentials.

"Thanks awfully," said Miss Egerton, sitting down on a pile of rugs and mattresses that had been stacked around the fireplace. Jean went off to get her orders from the head usher. There was really nothing to do but walk around and look pretty, the head usher told her. The rush to the gallery had begun, but the janitors and the night-watchman were managing that. Of course when the faculty began to come—

"Oh, yes," said Jean, and hurried back to Beatrice.

"Good-looking lot of ushers," she said.

Beatrice nodded. "You have a lot of pretty girls in 19—."

"To say nothing of having the college beauty," added Jean.

"Of course," said Beatrice. "Nobody in college can touch Eleanor Watson for looks. There she is now, talking to Betty Wales and Kate Denise."

"No," chuckled Jean, "that's Laura Perkins. Their back views are amazingly alike, but wait till you see Laura's face. No, the lady Eleanor wouldn't come to the game. She's in the sulks."

"Seems to be her chronic state nowadays," said Beatrice. "Talking to her is like walking on a hornet's nest. What's the particular cause of grievance to-day?"

"Oh, the committee didn't accept her basket-ball song," said Jean, "and I was on the committee."

Beatrice lifted her eyebrows. "She actually had the nerve to write—to hand one in?"

"Oh, that wasn't nervy," said Jean. "The girls wanted her to—l9— is awfully shy on poets. What I don't admire is her taste in fussing because it wasn't used."

Beatrice smiled significantly. "Did she tell you about her story?"

"What story?"

"Oh, a new one that she handed in for a theme a week or so ago."

"What about it?"

"Why, Miss Raymond didn't notice it particularly, and Eleanor was fussed to death—positively furious, you know. I was with her when she got it back."

"How funny!" said Jean. "But don't they say that Miss Raymond is pretty apt to like everything a girl does, after she's once become interested? I suppose Eleanor was taking it easy and depending on that."

Beatrice's face wore its most inscrutable expression. "But, my dear," she said, "if you knew all about that other wonderful story—the famous one—"

There was an unusual commotion at the door opposite them. By flower- bedecked ones and twos the faculty had been arriving, and had been received with shouts and songs from the galleries and escorted by excited ushers across the floor to their seats on the stage. Miss Egerton had stopped in the midst of her sentence to find out whose coming had turned the galleries into pandemonium and brought every usher but the phlegmatic Jean to the door.

"Oh, it's Prexy and Miss Ferris and Dr. Hinsdale, all in a bunch," she said at last. "How inconsiderate of them not to scatter the fireworks!" She turned back to Jean. "As I was saying, if you knew all about that wonderful story—"

Betty Wales, hurrying to help escort her dear Miss Ferris to the platform, caught sight of the two on the mattresses, noticed Jean's look of breathless interest and Beatrice's knowing air, and jumped to exactly the right conclusion. With a last despairing glance at Miss Ferris she turned aside from the group of crowding ushers, and dropped down beside Jean on the mattings.

"Have you heard the latest news?" she asked, trying to make her tone perfectly easy and natural. "The freshman captain was so rattled that she forgot to wear her gym. suit. She came in her ordinary clothes. They've sent an usher back with her to see that she gets dressed right this time. Isn't that killing?"

"Absurd," said Beatrice, rising. "Jean, you haven't done anything yet; you're too idle for words. I'm going up to jolly Dr. Hinsdale."

In her heart she was glad of the interruption. She had said just enough to pique curiosity. To tell more would have been bad policy all around. Betty Wales had arrived just in the nick of time.

But Jean was naturally disappointed. "Betty Wales," she said, "do you know what you interrupted just now? Beatrice Egerton was just going to tell me the inside facts about Eleanor's story in the 'Argus.'"

"Was she?" said Betty steadily. "If there are any inside facts, as you call them, don't you think Eleanor is the one to tell you?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Jean carelessly. "Eleanor's so tiresome. She wants to be the centre of the stage all the time. Shouldn't you think she'd be willing to give other people a little show now?"

"Why, she is," returned Betty vaguely.

"Not much," asserted Jean with great positiveness. "She's sulking in her tent this very minute because the girls aren't singing her basket-ball song. Anybody who wasn't downright selfish would be glad to have girls like Helen Adams get a little chance."

"Eleanor's tired and doesn't think," suggested Betty.

"You'd better go down to the door," said the head usher. "The 'green' faculty are coming in swarms."

The game went on much as last year's had done. First one gallery shook with forbidden applause, then the other. Sophomores sang paeans to their victories, freshmen pluckily ignored their mistakes. T. Reed appeared as if by magic here, there, and everywhere. Rachel Morrison played her quiet, steady game at the sophomore basket. Katherine Kittredge, talking incessantly to the bewildered freshman "home" whom she guarded, batted balls with ferocious lunges of her big fist back to the centre field, where a dainty little freshman with soft, appealing brown eyes, half hidden under a mist of yellow hair, occasionally managed to foil T. Reed's pursuit and sent them pounding back into the outstretched arms of a tall, ungainly home who tossed or dropped them—it was hard to tell which—into the freshman basket. It was a shame to let her play, the sophomores grumbled. She was a giantess, not a girl. But as the score piled up in their favor, they grew more amiable and laughed good- humoredly at the ineffectual attempts of their guards to block the giantess's goals.

Betty watched it all with keen interest and yet with a certain feeling of detachment. It was splendid fun, but what did it matter after all who won or lost? The freshman centres muffed another ball. Up in the "yellow" gallery she saw a tall girl standing behind a pillar unmistakably wink back the tears. How foolish, just for a game!

It was over at last. Miss Andrews announced the score, congratulating victor and vanquished alike on clean, fair play. Betty joined in the mad rush around the gym., helped sing to the team and to the freshman team and finally retired to a quiet corner with Christy Mason, who had come back to see the game and get a start with her neglected work before vacation. Betty gave her the Students' Commission key with a little sigh of satisfaction.

"It's a good deal of responsibility, isn't it?" she said.

Christy nodded. "If you take it seriously. But then isn't life a responsibility?"

Helen was sitting alone in their room when Betty got back, her eyes shining like stars, her plain, angular little face alight with happiness.

"I say, Helen," began Betty, hunting for the hat-pins that still fastened a remnant of her once gorgeous paper hat to her hair, "your song was great. Did the girls tell you?"

"Some of them," said Helen, shyly. "Some of them didn't know I wrote it. One asked me if I knew."

Betty laughed. "Did you tell her?"

"No, I didn't," said Helen, blushing. "I—I wanted to, awfully; but I thought it would seem queer."

"Well, plenty of them knew," said Betty, mounting a chair to fasten her wand over a picture.

"Of course,"—Helen's tone was apologetic,—"it's a very little thing to care so much about. I suppose you think I'm silly, but you see I worked over it pretty hard, and I don't have so very many things to care about. Now if I were like you—"

"Nonsense!" said Betty, descending suddenly from her lofty perch. "I couldn't write a line of poetry if I tried from now till Commencement."

"Oh, yes, you could," said Helen, eagerly. "Well, if I were like Eleanor Watson then—"

"Helen," said Betty, quickly, "you're not one bit like her."

Helen waited a minute. "Betty," she began again shyly.

"Yes," said Betty, kindly.

"I'm awfully sorry you couldn't have your wish, too."

"My wish!" Betty repeated. "Oh, you mean about being on the team. I don't mind about that, Helen. I guess I was needed more just where I was."

Helen puzzled over her answer until the supper-bell rang.

Betty's problem stayed with her all through the bustle of last days and on into the Easter vacation. Even then she found only a doubtful solution. She had thought that Mr. Blake's decision, of which Dorothy had told her as soon as possible, would close the incident of the story. Now she saw that the affair was not so easily disposed of. Beatrice Egerton was an incalculable source of danger, but the chief trouble was Eleanor herself. Somehow her attitude was wrong, though Betty could not exactly tell how. She was in a false position, one that it would be difficult for any one to maintain; and it was making her say and do things that people like Jean, who did not understand, naturally misinterpreted. Why, even she herself hated to meet Eleanor now. There was so much to hide and to avoid talking about. And yet it would certainly be worse if everybody knew. Betty puckered her smooth forehead into rows and rows of wrinkles and still she saw no way out. She thought of consulting Nan, but she couldn't bear to, when Nan had always been so pessimistic about Eleanor.

It was not until the vacation was over and Betty's train was pulling into Harding that she had an idea. She gave a little exclamation. "I've got it!"

"Got what?" demanded her seat-mate, who was a mathematical prodigy and had been working out problems in calculus all the way from Buffalo.

"Not one of those examples of yours," laughed Betty, "only an idea,—or at least about half an idea."

"I don't find fractions of ideas very useful," said the seat-mate.

"I never said they were," returned Betty irritably.

It had occurred to her that if there was any way to get Eleanor to confide in Miss Ferris, perhaps matters might be straightened out.

The missing half of the idea, to which Betty had not the faintest clew, was—how could it be done?



CHAPTER XVI

DORA CARLSON'S "SUGARING-OFF"

Dora Carlson pulled back the heavy oak door of the Hilton House and stepped softly into the hall. With bright, darting glances, such as some frightened wild creature might bestow on an unfamiliar environment, she crept past the parlor doors and up the stairs. Dora was not naturally timid, and her life on a lonely farm had made her self-reliant to a degree; but there was something about these big campus houses that awed her—mysterious suggestions of a luxurious and alien existence, of delightful festivities and dainty belongings, that stimulated her imagination and made her feel like a lawless intruder if she met any one in the passages.

Of course it was foolish. Nettie Dwight, who lived next door to her on Market Street, had not a single friend on the campus, and yet she had been into every one of the dwelling houses and explored them all from top to bottom. Where was the harm, she asked. All you had to do was to step up and open the door, and then walk along as if you knew where you were going. When you had seen as much as you wanted to, you could stop in front of some room of which the door stood open so that you could tell from the hall that it was empty, and turn around and go away again. Everybody would think that the person you had come to see was out. It sounded perfectly simple, but Dora had never been anywhere except to Eleanor's room at the Hilton House and once, at Betty Wales's invitation, to the Belden.

She hated to hurry through the halls. She would have liked to turn aside and smell the hyacinths that stood in the sunny bay-window of the long parlor; she wanted desperately to read through all the notices on the house bulletin-board at the foot of the stairs; but instead she fled up the two flights and through the corridor, like a criminal seeking sanctuary, and arrived at Eleanor's room in a flurry of breathless eagerness. The door was open and Eleanor sat by the window, staring listlessly out at the quiet, greening lawns. The light was full on her face and Dora, who had had only a passing glimpse of her divinity since before the spring vacation, noticed sadly how pale and tired she looked.

"May I come in, Miss Watson?" she asked.

"Of course, but you mustn't call me that," said Eleanor, turning to her with a charming smile. Beatrice Egerton had said that she should be over in the course of the afternoon, and Eleanor had been dreading her coming. The necessity of keeping up appearances with Beatrice and the rest was wearing Eleanor out. It was a distinct relief to talk to Dora, with whom no artifices were necessary. Whoever else knew her secret, Dora certainly did not; she was as remote from the stream of college gossip as if she had lived in another world.

"I am so glad to see that you're resting," said Dora brightly. "I take it as an omen that perhaps you'll be able to do what I want."

"I hope I can," said Eleanor. "What is it?"

"Why, I'm going to have a sugaring-off tonight," announced Dora impressively, "and I should be very pleased to have you come."

For a moment Eleanor hesitated, then her better nature triumphed. This was the first thing the child had ever asked of her, and she should have it, even at the cost of some trifling annoyance.

"How nice," she said cordially. "I shall be delighted to come. Just what is a sugaring-off, Dora?"

Dora laughed gleefully. "It's amazing to me how few people know what it is. I'm not going to tell you the particulars, but I will excite your interest by saying that it has to do with maple sugar."

"How did you happen to think of having one?" inquired Eleanor curiously.

"Why, you see," explained Dora, "we have a sugar orchard on our farm. Ohio is a great maple-sugar state, you know."

"Oh!" said Eleanor. "No, I didn't know."

"Sugaring time used to be the delight of my childish heart," went on Dora quaintly. "So many people came out to our farm then. It was quite like living in the village and having neighbors. And then I do love maple sugar. My father makes an excellent quality."

"And he's sent you some now?"

"Yes," assented Dora eagerly, "a whole big pailful. I suppose my dear father thought it would console me for not having been home for my spring vacation. It came this morning, and yesterday Mrs. Bryant went to pass a week with her son in Jersey City, and she told me I could use the kitchen for a sugar-party if I wanted to while she was gone—I told her that I was expecting to have a party—and this is the only night for a week that Nettie Dwight can come, because she teaches in a night-school." Dora paused for breath.

"Who is Nettie Dwight?" asked Eleanor idly.

"Oh, she is a Market Street girl. There will be three Market Street girls and you and Miss Wales, if she can come. Miss Wales asked me to a play at her house last fall and I am so glad to have a chance to return it. I was afraid I never could."

"Hello, Eleanor. Good-afternoon, Miss Carlson." Beatrice Egerton threw her books and then herself unceremoniously on to Eleanor's couch.

Beatrice could hardly have told why she persisted in inflicting her society upon Eleanor Watson. In her shallow way she was fond of her, and she felt vaguely that considering her own careless code of morals it would be inconsistent to drop Eleanor now, just because she had followed similar standards. At the same time she was angry at what she looked upon as a betrayal of her friendship, and considered that any annoyance she might inflict on Eleanor was no more than she deserved. As for Dora Carlson, she amused Beatrice, who, being thoroughly self-seeking herself, could not imagine why the exclusive Eleanor should choose to exhibit a freakish tendency toward philanthropy in this one direction. Beatrice would have liked, for the satisfaction there is in solving a puzzle, to get at the root of the matter. Accordingly she always took pains to draw Dora out.

"I've met you before this afternoon, Miss Carlson," she said, thumping a refractory pillow into place. "What are you doing up on the campus?"

It was the most casual remark, but Dora answered it with the naive frankness that was her peculiar charm.

"I am giving out my invitations for a sugaring-off," she said.

"A sugaring-off!" repeated Miss Egerton gaily. "Now I haven't the faintest idea what that is but it sounds very festive."

Dora looked at her questioningly and then at Eleanor. "Miss Egerton," she said at last, "I should be very pleased to have you come too, because you are Eleanor's dear friend."

Beatrice gave a little shriek of amusement. "Are you really going, Eleanor?"

Eleanor nodded.

"Then I shall certainly come too," declared Beatrice, merrily, "to see that you don't eat too much sugar."

As Dora danced down the Belden House steps a few moments later, her face was wreathed in smiles. Miss Wales was coming too. They were all coming. "I guess my father would be pleased if he could look in on us to-night," thought the little freshman happily. Then, as the college clock chimed out the hour, her brow wrinkled with anxiety. The kitchen must be swept, —Dora had decided views about Mrs. Bryant's housekeeping,—and the "surprise," which was to eke out the entertainment afforded by the sugaring-off proper, had yet to be prepared. The unaccustomed responsibilities of hostess weighed heavily upon Dora Carlson as she traversed the long mile that stretched between the campus and 50 Market Street.

It was an odd little party which gathered that night in Mrs. Bryant's dingy kitchen. The aggressive Nettie Dwight, two hopelessly commonplace sophomores, cousins, from a little town down the river, and Dora composed the Market Street contingent. They were all very much in awe of Eleanor's beauty, and of Beatrice's elaborate gown and more elaborate manner. Betty Wales, enveloped in one of Mrs. Bryant's "all-over" kitchen aprons, vigorously stirring the big kettleful of bubbling, odorous syrup, tried her best to put the others at their ease and to make things go, as affairs at the college always did. But it was no use. Everything progressed too smoothly. Nothing burned or boiled over or refused to cook,—incidents which always add the spice of adventure to a chafing dish spread. Nobody had come in a kimono. There was no bed to loll back on, no sociable sparcity of plates, no embarrassing interruptions in the way of heads of uninvited guests poked in the door and apologetically withdrawn; and the anxious pucker of hospitality on the face of the little hostess imposed an added restraint and formality upon the oddly assorted company of guests. Beatrice Egerton played with her rings, yawned without dissimulation, and wished she had stayed at home; Eleanor bravely parried Nettie Dwight's incisive questions about "her set"; and Betty, stirring and talking to the cousins and Dora, had time to admire Eleanor's self-control and to wonder pityingly if there were many girls in Harding College so completely "out of it" as these four seemed to be. And yet they were not unhappy; they were enjoying Dora Carlson's sugaring-off as though it had been a delightful college spread instead of a dull and dreadful party.

When the biscuits, that Dora had made herself, were done and the sugar boiled to the right consistency, everybody began to brighten up, and the refreshment feature bade fair to be a real success. It was too late in the spring for snow, so Dora had provided some little cakes of ice on which to wax the sugar. They were not quite so good a substitute as might have been desired, for they had a fashion of slipping dangerously over the plates, and then the hot sugar slipped and spread on the ice and had to be dexterously coaxed to settle down in one place and melt out a cool bed for itself, as it does easily enough in snow. But all this only added to the interest of the occasion. One sophomore cousin lost her cake of ice on the floor, and she showed more animation than she had in all the rest of the evening together, in spite of Betty's valiant efforts. Then Nettie Dwight suggested that they grain part of the sugar, so, when everybody had eaten as much as possible of the waxed variety, spread on as many crisp little biscuits as Dora could force upon them, Dora brought saucers full of the hot syrup and there was a stirring contest, with results in the shape of creamy maple candy, which Dora put out to cool, ready to be eaten later.

"And now," she said, with a little quiver of eagerness in her voice, "there is one course more. Look under your plates."

Search revealed a carefully folded square of white paper at each place. Beatrice got hers open first and muttered, "What perfect nonsense!" before Eleanor could stop her with an imploring glance.

"Such a bright idea!" cried Betty Wales, hurrying to the rescue. "They're fortunes, aren't they? Oh, dear, I'm afraid mine doesn't fit. It's much too grand."

Dora laughed gleefully. "That's the fun, you see,—to notice how they fit."

"How'd you ever think of it?" giggled one of the cousins. "There's a man in mine all right."

"Oh, I didn't think of it myself," explained Dora, modestly. "I found it in a magazine. I don't suppose any of you see the 'Farmer's Friendly Counsellor.'"

"No," said Betty, quickly, "I don't believe we do."

"It's a fine magazine," continued Dora, "with quantities of good reading matter of all kinds. There's always one page for farmers' wives, with recipes and hints for home dressmakers. Last winter I read about giving a luncheon, and it sounded so pretty that I cut it out, though I never expected to use it. Right in the middle of it was one course like these fortunes, only they were to be put into stuffed peppers, instead of stuffing, and when the guests took the covers off their peppers, there they would find their fortunes."

"But Miss Carlson," began Beatrice, impatiently, "don't you see that the whole point—"

"I like this way just as well," broke in Betty Wales. "What you really care about is the fortune, and it doesn't matter whether it's in a pepper or under your plate."

"Not a bit," agreed Eleanor, crumpling up her fortune nervously.

"And now," said Dora, "we'll all read them out loud and see how they fit. I put them around without looking at them, and I didn't know where any of you were going to sit."

"I guess mine fits pretty well," said the giggling cousin, whose fortune had a man in it.

"Then why don't you begin?" suggested Betty, and the cousin began with avidity. Dora had absolutely no literary ability; the spontaneous gaiety that bubbled up in all that she said and did was entirely lacking in the stiff, sentimental little character-sketch, but it pleased its reader, and Betty and Eleanor joined in declaring it very interesting.

"Now, Eleanor," said Betty, "you come next."

Eleanor shook her head. "I'm sorry, but I tore mine up before I knew we were to read them." She held up the crumpled ball of paper.

"Oh, you can smooth that out," said Betty, noticing Dora's disappointment. "Here, give it to me."

Eleanor surrendered the paper in silence, and without glancing at the contents Betty smoothed it out and passed it back.

"Now, Eleanor."

Eleanor looked around the table. Everybody was waiting. There was no escape. Resolutely she pulled herself together and plunged in.

"You are the soul of truth and honor and generosity. You never think of yourself, but are always trying to make other people happy. Your noble nature is shown in your beautiful—" Eleanor's voice faltered and she flushed painfully. "I can't go on," she said. "It's so—so—" She stopped in utter confusion.

Dora had been listening with shining eyes. "Oh, please go on," she begged. "That's the very one I wrote for you. I didn't plan it a bit, but I hoped you'd get that one."

The matter might have been adjusted easily enough, if Beatrice, who was sitting between Betty and Dora, had not turned to Betty with her oracular smile, and murmured, "A keen sense of irony for one so young, isn't it?" behind her hand.

Betty flushed in spite of herself and looked up to find Dora staring at them with wide, startled eyes. She had caught the word irony, and distinctly remembered the succinct definition that she had learned years before at school—"saying the opposite of what you mean." She looked at Eleanor who was struggling to regain her composure and attacked the situation with simple directness.

"Miss Egerton," she said, "I couldn't avoid overhearing you just now. I don't see why any one should think I didn't mean what I wrote about Eleanor. Of course I meant it. You know I did, don't you, Eleanor?"

"Of course you meant it," repeated Eleanor, with an unsteady little laugh. "If you hadn't, I shouldn't have minded reading it. Please forgive me."

It was all over in a moment. Before the three strangers had had time to wonder what the trouble was, Betty had plunged gaily into her fortune. Nettie followed eagerly, and Beatrice had the grace to bring up the rear. There was the candy to eat after that and the party broke up with a fair semblance of mirth. But as she washed up the big pile of sticky dishes, Dora's face was troubled. What could Miss Egerton have meant? Why should Eleanor's dearest and most intimate friend have said such a thing? How could she have thought it?

Eleanor walked home wrapped in a silence which Betty's most vigorous sallies could not penetrate. Long after Dora had finished her dishes and gone to bed, she sat in her Morris chair in the dark, wide-awake, every nerve throbbing painfully. She had failed Dora Carlson, spoiled the party that the poor child had so counted on, made her Beatrice Egerton's butt and laughing stock. Dora would never wholly trust her again. She would wonder what Beatrice had meant. By and by she would guess, and the friendship that Eleanor had meant should brighten her college course, would be turned to a bitter memory. Whether or not she ever knew the whole miserable story would make small difference. She, Eleanor Watson, had made Dora waste her love on a cheat—a thief; she had made Betty Wales and Miss Ferris help a cheat.

Eleanor's face softened. Betty had been awfully good to Dora. Perhaps, after all, she had not been the one to tell Mr. Blake. But Betty's disappointment was not the worst thing. Betty would make other friends— find other interests. Dora Carlson was different; she had not the talent for making many friends, and in losing Eleanor she would lose all she had. For the first time Eleanor realized how mean and contemptible her action had been, because it did not concern herself alone, but involved every one of the people who cared about her—Jim and her father, Dora, Betty, Miss Ferris. It was a short list; perhaps Jean and Kate Denise cared a little too. She felt no resentment against Beatrice. There was no room for it in the press of deeper emotions. Her one idea was that she must do something to save them all. But what? Creep away like a thief in the night—let them forget that she had ever been a disgrace to them and to 19—? Eleanor's pride revolted against such a course, and yet what else was there to do? She had not even arrived at Betty's half answer to the problem when she undressed in the silence of the great, sleeping house and, thoroughly tired with her long vigil, forgot the difficult tangle until morning.



CHAPTER XVII

A MAY-DAY RESOLUTION

The spring had been a late one at Harding, but it had come at last with a sudden rush and a glare of breathless midsummer heat. The woods of Paradise were alive with fresh young green, gay with bird songs, sweet with the smell of growing things. The campus too was bright in its new livery. The tulips in front of the Hilton House flaunted their scarlet and gold cups in the sunshine. The great bed of narcissus around the side entrance of college hall sweetened the air with its delicate perfume, and out on the back campus the apple-trees, bare and brown only a day or so before, were wrapped in a soft pink mist that presaged the coming glory of bud and blossom.

It was there, in the square of dappled sunshine and shadow under the apple-trees, at once the loveliest and most sequestered spot on the campus, that the Harding girls were holding a May-day fete. It was a strictly impromptu affair. Somebody had discovered at breakfast the day before that to-morrow would be May-day, and somebody else had suggested that as it was also Saturday, there ought to be some sort of celebration. A May queen was decreed "too old"; a May masque too much trouble. Then somebody said, "Let's all just dress up as little girls and roll hoops," and the idea met with instant favor. It was passed along at chapel and morning classes, and at three o'clock the next afternoon the whole college, its hair in waving curls or tightly braided pig-tails, its skirts shortened, its waists lengthened and encircled by sashes, had gathered in the space under the apple-trees, carrying hoops, dolls and skipping ropes, intent on getting all the fun possible out of being little once more.

There were all sorts of children there; little country girls with checked gingham aprons and sunbonnets, demure little Puritan maids with cork- screw curls and pantalets, sturdy little girls in sailor suits, sweet little girls in ruffled muslins, tall little girls, all arms and ankles. There was even a Topsy, gay in yellow calico, and an almond-eyed Japanese whose long kimono and high-piled hair prevented her taking part in the active American games of her mates. The taller girls were necessarily absurd. Some of the smaller ones were surprisingly realistic. And all, big and little, danced and laughed and squabbled, tripped over their skipping ropes, pursued their hoops or played with their dolls under the apple-trees in true "little girl" fashion and with the utmost zest and abandon.

Miss Ferris's room at the Hilton House overlooked the apple orchard, and presently she and Miss Raymond strolled out together to see the fun. They were greeted with a shout of joyous welcome from a noisy group in the farthest corner of the lawn, who immediately joined hands and came in a long, wavering line, "hippity-hopping" to meet them.

"Oh, Miss Ferris," called Dorothy King from one end of the line, "we want you and Miss Raymond to be judge. Which of us looks the youngest?"

"We've been disputing about it all the afternoon," added Mary Brooks breathlessly from the middle of the line. "You see we're all dressed alike in white muslin and blue sashes. Now Miss Raymond, don't I look lots younger than Dottie?"

"Stand in a row," commanded Miss Ferris laughingly, and the chattering group straightened out demurely, with much nudging of elbows and planting of feet on an imaginary line. Miss Raymond and Miss Ferris considered a moment, and then held a brief consultation.

"We both decide in favor of Betty Wales," announced Miss Ferris. "She looks about nine and none of the rest of you are under twelve."

"There! What did I tell you!" shrieked Betty gaily, her curls bobbing, her sash ends flying.

"I protest," called Katherine Kittredge. "Betty doesn't look over twelve any of the time, and the rest of us look twenty. We've taken off eight years and she's only dropped five. 'Tain't fair!" and Katherine burst into a beautiful "little girl" boohoo.

"Don't you wanter hold my dollie?" said Mary Brooks, tendering a handkerchief puppet to Miss Raymond with a perfect imitation of childish innocence.

"Oh, no, come an' tell us a story," begged Babbie, twisting her white apron into a roll.

"You'd ruther roll hoops, hadn't you?" said Katherine to Miss Ferris.

"Please tie on my hair-ribbon," demanded Bob, who in spite of a much beruffled dress and a resplendent array of doll and sash-ribbon, looked exactly as tomboyish as usual.

Miss Ferris and Miss Raymond appeared to be properly amused by all this nonsense, and Miss Raymond, escorted by a little crowd of her special admirers, went on to the crest of the hill to see Alice Waiters doll party, which was being held on the grass at the top of the dust-pan slope. But Miss Ferris refused all the invitations. She had only come out for a moment, she said, and must go straight back to her work.

Betty and Mary Brooks walked over to the Hilton House with her. When she had gone in Betty seized Mary's hand and pulled her around the corner of the house. "Let's trill up to Eleanor," she said. "I don't think she's been out at all."

Mary looked longingly back at the May party. "I believe—yes, they've found a hurdy-gurdy, Betty. What's the use of bothering if she doesn't know enough to come down?"

"Just a minute," pleaded Betty. "Here she is. Oh, Eleanor, come out and watch, even if you haven't dressed up. It's piles of fun."

"Is it?" said Eleanor uncertainly, touched by Betty's constant thoughtfulness. "Well, perhaps I will come later. I must finish a letter first."

"Finish a letter," echoed Mary, "with that hurdy-gurdy going! I admire your concentration. Betty, truly I can't stand it another minute. I'm going back."

"All right. Good-bye, Eleanor. Hurry up and come," called Betty, flying after Mary down the path.

Eleanor Watson looked after them for a moment and then with a little despairing sigh sat down again at her desk. She was writing to Jim. It was almost a month since she had sent off her last letter to him and yet there seemed to be nothing to say. She added a line or two, dropped her pen and went back to the window. The girls were dancing to the music of the hurdy-gurdy. Alice Waite was standing on the edge of the crowd, hugging a huge rag-doll in her arms as if it was her dearest treasure. Eleanor shrugged her shoulders impatiently. The whole affair was perfectly absurd. She had told Alice Waite so at luncheon, in her haughtiest manner. She picked up a book from the table and began to read, but in spite of her determination to ignore it, her thoughts would wander to the pretty picture outside her window. The shouts and laughter, the gay babel of talk with the undertone of droning music rang in her ears. She slammed down her window, but still she could hear them.

What a good time they were having! Yes, they were absurd, with the absurdity that belongs to youth—happy, light-hearted, inconsequent youth. Eleanor Watson felt that she had left that sort of thing far behind her. Before the summer when Judge Watson had brought home a gay young wife to take his daughter's place at the head of his household, before the night on the river when she had seen herself as Harding college saw her, before the Indian summer afternoon when she had fought and lost her battle on the stairway of the main building,—before those crises she could have been a happy little girl with the rest of them, but not now. Her heart was full of bitter, passionate envy. How easy life was for them, while for her it seemed to grow harder and more impossible every day. In the week that had passed since the sugaring-off she had seen Dora once, and she had been more hurt by the restraint and embarrassment that the child could not hide than by all that had gone before. How was she to win back Dora's confidence and change Betty's pity to respect?

She could not stand that music another minute. She would go for a long walk—far enough at least to escape from hurdy-gurdies and chattering girls. She got her hat, pulled on a light silk coat, for in spite of the unseasonable heat the late afternoon would be cool, and hurried down- stairs. Hastening through the lower hall she almost ran into Miss Ferris, the last person she wanted to meet.

"My dear," Miss Ferris cut short her apology, "we evidently have too much to think about, both of us." She looked at Eleanor keenly. "Why aren't you out being a little girl with the rest of them?" she asked.

"I didn't feel like it, Miss Ferris," said Eleanor, turning away from the searching gray eyes, "I was going for a walk instead."

"Alone?"

"Yes."

"Then"—Miss Ferris hesitated—"may I come too, or don't you want me?"

For an astute person Miss Ferris developed all at once an amazing density. She did not seem to notice the ungracious stiffness of Eleanor's assent.

"Good!" she cried enthusiastically, running off like a girl to get ready. Eleanor waited, her face set in hard lines of resentful endurance. She could not openly insult Miss Ferris, who had been kindness itself to her all the year, but she would be as cold and offish as she pleased.

"Now which way shall we go?" asked Miss Ferris eagerly as they started off.

"It makes no difference to me, Miss Ferris." Eleanor's tone was frigidly courteous.

"Then suppose we go to Paradise. It's always lovely there."

Almost in silence they climbed down the steep slope that leads to the water path, crossed the sunny stretch of meadow land and came out into the dim, silent wood beyond. Here the path widened and Miss Ferris, who had led the way, waited for Eleanor to come up with her.

"Isn't it beautiful?" she said with a little catch in her voice. "There's nothing quite like the woods in spring, is there? Oh, I'm so glad I ran away!"

"Ran away?" questioned Eleanor.

"Yes, from my work and my worries and myself out into this big, beautiful, new world. Doesn't it make you wish you could send out fresh shoots and blossoms yourself, and help make the world glad?"

"I'm afraid not," said Eleanor coldly, and again she felt the gray eyes, keen and yet very kindly, fastened on her face.

A turn in the path brought the end of the grove into view. "Oh, dear!" exclaimed Miss Ferris sadly. "I'd forgotten that Paradise was so very small. Let's go back to that big pine-tree with the great gnarled roots and sit down by the water and forget that we aren't lost in a lovely primeval wilderness."

Eleanor followed her in silence and they found seats on the roots of the big tree, Eleanor choosing one as far as she dared from her companion.

"And now," said Miss Ferris, as soon as they were settled, "tell me all about it."

"About what?" inquired Eleanor steadily.

"What you were running away from."

Eleanor flushed angrily. "Miss Ferris, did any one ask you to—"

"No," said Miss Ferris quickly. "No one told me that you were in trouble. I wish some one had. I'm afraid I've been very blind. I've let you worry yourself almost ill over something and never asked you if I could help. I've been so busy being proud of you this year that I've never even noticed how tired and worn out you were getting."

"Proud!" repeated Eleanor, scornfully.

"Yes," said Miss Ferris, firmly, "proud. You've made a splendid record, Miss Watson,—a remarkable record, considering last year."

"Please don't. You wouldn't say that if you understood."

Miss Ferris looked puzzled. "Don't tell me anything that you'd rather not," she said, "but there is one thing that a friend always wants to know. Do you see your way out, Miss Watson?"

"There isn't any way out."

"Oh, but I think there is always one somewhere," said Miss Ferris, brightly. "You're quite sure we couldn't find it between us?"

"Quite sure."

"If you ever change your mind—"

"Thank you," said Eleanor, curtly.

There was a little silence. "We runaways mustn't be gone too long. Have you any idea what time it is?" asked Miss Ferris.

Eleanor did not answer, and Miss Ferris looked up to find her crying softly, her face hidden in one hand, her shoulders shaking with suppressed sobs. For a moment Miss Ferris watched her without speaking. Then she moved nearer and stretched out her hand to take Eleanor's free one.

"I'm very, very sorry," she said kindly. "I wish I could have helped."



To her surprise Eleanor's sobs ceased suddenly. "I'd rather tell any one else," she said wearily. "I hate to have you despise me, Miss Ferris."

For answer Miss Ferris only gave the hand she held a soft, friendly little squeeze.

Then it came out—the sad, shameful story in a fierce, scornful torrent of words. When it was told, Eleanor lifted her head and faced Miss Ferris proudly. "Now you know." she said. "Now you can see that I was right— that there isn't any way out."

Miss Ferris waited a moment. "Miss Watson," she said at last, "I can't feel quite as you do about it. I think that if you honestly regret what you did, if you are bound to live it down, if you know that in all your life long you are never going to do anything of the sort again,—never going to want anything badly enough to play false for it,—why then the way out is perfectly plain. That is the way out—to let this time teach you never to do anything of the sort again."

Eleanor shook her head hopelessly. "But don't you see that I can't put it behind me—that I can't live it down, as you say. The girls won't let me forget that I was taken into Dramatic Club the first time. They won't let me forget that I am the only sophomore who is practically sure of a place on the 'Argus' board. I tried—" Eleanor gave a pitiful little history of her efforts to establish her literary reputation on a fair basis with the song and the story.

"I see," said Miss Ferris, thoughtfully. "Miss Watson, if I understand you correctly, you find yourself in the position of a man who, having stolen a precious stone, repents and strains every nerve to pay for his treasure. But as he is commonly supposed to be the lawful owner of the stone, his neighbors naturally resent his eagerness to gain more riches and consider him grasping. It's going to be very hard for you to earn that stone, isn't it?"

"The thing to do," said Eleanor with quick decision, "is to give it back."

Miss Ferris waited.

"I don't know that you will believe me," Eleanor went on after a minute, "because it seems so unlikely; but this is the first time I ever thought of resigning from Dramatic Club."

"You must remember," said Miss Ferris, quietly, "that if you should resign now, you would never be voted into the society again, no matter how much your work might deserve recognition."

"Yes," said Eleanor.

"And that so unusual a proceeding will create comment. People who don't understand will be likely to say unpleasant things."

"I don't believe I should mind—much," said Eleanor, unsteadily. "It's the people who do understand that I care about—and myself. I want to feel that I've done a little something to repair damages. Of course this won't make things just right. Some other girl in 19— ought to have been in the first four, but it will be something, won't it?"

"Yes," said Miss Ferris, soberly. "I should say it would be a great deal."

The walk back through the green aisle of wood and thicket was almost as silent as the walk out had been, but there was a new spring in Eleanor's step and an expression of resolute relief on her face that had not been there an hour before.

As they turned into the campus Eleanor broke silence. "Miss Ferris, if the man should return the stone, do you think he ought to confess to having stolen it?"

Miss Ferris looked up at the orchard on the hill where the girls were dispersing with much talk and laughter, with gay good-byes and careless snatches of song, and then back to the girl beside her. "No," she said at last. "If we were all old in the ways of this world and wise and kind enough, it might do, but not now, I think. I agree with the girls who have been keeping your secret. I believe you can accomplish more for others and for yourself, in the large sense, by stating no reason for your action. I know we can trust you."

"Thank you," said Eleanor. Then all at once a strong revulsion of feeling overcame her. "But I haven't promised to resign. I don't believe I can do it. Think what it will mean to drop out of things—to be thought queerer than ever—to—"

"Caught red-handed!" cried a mocking voice behind them, and three stealthy figures bounded out from a tangle of shrubbery. Betty, Madeline and Mary Brooks had come down the hill by the back path and, making a detour to leave Rachel at the gate nearest her "little white house round the corner," had discovered the truants and stolen upon them unaware.

"We're sorry you both had so much to do," said Betty, demurely.

"And that you don't appreciate May parties," added Mary.

"And haven't a proper feeling for hurdy-gurdies," finished Madeline.

"Ah, but you can't tell what deep philosophical problems we may have been working out answers for down in Paradise," said Miss Ferris, playfully.

Betty slipped a soft arm around Eleanor's waist. "I'd rather go for a walk with her than to any May party that was ever invented," she whispered. "Isn't she just splendid?"

"Yes," agreed Eleanor, solemnly, "so splendid that I guess I can't live up to her, Betty."

"Nonsense! That's the very reason why she is splendid—that she makes people live up to her, whether they can or not."

And then, feeling that she was treading on delicate ground, Betty hastily changed the subject.

"I wonder," she asked the green lizard that night, "I wonder if she could have been telling Miss Ferris about it, and if they were talking it over when we three big blunderers rushed up to them. Oh, dear!"

Then she added aloud to Helen, who was vigorously doing breathing exercises before her mirror, "I guess I'll go and see Mary Brooks. I feel like being amused."

Helen let her breath out with a convulsive gasp. "I saw her go out," she said. "She went right after supper."

"Then," said Betty, decidedly, "you've got to stop breathing and amuse me yourself."



CHAPTER XVIII

TRIUMPHS AND TROUBLES

"Aren't you going to have any breakfast, Betty?" Helen Chase Adams coming up from her own hasty Monday morning repast, paused in the door to stare at her roommate, who stood in a cleared space in the middle of the floor with diaphanous clouds of beflowered dimity floating about her feet.

"Breakfast!" repeated Betty, mournfully. "It just struck eight, didn't it? I don't know how I'm going to have any now unless I cut chapel and go down town for it. On Mondays I have classes all the morning long, and I haven't half studied anything either, because of that hateful May party."

"Then why did you begin on your dress?" inquired Helen with annoying acuteness.

"Helen," said Betty, tragically, "I haven't a single muslin to my name, since I tore my new one and the laundry tore my old one, and I thought if I could only get this hung then I could be putting in the tucks at odd minutes, when people come in, you know. I didn't think it would take a minute and I've been half an hour just looking at it."

"Isn't it rather long?" asked Helen, with a critical glance at the filmy pile on the floor.

"Why, that's the tucks," explained Betty, impatiently. "And the only reason I had tucks instead of ruffles was because I thought they'd be easier. Shouldn't you have thought tucks would be easier, Helen?"

"I shouldn't have known."

"Well, I guess they're both bad enough," agreed Betty, gloomily. "I was foolish to try to make a dress, but I thought if Nita and the B's could, I could. The waist wasn't any trouble, because Emily Davis helped me, but it isn't much use without a skirt."

"Let me know if I can do anything," said Helen, politely, opening the volume of Elizabethan lyrics which had succeeded "The Canterbury Tales" as pabulum for the class in English Literature II.

Betty kicked at the enveloping cloud savagely. "If only it would stay down somewhere, so I could tell where the bottom ought to be." She gave a little cry of triumph,—"I have it!" and reaching over to her bookshelves she began dropping books in an even circle around her feet. An instant later there was a crash and the thud of falling books.

"There!" said Betty, resignedly. "That bookcase has come to pieces again. It's as toppley on its legs as a ten-cent doll. Never mind, Helen. I can reach them beautifully now and I will truly pick them all up afterward." She dropped a Solid Geometry beside a "Greene's History of the English People," and stooped gingerly down to move "Alice in Wonderland" a trifle to one side, so that it should close the circle.

Then she looked doubtfully at Helen, who was again deep in her lyrics.

"Helen," she said at last, "would you mind awfully if I asked you to put in some pins for me? If I stoop down to put them in myself, the books move and I can't tell where the pins ought to go."

Helen had just put in the last pin with painful deliberation, and was crawling around her necessarily immovable model to see that she had made no mistakes, when the door opened with a flourish and Mary Brooks appeared.

"What in the world!" she began, blinking near-sightedly at Betty in her circle of books, at the ruins of the "toppley" bookcase lying in a confused heap beside her, and at Helen, red and disheveled, readjusting pins. Then she gave a shriek of delight and rushing upon Betty fastened something to her shirt-waist.

"Get up!" she commanded Helen. "Hurry now, or you'll certainly be killed."

In a twinkling the room was full of girls, shrieking, laughing, dancing, tumbling over the books, sinking back on Betty's couch in convulsions of mirth at the absurd spectacle she presented and getting up to charge into the vortex of the mob and hug her frantically or shake her hand until it ached. It was fully five minutes before Betty could extricate herself from their midst, and with her trailing draperies limp and bedraggled over one arm, make her way to Helen, who was standing by herself in a corner, quietly enjoying the fun.

"Helen," she cried, catching the demure little figure in her arms, "Helen, just think of it! I'm in Dramatic Club. Oh, Helen Chase Adams, how did it ever happen?"

The room cleared out gradually after that, and the nicest part, Betty thought, was having the people you liked best tell you in intelligible English and comparative quiet how very glad they were.

"I never in all my life saw anybody look so funny as you did when we came in," said Mary Brooks at last. "What were you doing, anyway?"

"Hanging a skirt," explained Betty, with great dignity.

"Was it going to have a court train all the way around?" inquired Mary.

"Tell her, Helen," commanded Betty.

"That was tucks, Mary," repeated Helen, obediently, and then everybody laughed.

Under cover of the mirth Betty sought out Dorothy. "Where's Eleanor?" she whispered.

"She went off for Sunday with Polly Eastman," Dorothy explained. "And Betty, she's a trump after all. She—but I think perhaps she'd rather tell you herself."

"Betty," broke in Nita Reese, "you must hurry and get dressed. You'll have to appear at chapel, if you never get that skirt hung."

"Yes," said Betty, meekly.

"And I'll go and bribe the new maid, who hasn't learned the rules yet, to send you up some breakfast," put in Madeline, the watchful.

Nita went off to make her bed and Dorothy to see Mary's prom. dress which had just been sent on from home. Presently the new maid appeared with toast and coffee and regrets that "the eggs was out, miss," and Betty sat down at her desk to eat, while Helen, the Elizabethan lyrics quite forgotten, rocked happily beside her.

"Helen," said Betty, a spoonful of hot coffee held aloft in one hand, consternation hiding her dimples, "what in the world shall I do? I told you I hadn't studied anything, and I can't flunk now."

"Oh, they won't call on you to-day," said Helen hopefully, counting the Dramatic Club pins that made Betty's shirt-waist look like a small section of a jeweler's window.

"Aren't they pretty?" said Betty, touching them lovingly. "I hope the girls know which is which, because I don't. The one with the pearl gone is Bob's, of course, and Dorothy's is marked on the back, and that's Mary's, because she always pins it on wrong side up. One of the others is Christy's, and one is that sweet Miss West's—she writes poetry, you know, and is on the 'Argus.' Wasn't it lovely of her to pin it on me?"

"I should think anybody would be glad to have you wear their pin," said Helen loyally, if ungrammatically.

"But to think the society wanted me!" said Betty in awe-struck tones. "Helen, you know they never do take a person unless she amounts to something, now do they? But what in the world do I amount to?"

"Does being an all-around girl count?" asked Helen. "Because the senior that is such a friend of Eleanor Watson's said you were that, and that's what you wanted to be, isn't it? But I think myself," she added shyly, "that your one talent, that we used to talk about last year, you know, is being nice to everybody."

The journey to chapel was a triumphal procession. The girls said such pleasant things. Could they possibly be true, Betty wondered. Nan would be pleased to know that she was somebody at last, even if she had missed the team both years, and was always being mistaken for a freshman. Sitting beside Dorothy, with the eight pins on her shirtwaist, and a guilty consciousness that Miss Mills, who taught "Lit. II" was staring at them from the faculty row, Betty resolved that she was going to be different—to keep her room in order, not to do ridiculous things at ridiculous times, and always to study Monday's lessons.

"I have tried harder lately," she thought, but it was reassuring outside chapel to have Miss Mills stop to shake hands and Miss Hale say something about being glad that Betty had turned out a thoroughly good student.

Mary Brooks said the same thing. "It's funny, Betty, how your innocent, baby airs belie you. If we'd guessed what a splendid record you'd made this year, we'd have taken you in even sooner."

Wherefore Betty was glad that she had looked up all the history references and stayed at home from the Westcott House dance to write a zoology report that Professor Lawrence himself had called excellent, and done her best with the "Canterbury Tales."

"I have done better than I used to last year," she thought happily, "but it wasn't for this, not one bit. It was because a person is ashamed not to do her best up here."

"Will you take a few notes, please?" said Miss Mills in crisp, businesslike tones, and Betty woke up to the fact that she had not answered to her name in the roll.

"She saw you, though," whispered Christy, "and she was properly amused."

Miss Mills had finished her lecture and the class in "Lit. II" was making its leisurely exit, when Jean Eastman caught up with Betty.

"Glad you've gone into the great and only," she said with a hearty hand- shake. "And what do you think about the Lady Eleanor's latest escapade?"

"I don't know what you mean, Jean," said Betty quickly, remembering Dorothy's hint, and wondering why Eleanor hadn't come to chapel, since Polly was there, and she and Eleanor would surely have come back together.

"Why, resigning from Dramatic Club, of course. Didn't she consult you about it?"

"Jean, do you mean that Eleanor—has resigned—from Dramatic Club?" Pleasure and bewilderment struggled for the mastery of Betty's face.

"Yes," said Jean carelessly. "Funny you hadn't heard of it, because it's the talk of the whole college. She sent a note in Saturday night, it seems, but nobody outside heard of it till this morning, and now we're all speculating over the whys and wherefores. The Clio girls say that if she did it because she thought she'd rather go into that, she will be doomed to everlasting disappointment. For my part I don't think that was her reason." Jean's tone hinted of deep mysteries.

"Of course not," said Betty indignantly. "Can't they see, Jean, that a girl has got to have a big, splendid reason for doing a thing like that?"

"A big reason all right, but I don't know about the splendor," returned Jean cheerfully, shouldering her way across the stream of girls in the hall to join Beatrice Egerton.

To Jean's disappointment Beatrice had nothing to say about the resignation, except that it was Eleanor's own affair and that all the talk about it was utter nonsense. Then Jean, warming to her work, ventured a direct attack.

"But Miss Egerton, wasn't there something queer about that story of Eleanor's—the one that got her in? You were going to tell me once, but you never did."

"I was going to tell you once, but I never did?" repeated Beatrice with an extreme affability which those who knew her better than Jean would have recognized as dangerous. "Go and ask Eleanor Watson that question if you care to, Miss Eastman. I admire her far too much to wish to discuss her private affairs with you. Thank you, I should like to go to your house-play, but I have another engagement. The night isn't set? But really, I'm so busy just now I can't promise, you know."

Beatrice Egerton had not spent four years at Harding College for nothing. She was incapable of heroism herself, but she could appreciate certain types of it in others, and she was bitterly ashamed of the part she had played in Eleanor's affairs.

"Miss Wales," she said an hour later, when her path from class to class crossed with Betty's, "where is Eleanor? I can't wait another minute to see her."

Betty explained that Eleanor had not appeared at chapel or morning classes.

"Then I suppose," said Beatrice impulsively, "that I am one of the people she's trying to avoid. Go and see her the first chance you have, Miss Wales, and tell her that I admire her grit—and that I'm too much ashamed of myself to come and say so. Now don't forget. Did you ever see such duds as the pickle heiress wears? Perfect rags!"

The mocking, insolent Beatrice was back again, the more debonnaire for the effort that her confession had cost.

Betty meditated cutting her eleven o'clock class, decided that with those eight pins on it would never do, and tried not to be glad that a severe headache prevented Mademoiselle from meeting her French division at twelve. She walked down to the Hilton House with a chattering little freshman, one of Polly Eastman's chums and a devoted admirer of Eleanor's.

"It's too bad that Eleanor Watson felt she ought to give up Dramatic Club, isn't it?" said the girl. "Some of the girls think it was an awfully queer thing to do, but I think it's fine to put your work first when you don't feel strong enough to do everything."

"Yes, indeed," agreed Betty cordially, glad to be able to meet her on her own ground.

"Polly is afraid," volunteered the little freshman, "that Eleanor is going to break down. She's had to drop themes, too, you know. Polly said they almost missed their train Saturday night because Eleanor would wait to write to Miss Raymond about it, when anybody could see that Monday would have done just as well. And she was so tired that she cried while she was writing the note."

Betty shook off her loquacious companion by stopping on the second floor to see a girl who was sure to be out, and went on up the back stairway to Eleanor's corner.

There was no answer to her knock, and after a second trial she deliberately opened the door and went in. Eleanor lay in a forlorn disheveled little heap on her couch. Her cheeks were flushed with crying, her eyes rimmed with dark circles that made them look bigger and brighter than ever.

"Oh, I thought the door was locked," she cried, when Betty appeared.

"But luckily for me it wasn't." Betty took her up brightly, dropping sociably down to the couch beside her. "You dear old Eleanor," she went on quickly, "I've come to tell you that Dorothy thinks you're a trump and Beatrice Egerton thinks you're a brick and I'm so proud of you I don't know what to do. There now!"

"Oh, Betty, you can't be, after everything." Eleanor shook off the clinging arms and sat up among the pillows. "Listen," she commanded. "It isn't fair for me to take anything from you after what I've thought. I had a letter from Mr. Blake this morning. He has been very nice to me about the story, Betty. And he said he felt that he ought to tell me what good friends I had here. So now I know all about it, but oh, Betty! I'd thought such horrid things—"

"Never mind that now," said Betty. "Please don't tell me. It would only hurt both of us, and it wouldn't be any use that I can see."



"I'm a coward, too," Eleanor went on steadily. "I was afraid to see Beatrice, and now I'm afraid to see Jean and all the rest of them. Oh, Betty, I can't bear to have people think I'm a freak. If I could take those two notes back I would this minute. I hate giving things up. There, now you know just how mean I am."

"No," said Betty, gently, "I only know how tired you are and how much you needed some one to come in and tell you that we are all ready to stand by you."

Eleanor waited a minute before she answered. "Betty," she said at last, an uncertain little smile fluttering about her mouth, "shall you be glad when you've got me through college?" Then she straightened with sudden energy. "This is your day, Betty,"—she pointed to the pins,—"and I won't spoil another minute of it. Of course there isn't any use in hiding up here. I promise to go down to lunch and to take what's coming to me, and do the best I can. Now run and let the rest of the college congratulate you."

"And if the Chapin house girls should have a spread to-night over at Rachel's—" began Betty, doubtfully.

"I'll come. I'll even be the life of the party. Only you're not to worry about me one instant longer."

Eleanor kept her word to the letter for the rest of the day, but the weeks that followed were necessarily full of ups and downs, of petty humiliations and bitter discouragements, and Betty uncomplainingly shared them all. The editors did what little they could, and Madeline and Miss Ferris and Katherine and Rachel helped without understanding anything except that Betty wanted them to; but the brunt of it all fell on her.

"I can't bother Miss Ferris with my blues," said Eleanor one afternoon, "and I know I oughtn't to bother you with them."

"Nonsense!" laughed Betty. "I like being bothered," and did not mention that she had given up the golf tournament because the practice would have interfered with her position as Eleanor's confidante.

There were nice things to share too. Miss Raymond wrote a prompt and cordial answer to Eleanor's note about the theme course. "After your action of last week, I see no reason why you should not continue in my classes on the old, pleasant footing. Please don't deprive me of the privilege of seeing your work."

There was a note from the Dramatic Club too. Dorothy had managed to get herself and Beatrice and Frances made a special committee to consider the resignation—the first in the annals of the society,—and they decided to accept it for one year from its date. After that, they said, they saw no reason "to deprive the society of a valued member."

Betty was delighted, but Eleanor shook her head. "I may not have earned it even then," she said gloomily.

"Leave it to Miss Ferris," suggested Betty. "She'll be a perfectly fair judge. If she says you can take it then, you will know it's all right."

And to this arrangement, after some hesitation, Eleanor consented.

A week or two later Bob came to Eleanor, in a sad state of embarrassment. "It's about the basket-ball song, Eleanor. The committee never saw it. Babe was chairman, you know, and she put her shoulder out of joint playing hockey the day the songs were called in, so I emptied the box for her. I remember I stopped in my room on the way back and I must have dropped yours there. Anyhow it turned up to-day in my top drawer. I'm awfully sorry."

Eleanor took the song and read through a stanza or two, while Bob wriggled, blushed and waited for the storm to burst. She had heard a good deal about Eleanor Watson's uncertain temper.

But at first Eleanor only laughed. "Goodness! What jiggly meter! It's lucky you lost it, Bob."

"No," said Bob, sturdily. "It was a dandy song, one of the best that came in. Babe said so too. I am really awfully sorry. I'm too careless to live."

"Well, you were lucky not to have found it a month ago," said Eleanor, with a sudden flash of anger, and Bob departed, wondering.

"Little things do make a big difference," said Betty, when she heard the story. "If they'd chosen it and everybody had said how clever it was—"

"I should have felt that I'd squared my account—proved that I could do what I hadn't done, and I should never have owned up to anybody."

"Then you really ought to have been nicer to Bob," laughed Betty, "because she helped you to come to the point."

"Yes, that helped," Eleanor admitted, soberly, "just as Dora helped and Beatrice in her way and Jim in his; but you were the one who meant to help, Betty. You got me the chance to begin over, and you made up my mind for me about taking it, and you've kept me to it ever since."

"But El—"

"Now let's not argue about it," laughed Eleanor. "I only wanted to say that I'm going to try to be nice to you to the extent of 'staying put' this time. I don't mean that you shall have to waste your junior year over me."



CHAPTER XIX

GOOD-BYES

"Oh, Betty Wales, what's your hurry?"

Betty, who had strolled up Main Street with Emily Davis and now was walking back alone, turned to see Eleanor and Dora Carlson coming down the steps of the house behind her.

"We're hunting rooms," explained Eleanor, gaily, "the most systematic hunt you ever heard of. We went to every possible house on the other side on the way up, and then we came back on this side, doing the same thing. So if you want any pointers—"

"But you're not going off the campus, Eleanor," asked Betty anxiously.

"Oh, no, it's a room for me," interposed Dora, with an adoring glance at Eleanor. "I've always longed to live up among the elm-trees of Main Street, but I knew its glories were not for me until—"

"Dora," warned Eleanor, laughingly, "I told you not to mention elm-trees again this afternoon." She turned to Betty. "They all come down to two possibilities. Which should you prefer, a big room with a microscopic closet or a microscopic room with an enormous closet?"

"Oh, the one with the big closet," said Betty, decidedly. "I've tried the other, you know."

"And unknown horrors are always preferable to familiar ones," laughed Eleanor.

Dora left them at the next corner and as soon as she was out of hearing Betty turned upon Eleanor. "Well," she said, "I've caught you in the act, and I think it's perfectly lovely of you. College will be a different place to her if she can live up here somewhere near things."

"It will be nicer for her, I think," said Eleanor, simply. "But Betty, I'm not doing much,—just making her a little present of the difference between Mrs. Bryant's prices and the very cheapest ones up here. I can do as much as that, I hope, after spoiling her sugaring-off party; and I really don't need that extra-priced room again."

"You mean," said Betty, in amazement, "that you're going to give up your corner-room with the three windows and the lovely burlap hangings?"

Eleanor nodded. "It wouldn't be much of a present from me if I just asked father for the money."

"Eleanor," said Betty, solemnly, "I don't believe I could do it."

"But it's really all your doing, Betty. If it hadn't been for you, I shouldn't have known Dora Carlson, and I shouldn't be here now. Besides, you set the example with Helen. So if you don't like it, there's only yourself to thank, you see," ended Eleanor, playfully.

"No, I don't see,—not one bit," declared Betty. "You'll be telling me that I'm responsible for the way you recite next."

"Well, you are, partly," laughed Eleanor, turning off to the Hilton.

Betty went up-stairs behind two strange girls who were evidently expecting to be in the Belden House next year.

"Of course the fourth floor is a long way up," one was saying, "and I suppose it's hot sometimes. But if I can get a single room there, I'd rather have it, wouldn't you?"

"Well, perhaps," answered the other doubtfully.

"No perhapses about it, my friend," thought Betty, turning off to her own quarters. Rooms and roommates—the air was full of them! And to-morrow was the day that the Belden House matron had appointed for settling all such matters. Betty could have a single room, if she wanted it, on the other side of Madeline Ayres, and she had almost made up her mind to take it. To be sure, it did seem a little hard on Helen. Nobody in the house had approached her on the subject of roommates, Betty felt sure of that; she would have to be "assigned" with some outsider. Well, why not? If she didn't take the trouble to make friends, of course she would have to suffer the consequences. And yet—if Eleanor had really been influenced by what she had tried to do for Helen, wouldn't it be mean to back out now? "But Eleanor has decided already," thought Betty, "and there's no reason why I should keep on bothering with Helen forever. I don't believe she's one bit happier for it."

Helen looked up expectantly when Betty came in. After all she was a sweet little thing; her face lighted up wonderfully at times.

"What's the news, Helen?" Betty asked. "You look as if something extra nice had happened."

"Why no," answered Helen, "unless you count that I've learned my Latin for tomorrow."

The answer was just like her, Betty reflected with a sigh. She might improve a great deal, but she would be a "dig" to the end of the chapter. As she dressed, Betty tried to lead up gradually to the subject of rooms by telling about the two strange girls she had met in the hall. But it was no use; Helen preserved the same gentle, obtuse silence that had kept Betty from opening the subject before. Little by little her courage oozed out, and with the ringing of the supper-bell she surrendered.

"I can't do it," she told the green lizard savagely. "She thinks we're settled here forever and I can't bear to disappoint her. It's not generosity though; it's just hating to make a fuss."

At supper all the girls were talking about rooms. "I'm first on the waiting list for singles," Nita Reese announced, "but I might as well be first on the waiting list for a trip to the moon, I suppose. Nobody ever gives up a chance at a single."

Betty opened her mouth to tell Nita the sad truth, saw Helen looking at her queerly, and shut it again. It would be time enough for Nita to hear of her good fortune to-morrow.

After supper Helen hurried back to her work and Betty joined a merry party on the piazza, went for a moonlight stroll on the campus, helped serenade Dorothy King, and finally, just as the ten o'clock bell was pealing warningly through the halls, rushed in upon Helen in a state of breathless excitement.

"Helen," she cried, "T. Reed's coming into the Belden and you never told me."

"I didn't know till this afternoon."

"Then that was the piece of news I saw in your face. Why didn't you tell it?"

"Why, I don't know—"

"Helen," cried Betty, with a sudden inspiration, "you and T. Reed want to room together."

"Oh, Betty, Theresa couldn't have gone and said so!" Helen looked the picture of distress.

"Nobody went and said so till you did just now," laughed Betty. "Oh, Helen, why didn't you tell me?"

"Why didn't you tell me that you'd rather room alone?"

Then they both laughed and, sitting close together on Helen's bed in the dark, talked it all over.

"You've been just lovely," Helen said. "You've given me all the good times I've had—except Theresa. But you couldn't make it any different from what it is. I never shall know how to get along the way other girls do, and Theresa is a good deal the same way, except that she can play basket-ball. So I guess we belong together."

"You needn't think you'll be rid of me," said Betty. "I shall be just two doors away, and I shall come in and bother you when you want to work and take you walking and ask you to hook up my dresses, just as I do now. Helen, how fast things are getting settled."

"They'd better be," said Helen. "There's only two weeks left of our sophomore year."

For a long time Betty lay awake, staring at the patch of moonlight on the floor beside her bed. "How mean I should have felt, if I'd told her when she wouldn't tell me," she thought. "I wonder if it's all right now. I wonder if next year is going to be as perfect as it seems. I wonder—" Betty Wales was asleep. Five minutes later she woke from a cat-nap that had turned her last thoughts into a very realistic dreamland. "No," she decided, "it won't be quite perfect. Dorothy will be gone."

Those are the good-byes that count—the ones you must say to the seniors. Dorothy would come back to visit the college, of course, and to attend class reunions, but that would not be the same thing as living next door to her all through the year. Betty was not going to stay to Commencement. Sophomores were only in everybody's way then, she thought, and she preferred to say good-bye to Dorothy before the onslaught of families, alumnae and friends should have upset the regular routine of life and made the seniors seem already lost to the college world. Packing was worse than ever this year, and examinations could not have been more inconveniently arranged, but in spite of everything Betty slipped off on her last evening for a few minutes with Dorothy.

The Belden House was a pandemonium, the piazzas deserted, the hot rooms ablaze with lights, the halls noisy with the banging of trunk-lids and the cries of distracted damsels; but the Hilton, either because it had more upper-class girls who were staying to Commencement, or because its freshmen and sophomores were of a serener temperament, showed few signs of "last days." The piazza was full, as it always was on warm nights, and a soft little crooning song was wafted across the lawn to Betty's ears. Dorothy was singing. Her voice was not highly cultivated, but it was the kind of voice that has a soul in it—which is better than much training. As Betty stole softly up to the piazza, so as not to interrupt the song, and found a place on the railing, she remembered her first evening in Harding. How forlorn and frightened she had been, and how lovely Dorothy was to her. Well, she had been just as lovely ever since.

Dorothy's song stopped suddenly. "Girls, I can't sing to-night," she said. "It's—so—warm. And besides, Betty Wales has come to see me on a very particular errand, haven't you, Betty, dear?"

Up in Dorothy's room, in the dusk, nobody said much of anything. There is never much left to say at the last. But Dorothy had a way of putting things and of looking at things that was like nobody's else, Betty thought; and when she said, "I know I can trust you to work for the democratic, helpful spirit and to keep down cliques and snobbishness and see that everybody has a fair chance and a good time," Betty felt more pleased than she had about her election to Dramatic Club. She had been Dorothy's lieutenant. Now she must be Dorothy's successor, and it was a great honor and a greater responsibility—but first she must pack her trunks.

On the way home she overtook Roberta. "I'm in the Belden, Betty," she announced, breathlessly, "and there are a lot of things I want to ask you and Mary about, but I can't stay long, because those dear little freshmen are going to give me a good-bye spread."

"Those snippy freshmen?" laughed Betty.

"Oh, but they came around after the Jabberwock party, just as you said they would. It was an impromptu party, Betty. I did it the night Sara Westervelt was there, and somebody stole the ice cream. That's why you weren't invited."

Up-stairs the rest of the "old guard" were sitting on boxes, trunks and the floor, waiting to say good-bye to Betty and meanwhile being entertained by Madeline Ayres, who was giving a lively account of her experience with a washwoman.

"She said, 'It's twinty white skirruts Oi have to do up now, me dear,' and I said, 'But I can't go without a skirt, Mrs. Mulvaney, and everybody who doesn't wear white to chapel will be expelled, and then where will your goose that lays the golden eggs be?' 'Shure, I kape no geese, me dear,' said she, and—oh, here's Betty."

"Finish up," demanded Katherine.

"Oh, there isn't any more," said Madeline, "except that she's just sent the skirt home, and it isn't mine, but it fits rather well, doesn't it, and I can't possibly return it before chapel, now can I?"

"Is that the way they do in Bohemia?" said Mary, severely. "Betty, I've got to have half your bed to-night. An alum, who came on from San Francisco got mixed in her dates and appeared a day too early. And as she is a particular pal of the matron and I am notoriously good-natured, she's got my room."

"To think of it," said Katherine, impressively, "and you a senior next week."

"And we juniors next week!" said Rachel. "It doesn't seem possible, does it? Here's to hoping we shall all be back next year."

"What a forlorn toast!" said Katherine, who knew better than the rest how hard it was for Rachel to make both ends meet. "Here's to hoping that we all go on as splendidly as we've begun!"

"You have done tolerably well so far, children," said Mary, beaming around the group.

"See the society pins bristle in our midst!" said Katherine, with melodramatic gestures in the direction of Mary, Betty, and of Rachel, who wore the Clio Club insignia proudly.

"And we've got the college beauty," added Betty quickly.

"And the Jabberwock," put in Eleanor.

"Please don't forget the basket-ball stars," suggested Katherine, with becoming modesty.

"Nor the basket-ball song," added Rachel, smiling at Helen.

"So many honors," laughed Betty. "Do you suppose we've left anything for next year?"

"The song of the classes talks about 'jolly juniors,'" said Rachel. "That sounds as if there would be plenty of fun in it."

"There is; junior year is the nicest one in college," declared Mary.

"It can't be," objected Katherine, "because each year has been as nice as it possibly could."

"Unless you were foolish enough to spoil it," whispered Eleanor in Betty's ear.

Roberta suddenly remembered her waiting freshmen, Mary offered to escort her to Mrs. Chapin's, and the other three declared they must go home to their packing. Betty and the girl from Bohemia went to the head of the stairs to see them off. It was not exactly good-bye, because there were chances of meeting at chapel and the station, but it was near enough to it to be a little sad.

"Oh, dear, I hate endings," said Betty, waving her hand to Eleanor.

"Do you?" said the girl from Bohemia. "You'd get used to them if you lived my scrappy, now-here-and-now-there kind of life. You'd find out that one thing has to end before another can begin, and that each new one is too good to miss."

"Um—perhaps," said Betty, doubtfully. "Any how we've got to take the chance. So here's to junior year!"

THE END