"I have a card of hooks somewhere," she said to herself. "I remember distinctly putting in everything in the line of mending that I might possibly need. I remember now. What I thought I would not need often, I put in the bottom of the closet."

The closet floor held quite an assortment of boxes. Articles which the girls used seldom, had been stored here out of the way. Helen remembered that a box with hooks and eyes, buttons and glove-silk had been placed in there, early in the fall when she had unpacked the trunk.

She and Hester had been careful about not infringing upon each other's closet room. Each had her allotted space and number of hooks; but keeping the floor divided was not so easy. Boxes had been moved and shoved about until it was impossible to know whose they were.

Helen sat down on the floor and began a systematic search; in turn opening each box and examining its contents. It required system for the boxes were many and the confusion great. There were handkerchief boxes, spool, candy, and shoe boxes of all sizes and conditions.

She had opened each one without discovering the articles which she needed. She was about to put them back in their places when a little dark covered box, hidden deep in the corner, attracted her eyes. Without a thought that she might be infringing on someone's else right, she took up the box and opened it. She gave a sharp exclamation at the sight of its contents. She sat with it opened in her hand, looking at it steadily. Then she replaced the lid and put the box with the contents just as she had found them, back in the corner. She put the floor of the closet in order, and then went back to her work. She found her card of hooks and eyes in the bottom of her sewing-bag. She was busy sewing them on when Hester came in. They greeted each other as usual, yet Hester was conscious that something was different.

"Are you ill, Helen?" she asked.

"No, Hester."

"Are you worried?"

"What should I have to worry me? You have been gone less than an hour. What should happen in that time to make me either ill or anxious? I have been putting the floor of the closet in order. I am afraid I opened some of your boxes, but I did not disturb their contents."

"No matter if you did. I am glad the closet is in order. It surely needed some attention." Going to the door she flung it wide. "How nice it looks. The boxes piled up like a shoe-store. I wonder how long it will remain that way."

Helen watched her closely. Hester must indeed be a capital actor, for she had showed neither anxiety nor embarrassment at hearing that Helen had opened the boxes.

After dinner that evening, no conversations were carried on between the two girls. Helen, contrary to her habit, went directly to her room and did not mingle with her friends in the library or parlor. She was in her study garb and presumably deep in study when Hester came back to her room. She neither spoke nor raised her eyes at Hester's entrance. Her eyes were upon the text, but she was not studying. She was reviewing certain little incidents of Hester's being with her. A score of trifles to which she had then given no thought, now appeared in gigantic proportion with most pretentious signs. Hester had shown no interest whatever when the pin had been lost. She had not helped look for it. Just before the holidays, Helen remembered it clearly now, she had found Hester in the closet. Hester had blushed and stammered and appeared much confused and had replied curtly to Helen's questions. It was really very suspicious. Helen did not like to think of such matters. She had no desire to think evil of any one; but the evidence was there. She could not go past that. She had trusted Hester, and had really loved her. Hereafter she would trust and love no one.

Even after the close of the study hour, there was no opportunity for conversation; for at the ringing of the half-hour bell, Helen, contrary to her habit, went down the hall to the room of one of the seniors. She did not ask Hester to accompany her and the latter was hurt by the omission. They had been together almost six months and in that time such a thing had never before occurred.

Hester slowly made ready for bed. The fumes of chocolate and fudge in the making were wafted to her from the rooms at the lower end of the hall, and the chatter and laugh came with them. No one called her to come. She felt forsaken and lonely. Such occasions previous to this, she had not waited until a special invitation had been given her, but joined and helped with the merry-making. She felt that something stood between her and Helen. Just what that something was, she did not know, nor could she surmise. There was nothing tangible for her thoughts to work upon to reach a conclusion. She instinctively felt that something was wrong. In this particular case, instinct was stronger than reason. She crept into bed, although the retiring bell had not rung. The two little iron cots stood side by side with only a narrow space between them. Helen had always been the deliberate one of the two. Hester was generally in bed before Helen had finished her reading. It had been the latter's habit to come to Hester's bed and softly kissing her on the forehead to whisper, "Good-night, little roommate."

It was for this good-night that Hester was waiting. She would insist then upon knowing what troubled Helen or what had gone wrong to cause this feeling of alienation. She would have cried had not her pride sustained her. The tears were very near the surface but she forced them back. She would cry for no one, no matter how that one treated her.

A few moments before the retiring bell, Helen came into the bedroom. Knowing that she was late and that the lights would soon be turned off, she prepared hastily for bed. She did not once glance toward Hester, but that might have been because she was hurried. While Hester lay and watched her, the lights went out. She heard Helen laugh softly and say, "Just in time. I just gave the last turn to my hair."

Then she moved toward the cot, but she moved toward the outside and not near that of her roommate. Hester was overcome with homesickness. Her pride took to itself, wings. Raising herself in bed, she turned toward Helen.

"Have you forgotten something, Helen? Are you not going to bid me good-night?"

"Surely. Good-night, Hester."

"But not that way, Helen. I mean the way you always have done."

There was silence for an instant. To Hester it seemed as though hours had passed before Helen replied gently and firmly, "Not to-night, Hester. I—I—cannot—to-night."



CHAPTER XI

After this, Hester Alden believed that school could never be as it had been. The first day proved that she was wrong. Outwardly, life at Dickinson moved on as before. No one appeared to know or care that Hester Alden had been touched to the quick, and that she was very miserable and unhappy.

Helen was courtesy itself. She was careful to include Hester in all her invitations, but it was a carefulness forced upon her from a sense of duty and not from love. Hester was not dull. She felt the difference. She could be quite as proud as Helen. So she raised her head a trifle higher as she walked and drew her shoulders a little more rigid and gave back to Helen the same rigid courtesy that she was receiving.

To Hester it was tragic. The alienation was a genuine sorrow to her. To one who merely looked on, the two girls were acting foolishly. A few words would have cleared away the misunderstanding and saved them from suffering. Helen acted from what she thought was a high sense of justice; Hester's action was from pride only.

The other girls in the dormitory knew not the cause of the estrangement, for both Helen and Hester had that sense of honor which impelled them to keep closed lips on such matters. The intuition of the girls told them that affairs between Helen and Hester were not quite the same. That was as far as their intuition carried them.

In spite of Hester's unhappiness, matters at Dickinson moved on as before. Renee came to borrow; Erma laughed merrily; Mame wept over the condition of her clothes which looked as though they were fresh from the French tailor; Josephine grew eloquent on moonlight, love-stories, and kindred subjects; Mellie Wright came and went like a gentle ray of sunshine. The strangest part of all to Hester was that Mellie, who never appeared to notice what took place, was first to grasp the situation. Before the week had passed, she made an occasion to join Hester on the campus. No reference at all was made to the state of depression which hung over Hester like a cloud, but before the two had parted, the younger girl carried with her these impressions:

Everything comes right some day, and that day comes when least expected; nothing matters if one continues to do what is right, regardless of other people's opinion of one; and if one is blue, the best thing to do is to do something and do it quickly.

Mellie did not put her philosophy into those words, nor did she make a personal application for her companion. The strongest impressions are those which we receive unconsciously. After this talk with Mellie, Hester's pride and ambition were aroused. She was indignant with herself that she had given way to any show of feeling and vowed to herself that from that instant she would not lose control over her emotions.

Fortunately for her, basket-ball practice followed close on her resolutions and putting her thoughts into action, strengthened her.

She played right guard on the scrub team with Edna Turnbach opposed to her. Edna was little, wiry, and active, an opponent that was really worth while.

Hester cast her troubles to the wind and went into the game with all her energy. Edna was quick, but Hester matched her with cool calculation. Her long strides were equal to Edna's quick ones; and she had the advantage of length of arms which could be kept beyond Edna's reach.

The left guard on the scrub team was Emma who resembled a little Dutch doll wound up and set to moving. Emma had no guile in her disposition and was utterly lacking in self-assertion. She admired Hester's playing and never failed to play the ball into her hands. Just the moment Hester's hand touched the ball, Emma encouraged her with cries of "Show them how to play, Hessie. Show them how scrubs play when they once get started."

Emma was both an inspiration and an advantage. Hester played with all her energy. To watch her, one might believe that all the future depended upon the winning of the game.

For the first half, she had the ball the instant the captain's hand had left it. Passing it on to Emma with a quickness and deftness which was almost beyond belief, she rushed forward in position to receive Emma's return pass. It was no easy matter for Edna was close at her heels and the center stood in her way. But by quick side movements, a sudden jerk beneath outstretched arms, the thing was done.

Only once during the first half was the ball worked back to the goal of the opposing team; but even then it did not make a score. For three minutes, it went from end to end of the cage and at last went from the hands of the scrubs on a foul that Emma had made.

During the game, Hester was not only playing right guard. She played the game alone with a little assistance from Emma—a game of solitaire. She was the team and made every score.

Miss Watson and Doctor Weldon stood in the gallery looking on.

"Hester Alden is a brilliant person," said Miss Watson. "She will amount to something if she continues."

"She can do little in mathematics. She'll pass on about seventy-five per cent," said Miss Laird. She had long since erased Hester's name from her good books, for Miss Laird knew only angles and equations, fixed values and ratios, and had no conception of nor admiration for a mind which was not as her own.

Miss Watson laughed at this remark. She was more liberal-minded than Miss Laird and was not disappointed to find that her girls were not all of the same type.

"You can open an oyster with a pen-knife as well as a chisel," she said.

Miss Laird glanced at the speaker. She was logical but not witty. Seeing that she did not grasp the meaning, Miss Watson continued.

"Taking the oyster as each one's little world, you know, Miss Laird. I have known men and women who have achieved a wonderful amount of success and happiness who could not have made seventy per cent on one of your examinations."

Doctor Weldon had listened in silence. She had sat watching Hester during that intense first half. She read deeper than either of her teachers.

"I am fearful for Hester," she said at last. She spoke so low that only Miss Watson heard her. "She is too easily hurt, and she'll fight off showing it until she drops from exhaustion. If I know the girl, her good playing this evening is not so much for love of the game, as it is to hide the fact that something has gone wrong."

"Rather an excellent trait. Do you not think so?" said Miss Watson. "Personally, I despise a whiner, and haven't a bit of sympathy for a girl who goes about asking for pity. Pride is a good thing when it helps us cover up our own bruises."

"It is very fine, if it is not overdone. You know you cannot keep all the steam in a boiler under high pressure. There must be a safety valve or—trouble. I hope Hester will not be too intense. Intense folk need such a lot of self-control, or they make every one miserable about them."

The conversation stopped at this point. The practice game was over and Miss Watson went below and into the cage to see that the girls were taking the necessary precautions in regard to wraps.

"Hester Alden will play at Exeter," was the general opinion at the close of the game.

"I am sure of that," said Sara Summerson. "During the game I was where I could see Miss Watson. Nothing escaped her. She watched every move Hester made. Emma was all right at first, but that foul put her on Miss Watson's black list. I could tell that. You know how Miss Watson presses her lips together and nods her head when she's pleased. Well, she did that every time Hester made a good play."

"I will not get a chance to go," said Emma. "I am sure of that. I'd like to, for I know lots of Exeter girls. There's a whole bunch of them from up our way."

"You speak as though they were flowers," laughed Erma, as she hurried down the steps from the gallery to join the girls. "A bunch of girls and a bunch of flowers, I presume that is a figure of speech, but nevertheless I would not let Doctor Weldon hear me, if I were you. She might fail to see how flowery it is, and think you are using slang."

Josephine was leaning against the balustrade. Her cheeks were pressed upon her upturned palm and her eyes were raised toward some remote region in the direction of the ceiling. Her hair was bound with a Greek band. She had seen to it that her short-waisted dress was suggestive of Grecian lines of beauty.

"I rather like that term," she said slowly. "We say a bunch of flowers; then why not a bunch of girls. Somehow I always think of flowers when I see a group of girls together. Do people never make you think of flowers? Some seem to me like lilies, others like shy, modest violets."

"Oh, cut it out!" said Emma, disregarding the rules in the use of language. "Just at present they make me think of a lot of empty vessels which will be emptier if they are not out of these duds and into dresses before the ten-minute bell rings for dinner."

Emma strode on down the hall, in company with Mame Cross and Edna Bucher. Edna had her arm around Emma's waist, although she was fully six years Emma's senior. But the younger girl's father was a bank president, a railroad magnate, and a number of other important persons, and Edna believed in cultivating friendship where it would bear fruit worth while. Emma was lavish and Edna fell heir to many discarded trifles and was never ignored when Emma had a spread or banquet.

"Josephine is too sentimental," said Emma placidly. "If she would only waken and talk sense, she would be fine."

"She's such a sweet girl," said Edna. Every woman, girl or child she had ever known, came under that general heading in Edna Bucher's good books. They were "sweet." That was always the sum and substance of her criticism. There might have been a reason for such a general judgment. As in the case of Josephine, obligation fixed the limit of Edna's expression. She was at that moment, wearing a shirt-waist which Josephine had purchased only to find it too small for comfort in wearing.

During the three weeks before the game with Exeter, nine practice games were played between the first team and the scrubs. In these Hester Alden played right guard. She had never missed a goal which she had attempted and had never made a foul. There had been one or two instances when she might have done quicker work in passing and kept the ball from the control of the opponent; but they were minor faults which faded into insignificance before her more brilliant plays.

During this time, Helen had maintained the letter of courtesy toward her roommate. But there was no longer any show of affection or love between them. Nothing had been said about the trip to Exeter. However, Hester was counting upon it. She knew that her playing had justified Miss Watson and Helen in selecting her. Miss Watson was the head of the athletics, yet the choice of players in reality rested with Helen.

Miss Watson permitted this because she believed that girls who were in sympathy with each other could work together better than where there was an unfriendly feeling or antagonism. Hester, relying on being chosen as a substitute for the Exeter game, made ready her suit, purchased a new pair of gymnasium shoes, and was about to write to Aunt Debby concerning the trip.

The games were played on Friday evening, unless the distance was too great for the visiting team to reach the school in a few hours. Then Saturday afternoon was given over to them. Several days before, Miss Watson read out the names of the substitutes and the teacher who would go in charge of the girls. This important reading took place immediately after the general gymnasium work in the afternoon.

Wednesday morning, Berenice went about with a very wise expression. She looked as though she could tell a great deal if she were insisted upon. Erma, meeting her in the hall, fell prey to her hints and insisted that she tell the secret that was weighing her down.

"I was in the office waiting to see Doctor Weldon," said Berenice. "Miss Watson was in the private office talking with the doctor. It was something about the players for the Exeter game. You know Miss Watson must always give the list to Doctor Weldon before it is announced. Something unusual happened, for they debated a long time. Of course, I could not catch the words. I did not try; but I could not help knowing that there was a discussion."

"There generally is," said Erma. "Doctor Weldon will not allow a girl to play unless she is up in her work and her conduct. Campused twice, and your throat is cut for any work in athletics."

Berenice's face flushed. The reference to being campused touched her.

"This was more than that. It was an argument; Miss Watson held to one idea and Doctor Weldon to another." This was growing interesting. A group of girls clustered about Berenice to hear the startling news.

"Did you hear who the substitutes were?" asked someone.

"Why ask that?" said Sara Summerson slowly.

"I am not brilliant, nor yet am I observing; but I know who the substitutes will be if the choice is according to their playing."

"If it is," said Berenice.

"I think it always is," said Mellie gently. "It would be very foolish to have it otherwise; to risk our securing the pennant on account of a little personal feeling. I do not like to feel that people are unjust. They have always treated me fairly."

"They always will," said Erma.

"They have never treated me fairly," said Berenice. "Every one I meet always tries to make something from me or treats me unfairly."

Erma laughed and the girls followed her fashion.

"They always will, Berenice," she said. "People always find what they are looking for. You always find in every place just what you carry there. You are out looking for trouble, and you will find it waiting around the corner. If you will persist in going about with a chip on your shoulder, you may be sure that someone will take pleasure in knocking it off."

"But the players," cried Emma. "Who are they? When will Miss Watson read the names?"

"I did not hear the names, but I did hear her say that she intended making them public at gym this afternoon."

"I intend to ask Doctor Weldon if I may go over with the girls," said Emma. "Of course, I know that I will not be allowed to play and I don't care much about it. I'd have just as much fun looking on and rooting. I know a dandy lot of girls over there."

"You had better see her early then," said Louise Reed. "She will not grant more than ten extra permissions and I know a number of girls who intend going."

"I'll see her the first thing after luncheon," said Emma. "She will not let us come before one-thirty."

"Whatever you do, Emma, do not get excited and tell Doctor Weldon that you know some 'dandy' girls at Exeter. She will not allow any of us to go if she hears from you that the Exeter girls are of that type. Be careful, Emma."

Emma shrugged her shoulders and tried to look serious, but the effort was a failure, for the dimples came to her cheeks and rippled into smiles. She turned to Mame and asked if she were going.

"I—going?" exclaimed Mame. "How can I go? I haven't a thing fit to wear."

"You might wear your new blue broadcloth," suggested Louise Reed.

"New? Why, I had that before the holidays. I never did like it. I shall not go with you girls and look shabby. You always look so well and I will not put you to shame."

"I am sorry for you," said Erma. "I'd offer you my tan coat suit which I have worn but two years, only I need it myself; it being the only one of its kind that I have."

"You may laugh," said Mame. "But I am telling you the truth. I haven't a dress fit to wear."

"No congregating in the hall, if you please. If you must talk together you will find the parlor open to receive you." Miss Burkham had come among them and spoke with a voice of gentle authority.

"Yes, Miss Burkham," replied six voices together, as the six bowed and moved to their rooms.

The rumor that the names of the players would be read that afternoon filled the ranks in the gymnasium. A number of girls had received permission to be absent, but on hearing the rumor, they reconsidered and decided that they were able to be present. The period of exercise dragged along. The girls went through with the drills with as much animation as one might expect from an automatic machine. Their eyes were upon the clock whose hands moved provokingly slow. But it came to an end, as all things must after a time.

Miss Watson gave a signal to the pianist to stop playing. Then stepping to the front, she bade the girls to be seated. They found places on the floor, on the horse and the mattresses which lay along the outer edge of the floor. A few drew themselves up on the horizontal bars and balanced there carefully while Miss Watson drew forth her paper, looked it over and then began her preliminary remarks. One could have heard a pin drop, so quiet was the room.

"As you know, we play the Exeter team in their gymnasium, Friday evening," began Miss Watson in her brisk, business-like way. "The game will be called at eight o'clock. We shall have a two-hours' ride to reach Exeter. The last train from our station leaves at four o'clock. Consequently, the faculty will excuse from lessons Friday afternoon, all the girls who play."

"Or root?" finished Emma. She was balanced on the bars. The sound of her own voice so startled her that she nearly lost her balance and was saved from falling only by Louise's clutching her firmly by the shoulder.

Miss Watson turned toward Emma and looked her reprimand. "What have you to say concerning the matter, Miss Chase?" she asked. The tones of her voice would have disconcerted any one but Emma. Hers was an effervescent spirit which could not be suppressed. She smiled upon Miss Watson as she replied, "The girls who go along to root—will they be excused, too? You said the players will not have any lessons Friday afternoon. What about the girls that root?"

Miss Watson looked her scorn of the question and questioner. One thing which had been discountenanced by the faculty and by Miss Watson in particular, was the word "rooting" and all it stood for.

Miss Watson ignored the questions and continued, "Miss Burkham had planned to accompany you—."

The girls gasped. With Miss Burkham in charge they would not be allowed to speak above a whisper. She would compel them to be all that was elegant and conventional.

"—but she has found that to be impossible. Neither Doctor Weldon nor I can leave the school, so Fraulein Franz will have you in charge."

There was a relaxation of muscles. An expression of amusement and relief spread over the faces of the girls. Dear Fraulein Franz! She would be with them like a mother hen with a brood of ducks. With the Fraulein they would do much as they pleased, and she would attribute it to the peculiar customs of the country.

"The first team will be made up of the regular players. Three substitutes will accompany the team. Doctor Weldon thought three would be sufficient. I shall read the names of players and substitutes." Taking up the paper, she read.

"Captain, Miss Loraine—Players: Misses Turnbach, Cross, Bucher, and Loveland. Substitutes: Misses Reed, Chase, and Thomas."

That was all. Hester's heart had been in her throat at the beginning. Now she felt cold and chill. She had been so confident. The girls knew that she had expected to be chosen. They knew that she had her suit in order, with gay new letters across the blouse. She sat quite silent and motionless on the mattress propped against the wall. She could not raise her eyes to meet the eyes of the girls. She could not speak to them. The girls did the kindest thing they could do. They went off without attempting to speak to her, or to offer her condolence or sympathy.

When she raised her eyes, she found that the gymnasium was deserted and that she was the only occupant.

She arose and went out into the corridor. She could not go to her room and meet Helen. Helen had played her false. Perhaps, the recent assumption of dignity on Helen's part had been to prevent any criticism of this action.

Hester could not remain alone in the gymnasium, neither in her present garb would she be permitted to visit the parlor, nor to linger in the halls. The only alternative was to go to her room, and meet Helen there. The injustice of the choice of substitutes at last appealed to her. Had she been an Alden in very truth, she could not have shown the old revolutionary spirit more.

Wounded feeling gave way; personal pride took to itself wings. The thing was unjust and she would not bear it even from Helen Loraine. Another thing she would not bear—she had borne it too long already—and that was the distant, haughty treatment accorded her by Helen. Hester Alden's spirit arose. She would have justice though she had to fight for it.

The feeling of humiliation left her. Now she had no dread of meeting the girls. She raised her head proudly. Her eyes flashed, and a flush came to her cheeks.

Helen was in the study when she entered. She was evidently doing nothing and had been doing nothing for some minutes. Perhaps she dreaded the meeting as much as Hester. She looked up when the latter entered and spoke, "Well, Hester, are you back from the gym?"

To use Debby's expression, Hester was not one to beat about the bush. Now, she brought up the subject at once.

"Did you or Miss Watson choose the substitutes?" she asked.

"Why, I did. That is, I recommended the ones I wished to play, and Miss Watson agreed that they were satisfactory."

"Helen Loraine, did you choose ones who played the best, as you have boasted that you always do?"

"I took the ones that played well and whom I thought had a right to be substituted."

"Answer me this." Hester walked directly before her roommate. Standing so, they looked into each other's eyes. "Answer me this. Do I not play a better game than either Louise or Emma? Have I not made the score when their fouls would have brought it down?"

"Yes, you have. You are a better player than either. To do you justice, Hester, you play as well as any girl on the first team."

"I do, and yet you passed me over for an inferior player. Is that justice to either the team or me?"

"It does not appear so. Yet one cannot judge from appearances alone. I believed that I did what was fair and honorable."

"I fail to see it that way," said Hester proudly.

"We do not see it from the same point of view."

"Evidently not. But this much I insist upon. I must know the reason why you ignored me when you have acknowledged that I was the best player. I demand the reason."

"Don't you know, Hester Alden? Don't you really know?"

"I do not. There is something else I do not know or understand; that is your treatment of me for the last three weeks. Do not for a moment think that I am begging for either your love or friendship. I wish nothing that does not come to me of its free will. But it was you who first wished to be friends. It was you who always made the first advances. Time and time again, you told me that I was nearer to you than any friend you had ever had and that I seemed more like a sister to you."

"I know," said Helen slowly. "And I meant every word. From that first night you were here, you were never like a stranger. I meant every word I told you."

Her voice was low and sorrowful; but Hester was unmoved. The bitter feeling which had filled her heart for three weeks was now bursting forth in a torrent.

"Much I care for such affection! If that is the way you treat your sister, I am very glad I am not she. Suddenly, without a reason, you grow haughty and rude—."

"Rude! I was never rude, Hester. I was always courteous."

"Yes, with the kind of courtesy which made me angry all over. I wish to tell you right here, Helen Loraine, that I shall not stand being treated so without a reason."

"I thought I had a reason. I think yet I have a reason."

"Then why did you not come to me and tell me point blank? It is far better to accuse me of something definite than to go about acting and looking unutterable things."

"I could not tell you. Even now, if I should tell you and ask for an explanation—."

"I would refuse to give it. It was either your place to come directly to me or to trust me implicitly. I would give no explanation now, if I had a million of them to give."

"But, Hester, listen. I have been as hurt and miserable about this as you. Let me tell you—."

"Here you are. I knocked once and you didn't hear me. Hester, would you just as soon lend me your basket-ball suit? I never gave a thought of going to Exeter and I haven't any letters for my blouse." It was Renee who had interrupted them.

"Yes, you may have it," said Hester. She moved away. The talk which might have resulted in a reconciliation between her and Helen was not resumed and nothing at all came from it.



CHAPTER XII

There were but twelve girls who went down from Dickinson to the Exeter game; but to the hundred yet remaining, it seemed as though the dormitories were vacant. Hester found the afternoon long. Her anger had passed. She was not sorry that she had spoken as she did, but that no results had come from her show of spirits. She was not in a mood to visit with the other girls. Her intimate friends had gone with the basket-ball team. No study hour was observed Friday evening. The parlors and library were open. Hester, from her room, could hear the sound of the piano and the school songs. Instead of enlivening her, it had the opposite effect.

The girls who went down to Exeter could not possibly return until Saturday evening. That meant another entire day alone. Hester did not like to think of that.

"I shall pack my suit-case and to-morrow morning, I shall ask Doctor Weldon to allow me to go to Aunt Debby."

The decision brought up her spirits. She immediately began to arrange her work. The books were put in order and a suit-case taken from the shelf in the closet.

"Aunt Debby said she would make new collars for my waists and change the sleeves." With this promise in mind, she selected the thin white waists which were showing signs of wear. Miss Richards and Miss Debby, with a few deft touches, would make these look almost as well as new.

In her rummaging, Hester had the same experience that Helen had had three weeks before. She went over the boxes for some article she needed. She discovered the little box hidden away in the corner. She opened it and exclaimed just as Helen had done.

"My pin! I had forgotten all about that. I think I shall wear it. It looks rather pretty against a white dress." Holding it up against her waist, she looked down upon it with satisfaction. It surely did look pretty, against the white! The little bit of cut glass scintillated like a bit of fire. Fastening it to her waist, she continued her work.

The next morning, she went down to breakfast wearing the pin. Mellie was at the table, and gave a look of surprise when Hester came in. After a time she turned to her and said: "Where did Helen find her pin? I am glad she has recovered it, for it was valuable in addition to being an heirloom."

"I did not know she had found it," said Hester. "She did not mention the matter to me."

"I thought—." Mellie hesitated and did not finish the sentence. Several times, Hester found her looking closely at her.

Hester was wearing a soft shirt-waist with a tie. The ends of the tie knotted in butterfly fashion had been caught together by the pin which was partly hidden by them.

Hester secured permission to visit her Aunt Debby. She was to go down on the ten o'clock car and return Monday morning in time for chapel. On her way to the car, she met Mellie, Berenice and several girls from the west dormitory.

"We'll walk with you to the triangle," said Berenice. "I do not know how we will put in our time to-day. It is certainly dull with the girls gone. I wonder how the game went last evening?"

"Didn't you hear?" asked one of the others. "They telephoned Miss Watson last evening. She's our hall-teacher and she told us at once. It was twenty to thirty in favor of Exeter."

"Exeter won!" cried Berenice. "It is poor management on someone's part. They never won a game from us before—not on such a score. Last year neither scored, and the year before Exeter was one goal ahead, and they would not have made that if the referee had not been partial."

"I am sorry. I was sure they would win," said Hester. They had come to the triangle, the place where the sloping walks meet at an angle.

"They would have won, too, if you had been there. You should have been. I, for one, was ready to revolt Wednesday morning, and the other girls would have stood by me. We would have done so if you would have shown any spirit; but you sat there as though the game were nothing to you."

Hester smiled but made no attempt to reply. She was learning to know Berenice and the danger of expressing one's opinion in her presence. Life at Dickinson was teaching her more than what lay between the covers of books. She was learning to meet people, to know them as they were, and to hold her tongue under provocation as she was doing now.

Berenice was not easily put aside. "Why, did you not show some spirit about it, Hester?"

"Spirit? Why should I? If Miss Watson and Helen thought Emma put up a better game than I, why should I complain?"

Berenice shrugged her shoulders. She was about to say more when Erma came down the dormitory steps and crossed the campus toward them. Her fair hair was piled high on her head in puffs and rolls. She was wrapped in a long garnet sweater. She looked like a crimson rose as she moved across the snow.

"Drop the subject," cried Berenice. "Here comes Erma. She takes exception to everything I say. One cannot express an opinion or offer a criticism in her presence unless one is taken to task."

"Perhaps it is just as well to let it drop," said Mellie gently. "It is only a game of basket-ball and not worth a heated discussion."

"Well, peaches," cried Erma cheerily accosting Hester. "Are you really going home? Won't your Aunt Debby be glad to see you. Tell her I send her a thousand hugs and a million kisses. How I wish I were going home to see that dear old daddy of mine. Girls, when you want to see the grandest man in the world, come home with me and I'll show you my daddy."

Berenice looked down over her nose.

"It is well to be satisfied," she said.

"It certainly is," replied Erma. "I am glad I am. There's not a father or mother better than mine and my friends are the best in the world. I wouldn't exchange them for millions."

She had come close to Hester, and encircling her with her arm, asked, "When are you coming back, peaches?"

"Monday morning. There comes my car now." She stooped to lift her suit-case which Marshall had brought down from her room and deposited at her feet. As she did so, the butterfly end of her tie fluttered, displaying her quaint pin whose setting gleamed like a spark of fire.

Its scintillation caught Erma's eye. She was about to remark concerning it, but stopped herself in time. But Berenice, who never let anything escape her, also caught the sparkle of the stone. More than that, she saw the expression which passed quickly over Erma's face, and she read it aright. She made no remark until Hester had boarded the car, had waved her good-byes and the car had disappeared down the bend of the road. Then turning, she slipped her arm into Erma's and Mellie's, and so walking between them, moved toward the building.

"Did you notice the pin Hester had on?" she asked suddenly.

Mellie was wise and did not answer. Erma, who was as transparent as a ray of light, grew confused and tried to cover it up by asking, "A pin? Did she have a pin on? I suppose she did. Girls generally wear pins of some sort."

Berenice shrugged her shoulders. "Yes; she had a pin on, Erma Thomas, and you observed it as well as I did. You know as well as I do whose pin it is."

"You are very much mistaken. I know nothing at all about it. I have nothing to do with other people's jewelry."

"You have with this. At least you spent hours in helping to look for it. It is that odd one which Helen Loraine wore and which so mysteriously disappeared."

"Any disappearance is a mystery. If I lose a collar button, it is a mystery to me. If it was not, I would know where it was. The things we don't know are always mysterious. If we know, then they are as plain as day."

"It seems strange it should disappear for three months and then Hester Alden have it on, especially when Helen Loraine is away."

"That is the very time you should wear other people's jewelry and clothes. When I am home I always wear my mother's best silk stockings and rustling petticoats when I know she's down in the city shopping. Of course I always ask her—when she comes back—and she never refuses me permission. She always says the same thing: 'Well, since you have them on—'"

Erma's attempts to lead the conversation away from Hester and the pin was without results. Berenice clung to the subject with a tenacity which would have been admirable had the thing been worth while.

"I understand you, Erma. You think just as I do, but you are afraid to say so. I suspected from the first where the pin went; but of course I did not say so."

"Do you not think it a wise course to follow now—to say nothing?"

"It is very different now. Before, I was merely suspicious. One may not make statements in mere suspicion. Now I have proofs."

"Proofs? Because Hester Alden has the pin on and Helen is away?"

"Let us walk along the edge of the river," said Mellie. She, too, meant to change the conversation. "I love the river when it is icebound. I should like to cross if I thought it were safe. But I fancy we had better not. We have had several days of thaw and that always rots the ice, and rotten ice is far more dangerous than thin ice."

"I intend to speak my mind," said Berenice. "Mellie and you are very much afraid you will express yourselves. You think as I do about the matter, but you will not say so. I cannot see the difference between thinking a thing and saying it outright."

"The best thing to do is not to think it," said Erma. She laughed long and loud and merrily. "That is quite an idea. After this, I shall not think things. Perhaps my brain will never wear out. Doesn't the physiology say that every thought wears away some of the gray cellular tissue? Thank goodness, no one can blame me for destroying mine. I am sure I never thought any of mine away." As she spoke a new thought came to her. "No doubt, Helen found her pin weeks ago and you are having your tempest in a tea-pot all for nothing."

Berenice had not thought of that possibility. This was an argument, she was not equal to and was the means of causing her to say no more on the subject.

She knew from experience that she could not talk with some of the girls. They had a sense of loyalty and honor which restrained them from discussing anyone who came under the name of friend.

Berenice was unfortunate in her disposition. She was not by nature honest or sincere, and she could not conceive of another's being so. When Erma and Mellie had refused to listen to her suspicions, she attributed not to their high sense of honor, but rather that they were deceiving her and would discuss the question between themselves.

Every girl in the hall understood Berenice. They were careful of their words while in her presence and they never repeated a tale that she carried to them. Many a time had they taken her to task, but she never profited by the lessons. When the girls spoke to her plainly, she put the fault on them instead of upon herself. Gradually the girls let her go her own way, gave no credence to her words and kept a bridle on their tongues, when Berenice was within hearing.

Yet, a word dropped here and there, will spring up and bear seed even though every one about knows it to be but a poisonous weed. Berenice dropped these seeds in plenty. A word fell here and there, although the hearers repudiated it, it yet made an impression, before any one was conscious that it was so. No one could trace the source from which it sprung, but the impression was strong throughout the hall that Hester Alden had taken Helen's valuable pin and had hidden it away for months, then at the first opportunity when Helen was at Exeter, Hester had worn it home.

Hester, wholly unconscious that her action might be misjudged or that it should be judged at all, had left the pin at the cottage with Aunt Debby. She had put it away in her own tiny bedroom. A feeling of pride had restrained her from wearing it at school. The other girls wore pins which were not make-believes and Hester did not like the idea of the odd metal and cut glass.

"Aunt Debby told me it was just a cheap little pin," she said to herself as she placed it away. "I shall always keep it because it was my mother's, but I shall not wear it. I do not feel just right wearing something which pretends to be something else."

When Hester returned to school Monday morning, more than one pair of eyes looked eagerly for her coming. Erma and Mellie were hoping that she would come in with the pin boldly in evidence, and thus put to rout the rumors which had crept into the hall. Berenice, too, watched for Hester's coming with a wholly different motive.

"If Hester Alden comes in to class and wears the pin when Helen is present, then of course nothing can be said. I shall believe it then that Helen found the pin and allowed Hester to wear it. But if Hester comes back without it, I shall draw my own conclusions, and I shall feel justified in doing so."

She did not dare to say this to Mellie, Erma, or the older girls. It was to Emma she spoke, and Emma being youngest of all, and new to school life, listened and believed.

Hester was expected on the eight o'clock car. It was not by chance that some of the girls lingered in the main hall at the time of her coming.

Marshall from the office window, saw the car coming in the distance and went down to the triangle to carry up Hester's baggage. The group of girls saw him and moved nearer to the door.

"The car is coming. Hester will be on it," said Berenice. Erma was in the little group. At the tone in Berenice's voice, Erma flushed. Like a flash there came to her a conception of the part she was playing in this. If she were Hester Alden's friend, she had no right to question her action and no right to wait at the door to find proof of her perfidy or her honesty. Erma raised her head proudly, "I think I shall not wait here. I shall see Hester later. The dear old honeysuckle that she is! I shall be glad to have her back. I missed her dreadfully these two days." She turned her back on the group and was about to walk away when Mellie moved forward and slipped her hand in Erma's arm. "I shall go with you," she said. Others, grasping the situation more clearly than they had before, followed the example of Erma. So it was, that only Berenice and two of the younger girls waited at the doorway.

But a few moments they stood there, when the door opened and Marshall ushered Hester into the hall.

"I shall take this case directly to your room, Miss Alden," said Marshall.

"Thank you, Marshall," cried Hester. She was her gay, bright self after her visit with Aunt Debby. Her eyes were sparkling and her cheeks bright. She turned to the girls who stood waiting for her. Ignorant of the motive which had brought them here to meet her, she greeted them affectionately.

"It was lovely of you girls to come down here to meet me. I had a lovely time with Aunt Debby. Yet I am glad to get back to school."

While she had been speaking, she had drawn off her gloves and had thrown back her coat. The girls had given no response to her greeting, but stood with their eyes fixed upon her. The exclamation which Berenice gave sounded much like one of exultation; for Hester Alden was not wearing a pin.

Hester felt conditions about her. She gave the three girls a quick hurried glance as though to grasp the intangible something which she felt. Then she continued her way down the corridor. Berenice was not easily offended. Catching step with Hester, she walked with her.

"Did you lose your pin, Hester?" she asked. "You had such a pretty pin on when you left school Saturday morning. I noticed at once that you didn't have it on now. Do you suppose you lost it?"

"No, I did not. I left it home purposely."

"Indeed. If I had such a pin I am sure I would wear it. There are only one or two girls in school who have diamonds. If I had a pin with a diamond in it, I am sure I'd be only too anxious to wear it."

"But that did not happen to be a diamond. It is a very cheap little pin which belonged to Aunt Debby—that is, it belonged to me, and I'd rather keep it than wear it."

Berenice gave her shoulders a shrug, lowered her eyelids until her eyes looked like little beads. She would prove to the girls that what she had said was true. Every one of Hester's friends had heard the report but had refused to discuss it. Erma laughed in derision at the mention of it. "Oh, you silly thing," she cried, "to come to me with such a story. Don't I know Hester better than that."

And Mellie, Mame, Renee, and Sara stopped the tale-bearers in their story. Yet while they tried to be true, in the heart of each one was a doubt. Had they not seen the pin many times? Had it not disappeared weeks and weeks ago; and had they not seen Hester wear it home, and that when Helen was absent? Proof was brought before them and they tried to ignore it. They tried to strengthen themselves in their position by believing that Helen had found the pin and had neglected to tell them.

Hester's friends would have let the matter pass, giving her the benefit of a doubt, but there was in school a different set who were easily influenced and stood ready to believe anything that was told them. This set with Berenice as instigator, took it upon themselves to ostracize Hester.

It was the custom of the students to loiter in the parlor after dinner, gathering about in groups. Someone talked; others drew about the piano; while others arm in arm walked up and down in confidential talk. One evening as Hester joined one of these groups, the talk ceased. There was an attempt to resume it, but it was fruitless. The group scattered, leaving Hester alone. This occurred several times. Hester was not supersensitive; neither was she dull. She knew that something had gone amiss, and that she had purposely been snubbed. But not by so much as a glance did she show that she was conscious of the treatment. She lingered a few moments longer, made a pretense of playing a piece and then went to her room and took up her books.

"They will not treat me so a second time," she said to herself. "They'll never have the satisfaction of knowing that I observed them."

It was all very well to speak bravely, but the sting was deep. She had determination and pluck enough not to bewail. She took up her lessons and vented her energy in getting them out.

She was not alone in observing the conduct of the younger set. The girls of her own hall had also seen what had taken place.

Not in this alone, did the younger girls express themselves. At recreation hour, which followed the evening study period, they were accustomed to gather in little groups in one of the rooms. At these times, the chafing-dish was brought into use, and the air was heavy with the odor of chocolate. By contriving, the younger set managed that Hester no longer made one of the party.

One evening, Erma and Mame took the girls to task on this matter. Emma and Louise expressed themselves strongly. Hester had been guilty of the greatest dishonesty and they meant to cut her dead.

"Are you taking it upon yourself to mete out judgment?" asked Mellie gently. "I should scarcely feel myself equal to such a great work. You are not sure that Hester is guilty. You are surmising. Who knows but Helen found the pin."

"I know," exclaimed Berenice. "I took it upon myself to ask her."

"You must have had—" Erma began with some show of feeling, but stopped herself suddenly and laughed instead. What was the use in turning the matter into a tragedy. "Well, if you begin to cut people, you little freshmen, bear in mind that other girls can do the same. Hester is my friend and will continue to be. If she is not treated as I am treated, then I am treated badly."

"It's a case of love me, love my dog, is it?" asked Berenice.

"It's a case of treat my friends as you treat me. If Hester is not at the next fudge party, then you may expect me to leave and furthermore, you need expect no invitation to any spreads that I have anything to do with."

She went her way. The younger girls shrugged their shoulders. It was considered very fine to be entertained by the seniors and to be accepted by them as friends. The freshmen who had been so favored did not wish to forgo these joys. On the other hand, they did not like the idea of giving up their independence and running at the beck and call of any senior.

Berenice's words about asking Helen in regard to finding the pin, had put Erma's convictions to rout. She tried to comfort herself in the thought that Berenice was not always reliable in her statements. It was sorry comfort at the best. A heroic course then presented itself to Erma. The thought no sooner presented itself to her than she determined to put it into play.

"This evening after study hour, I intend making some hot chocolate. Marshall shall buy me some nice fresh wafers when he goes down the street."

"Thank you, I shall be there," said Mame.

"No, you shall not. That is what I wish to speak to you about. The moment the half-hour bell rings, I wish you to go down to Hester Alden's room and I wish you to keep her there until I call to you and her to come. But not for worlds must you let her know that there has been anything premeditated about the affairs."

"Oh, not for the worlds," said Mame. "I do not quite grasp your idea, but I'll do as I am told though I die for it."

"You'll not die, Mamie. The good die young, so I see a long, long life for you. You will be rewarded for your goodness. I shall save the biggest cup for you and I'll fill it twice without so much as your hinting."

"I am your servant from henceforth. Two cups of cocoa to be had not for the asking, and big cups at that."

Promptly at the recreation hour, Mame hurried off to see Hester. There was something she wished done for the paper and Hester wrote so beautifully. Helen went away and left them. The sound of voices came up to them from Fifty-four.

"Erma asked me to come down for some hot chocolate," suggested Hester. But Mame refused to take the hint.

"Yes, she asked me too. She'll call us when it's ready. She knows that I am up here. Now, about this editorial. I'd rather write a novel than an editorial any time. In novels, something may be done; but in editorials, one must just think. Would you say this, Hester?"

She began her reading on an abstract subject which was a theme worthy of a logician and Hester was compelled to listen.

Meanwhile, down in Fifty-four, a number of girls had gathered. Erma was making good use of the chafing-dish while Renee was passing salt wafers and blanched almonds. Erma was laughing merrily, as she poured the cocoa. In the midst of her activities her brooch fell from her collar on to the table.

"Good thing, I heard it," she exclaimed, drawing the attention of the entire room to it. "If I had dropped it in the hall or on the campus, I might never have found it, just as you did, Helen. You never found your pin did you?"

"No," said Helen. Her reply was given curtly as though her mind were on other matters.

"I told you so," cried Berenice with a show of exultation, looking from one girl to another. They had become suddenly quiet at Helen's reply.

"I told you so," she repeated. Then turning to Helen, she continued. "I can tell you where it is. I saw it and so did several of the others. But they are afraid to tell."

"Not afraid," said Mellie gently. "Fear was not what kept us silent."

"Hester Alden knows where it is," continued Berenice. "While you were at Exeter, Hester went home. I met her in the hall and walked with her to the triangle. I saw the pin on her tie. It was partly hidden by the ends of her tie. When she came back, she did not have it with her. I was not the only girl who saw it. They all feel as I do about it. Hester Alden took your pin."

She looked about the room with an air of malicious triumph. What could the girls do or say now? The gauntlet had been thrown down and they could not fling it back. It must lie there, for Hester could not be defended. Gentle, soft-spoken Mellie arose to the occasion. "I hope you are happy now, Berenice," she said. "But I do not see how you can be after such an act. You have deliberately done what you could to ruin Hester's reputation and what have you gained by it? Nothing at all, except those who have heard, care just a little less for you."

During these remarks, Helen had sat silent on a heap of cushions piled high on the floor. At Berenice's first words, she had grown pale but she listened without a word. What could she say or do? While Mellie spoke, she decided the course she would take. If the girls misunderstood her meaning, well and good. She loved Hester. It was a queer worthless sort of love which would make no show of sacrifice for its object. She reasoned thus while Mellie was speaking. Then she looked from one girl to the other.

"What startling things you say, Berenice. What pin have you reference to?"

"Your heirloom with the diamond in it?"

"Oh, that," with an air of assumed indifference. "Is that the one that you have in mind? Yes, I found that three weeks ago. Where do you think I found it?" She looked about at the girls, but gave them no opportunity to answer. "I found it in a little box along with some other trinkets. The box had been put on the closet floor and got pushed back in the corner. I was hunting about for some hooks and eyes and came across it quite by accident."

A sigh of relief was felt. The girls had been sitting with every muscle rigid. Now, they relaxed and a buzz of laughter and talk began. Berenice was far more discerning than the other girls there. Something in Helen's manner was beyond her comprehension.

"Did you really know then that Hester Alden had your pin and was wearing it?"

Helen nodded brightly as she replied. No one noticed that she ignored the second question that Berenice had put to her.

"Why, certainly, I knew that Hester had it. You take up very strange ideas, Berenice. I'd put Hester and the pin from your mind from this minute. I give you my word of honor that I knew that Hester had the pin."

Erma laughed delightfully. Her voice ran the scale and came back with an echo of triumph in it. Her plan had succeeded beyond her most sanguine expectations.

"I have forgotten the girls," she said, "and the cocoa almost gone." Going to the hall, she called to Sixty-two. "Hester Alden, are you and Mame going to stay there all night? The bell will ring in a few moments, and you will have no chocolate."



CHAPTER XIII

From this time on, the younger set of girls made a point of being kind to Hester. Feeling that they had misjudged her they tried to repay by an excess of kindness. Hester was a responsive creature. She had no ugliness in her heart. Spite was a quality that had not entered into the composition of her character. So when the girls showered her with kindness, she responded heartily and put from her heart, the bitter thoughts which had been there.

Helen, after the brave stand she had taken in regard to Hester, was troubled. She felt that she had been placed by Hester's shortcomings in an unpleasant position. She had deceived her girl friends. To be sure, she had not told them a word which was not strictly true, but they had misunderstood her and she knew it. To make matters worse, she had deliberately constructed her sentences that they might be deceived and yet she was telling the truth. Taking it all in all, it was a paradox. She hated deception, and Hester had placed her in such a position that she had been compelled to put a double meaning to her words.

So the little plan which Erma had worked out had the effect of widening the breach between the occupants of Sixty-two.

Hester had been grieved by the treatment she had received from Helen; but after the choice of substitutes, sorrow gave place to anger at the injustice accorded her. When the anger had gone, a steadiness of purpose came to Hester. She resolved to treat Helen with courtesy, nothing more; to be untouched by her in any way. Hester set her lips firmly and raised her head proudly. She had caught little mannerisms from Debby Alden, just as she had caught the principle which had actuated her conduct: not to cry out and let every one know when one is hurt.

When she came back from the two-days' visit with Aunt Debby and Miss Richards, she had mastered her feelings to a great extent. She never failed to greet Helen upon rising; she bade her a courteous good-night when bed-time came. They spoke together of little school affairs, but the long confidential talks had gone. They were well-bred strangers together for a time. They were spoiling the best part of the school year by what they pleased to think was their heroism. It would have been far easier and more fruitful of good results had they taken each other sharply to task, and blurted out what they had against each other. It would have been an easy matter, for each would have discovered that there existed no cause for an estrangement between them.

Down in the city, Debby Alden was spending the best year of her life. She had continued her music until her playing had passed the apprentice stage. She read the classics with Miss Richards. The townspeople had found her charming in her gracious thought for others. She was practical and thoroughgoing, and they filled her hands with church and charity work. Debby had not an idle, lonely moment. To do her justice, she gave no thought to what people might be thinking of her. She had too many thoughts outside herself to give Debby Alden much thought.

She had proved the statement that it is a woman's own fault if she is not beautiful by the time she has forty years to her credit. Debby's beauty was of form and feature, and beyond this, the beauty which radiates from holding high ideals and living up to them. People did not merely like or admire this elder Miss Alden. Those words were weak to express the sentiment they held for her. They loved her, perhaps because Debby had in her heart an interest and love for every human creature that she met. Hester wisely had not mentioned to her aunt the little disturbance at school. This was partly due to unselfishness, and partly that there had been nothing tangible to tell. It would be very foolish to run and cry, "I have had my feelings wounded, but I do not know why." Pride, too, was one of the important factors of her silence. She could tell no one—not even her dear aunt—that the girls had, for some reason, held her in disfavor.

But Debby Alden had not lived with Hester sixteen years without understanding her. The girl had barely entered the cottage and removed her wraps before Debby knew that something had gone wrong. Debby asked no questions, according to Hester the same privileges she demanded for herself—to have hurts and wounds without being questioned concerning them.

At the sight of Hester's troubled face, Debby Alden's old fears came back to her. Had someone at the school brought up the subject of the girl's parentage? Had someone told her that she had been thrown upon the world a waif, and none of her people had cared to look for her?

Saturday evening, the three of the household gathered about the grate fire. Miss Richards had her embroidery and Debby had taken up a book; but neither was in the mood for work. Hester was filled to the brim with school. She was fairly bubbling over with stories of what the girls had done; who had been campused, and who had been called into the office.

Debby Alden listened to the chatter as though it were the profoundest wisdom.

"And, Aunt Debby, what do you think? I missed Mrs. Vail again last week. She came to take Helen for a ride and intended asking me to go with them, but Sara and I had gone around the campus and so I missed my ride and did not meet Mrs. Vail. Does it not seem strange, Aunt Debby, that I should always miss her? I fell in love with her picture, you know, and I was very anxious to know her. Don't you think it's very funny?"

"I do not know that it is funny," replied Debby. "It has just happened so. Does the young man come with his mother?"

"Rob? Sometimes he does. He comes very often alone. Several times, Miss Burkham permitted me to go down to the reception hall with Helen and talk with him. Last week, when we had a reception, he was there, and he talked to me a long, long time. I think he is the nicest boy I ever knew. I think he is nicer than Ralph Orr. Don't you think so, Aunt Debby?"

"You must remember that I met him but once, Hester. I liked him very much. He had such a nice boyish manner."

"Boyish. Do you know how old he is?"

"I am sure he is under seventy," said Debby with a smile.

"Surely," said Miss Richards in her droll, quiet way, "he must be younger than I am. I am only sixty-three."

Hester laughed. "You are making fun of me. He really isn't a boy. He is twenty-one and a senior in a Medical School. My, but he has strong nerves! I asked him if it didn't make him tremble to see the surgeons cut the flesh from one. He said it never phased him. That was his expression—never 'phased' him. I rather like the expression. It sounds just like what you might expect from a college boy. Don't you think so?"

"I never knew college boys," began Debby Alden, but stopped suddenly. She remembered in time that James Baker had been a college boy. "—I never knew many, not enough to know what language to expect of them."

Hester had not caught the hesitancy in Miss Alden's speech. Miss Richards had and looked up in time to see another Debby Alden than the Debby she had always known. This Debby had the flush of sixteen years in her cheeks and the tender light of day-dreams in her eyes.

Just a moment, Debby Alden sat thus. Then the woman came back where the girl had been. "What more?" she asked Hester. "Of what else does this wonderful lad talk?"

"Everything, Aunt Debby. I really do not believe there is a subject that he cannot talk upon."

The women could not restrain a smile at this girlish exhibition of the confidence of youth.

"He's traveled and he's been in school, and he is an athlete. He told me a great deal about school life. That was while we talked together at the reception. Helen was surprised that he talked so long to me. She says that he generally speaks to everyone for a few minutes and then goes. He must have talked to me a half an hour."

"And then he went home?" suggested Debby. Hester blushed. "No, Miss Burkham came up and said that I must remember there were other guests who demanded some of my time, and I had to excuse myself."

Debby Alden in her thoughts gave thanks to Miss Burkham.

Hester continued her chatter. She needed no encouragement for when she was once on a subject she generally threshed it so thoroughly that nothing but chaff remained.

"But Robert told me that he generally said but a few words to each lady present and then went home. But somehow from the very first, he said I did not seem a stranger to him. He felt that he had always known me. That was why he sat so long and talked with me and I wish that Miss Burkham would have attended to something else then, and let me alone."

This was said in the most childlike, guileless manner. Debby Alden almost gasped for breath. She was about to remonstrate at the expression of such opinions when a glance from Miss Richards restrained her. That lady was not at all alarmed, only amused at Hester's talk.

"But Eva does not know all I know," said Debby to herself. "If she did, she would find it no laughing matter."

When Hester had gone to bed, leaving Debby and Miss Richards yet at the fireside, the latter took up the conversation.

"You are needlessly alarmed, Debby. There is not a bit of danger about Hester's having her head turned. She looks upon Robert just as she did upon Ralph. He is a good companion. That is all. Perhaps, she is a little flattered by having a college boy notice her at all. I remember when I went to school, I did the same thing. If a cadet spoke with us, we held our heads high and if he asked us to dance, our heads were turned. We really cared not at all for the cadets, but the uniforms were very handsome. That was fifty years ago, Debby Alden, and girls have not changed one whit."

She smiled as she thought of the old school days. She was far enough away from them now to know what was mere childish pleasure which had left its pleasant fragrance clinging to all the years between.

"Nevertheless, no one knows what may result from these conversations. I shall speak to Hester."

"My dear Debby, I beg that you consider and do nothing of the sort. Hester is a child with no thought of being anything else. Why should you put other thoughts into her head? You will do just such a thing if you discuss the subject further with her. Let her talk with the young man at the reception if she wishes to and Miss Burkham does not object."

"She appeared so much interested. I am afraid—"

"Nonsense. You would hedge Hester about with your fears. It is just a wholesome girlish interest which is right and proper for one normal young person to show in another. Had it been otherwise, Hester would not have talked so freely."

Yet, Debby was not satisfied. "You know that very serious love affairs are started in just such a boy-and-girl fashion."

"Surely. I know it. I know also that I do not think it altogether a bad fashion. Robert Vail, if I read him right, is an excellent young man. The Vails are people who are above reproach. So what cause would you have to complain, Debby Alden, if these half-hour talks should be taken seriously?"

"In the abstract, your ideas are worth while," said Debby. She could not laugh at the matter as Miss Richards was doing. "But in the concrete, they are wrong from beginning to end, and cannot be applied to Hester's case. Hester must never marry. Knowing that, I intend to keep her from falling in love, for I would not have her be unhappy."

There was tragedy in her voice which Miss Richards saw fit to ignore.

"At the same time, keep the rain from falling and the days from growing shorter. One is as easily done as the other. You will pardon my frankness, Debby, but I think you are about to make a mistake with Hester. You may restrain and educate her to a certain extent, but you cannot control her thoughts or her emotions. No one can do that for another. Guide Hester as far as your power lies; advise and admonish her, but she must live her own life; make her own mistakes and shed her own tears over them. You and your love must not shield her from that. She is herself to make of herself what she will.

"I cannot understand why you should wish her not to marry. In my mind, it is a fitting state for men and women, else the Lord would not have sanctioned it."

Debby could make no answer to this. Miss Richards bent over her needlework. She and Debby in all their years of intimacy, had but once before discussed the question. It had been Hester and Hester's future which had brought it up. The two women sat in silence for some minutes, when Debby said, "You cannot understand in what way life must be different for my girl. You do not understand and I cannot explain."

"Very well. But bear this in mind, Debby. You must not take the responsibility too heavily upon yourself. You are able to do a limited amount. There is a greater power in Hester Alden's life, than you. It is omnipotent and has a greater conception of life than your feeble mind can grasp."

"I know," said Debby humbly. "I am able to do so little. I cannot save my little girl all the bruises and hard places. She must bear them herself."

"And you should not if you could. Do not worry about Hester's being able to bear them. She has a courageous spirit and indomitable will."

Silence came again. Miss Richards worked on the center-piece she was embroidering. Debby leaned back in her chair. Her eyes rested upon the dying coals of the grate. Hester's childlike chatter had started her thinking on matters she tried to keep back in her memory. She blushed at her foolishness. Her practical business-like mind looked with scorn upon day-dreams—such day-dreams as came to her then, as she sat with her eyes on the grate. She could not smile at Hester's talk of Rob Vail's wonderful attainments. It touched too deeply. She had thought the same of Jim Baker that winter he took her to the spelling-bees. He had been a rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed boy who had ambitions. She had listened to his stories of the work he meant to do and she looked upon him as the most wonderful person in the world. But that had happened over twenty years ago, and she was very foolish to think of it at all.

Miss Richards worked in silence. At last when Debby Alden brought herself back from her day-dreams, her companion addressed her.

"When Miss Loraine was here, Debby, did you observe the resemblance between her and Hester?"

"Did I? I most assuredly did. The likeness was so strong that I almost exclaimed aloud when Helen stepped from the car. She was my Hester, with just a little difference."

"You passed the subject over so lightly that I thought you had not observed what I had."

"I passed over it lightly because I did not wish to disturb Hester. She knows she does not belong to my people; I would not have her know more, nor would I have her disturbed by commenting on the likeness.

"The likeness between her and Helen did not startle me as much as a little mannerism which I noticed in her cousin. Did you observe Robert's way of looking at one while that one was talking? He had the appearance of being absorbed with interest, and so impatient to hear all that was to be said that he might be tempted to pull the words from one's mouth."

Debby laughed softly at her words. "That is rather a peculiar way of expressing myself, but that is the impression he gave me. I have seen Hester sit so, listening. Time and time again, I have smiled at her intenseness, and I have chided her for it. I have no doubt that Robert Vail is an excellent young man. He looks it. If I read him right, he's inclined to be 'set' in his way. I do not doubt that if he thought a course of action was right and decided to follow it, he would be flayed before he could be compelled to give up. I have noticed that same tendency in Hester. She is what I call 'set' and always has been."

"Debby, do you think for a moment that Hester had to go far from home to find her example? Your dearest enemies could never accuse you of vacillating. You are what your people were before you. You're 'set' Debby—quite set.

"It is not a lack of virtue in one. On the contrary, I admire it. I have little sympathy for the one who moves with every passing influence. In my friendships, I find myself leaning toward folk who are 'set.'"

The gentle kindliness in the speaker's voice and smile made every word she said seem like a caress.

"I should be very glad, Debby," continued Miss Richards, "that Hester has that virtue. Wax melts under any influence; but if iron is molded right you have something stable. You have given Hester high ideals, and I have no fear that she will be influenced from them."

"I had no thoughts of criticising," cried Debby quickly. "I am glad that my Hester is as she is. I would not have her different. I was remarking about the resemblance in manner and disposition between her and Robert Vail. She looks like Helen, but she is like Robert."

"Do you think there might be relationship, Debby? If there be one, Hester would not blush to claim such kin. The Vails and Loraines are fine folk—fine in the highest sense that I can use the word.

"You told me several years ago, that you knew more of Hester's family than you had given out. You told me no more than that, and I do not ask to know more now. But it came to me that they might be bound to Hester by ties of blood. Surely such a resemblance cannot come by mere chance."

"There are no blood ties there," cried Debby Alden. "I am sure of that. No, do not misunderstand me. I would not be jealous of them were they her kin. I should rejoice to know she was of such a family and the anxiety which I have borne in secret would leave me. No, Hester is not of the Loraine or Vail blood."

Arising from her place at the grate, she moved away to the end of the room and stood looking out on the white earth. After a few minutes' struggle with herself, she came back to where Miss Richards sat, "Eva, cannot your imagination fill out what I cannot tell? You know there are conditions of blood and family which bear a stain which generations cannot eradicate. Poor Hester, innocent and brilliant as she is, bears that mark. You know why I wish to make her independent and self-sustaining. Those from which she sprung are beneath her; and she dare not bring the affliction of her people upon those higher. You see why I must guard her. She must do as you and I have done—though not for the same reason. She must be alone all her life. I want you to help me in this."

"As I have always done, and always will," said her friend. "My heartstrings cling about Hester, too. I love her almost as much as you do, Debby Alden."

While the conversation was being carried on, Hester Alden lay in the room above not wholly unconscious that her aunt and friend were discussing her. Now and then a word came to her; but she closed her ears tight to shut out the slightest sound.

"Aunt Debby is talking about my people and I must not hear. She said once that what she told me was all she cared to have me know, so I must not hear this."

She shut the sound of voices from her ears. If Aunt Debby did not wish her to know, that ended it as far as Hester's desire to know was concerned.

Debby Alden was troubled in her thoughts about Hester all that winter term; for she knew that something lay heavy on Hester's heart. The girl continued her studies, took her part in the social life of the seminary, and played basket-ball with all her energy; yet her heart was sore because the breach between Helen and her had not been bridged. The seminary life was fine—but Helen had been the biggest part of it to Hester.

The river had been frozen over since the first of the year. The students who could skate, used the ice for an outside gymnasium under the chaperonage of the little German teacher. Helen did not skate and preferred the routine of the regular physical culture course. Hester, on the contrary, could have lived on skates, as far as her desire and lack of muscular weariness was concerned.

The difference in choice of exercise separated the girls yet further. The skating was like a tonic to Hester. She could not be dull, depressed, or anxious after an hour on the ice. She missed Helen's companionship less than before. While Helen was brought to realize that it was not a passing fancy she had held toward Hester, but genuine affection and she missed her companionship more and more.

The winter held on until late. The week preceding Easter Sunday, the spring thaw set in and the river came up and over the ice.

"We'll have an ice-jam and a good one," laughed Erma. "Last spring the cakes piled as high as the old apple tree. The ice broke just at tea-time and the river was floating with it until morning. Doctor Weldon allowed us to watch until bed-time. It was simply gorgeous. Great white blocks would rise high in the air and then crumble into powder. I think we'll have a bad jam this spring." Erma danced away, overjoyed at the prospect of something to break the routine.

The following Saturday, the rain fell all day. The building was gray and cheerless. It was the time of year when homesickness is prevalent at school. The girls were dull and sat about silent in the parlor or idly turning over magazines in the library.

In the chapel a chorus of girls were being drilled. "What are they preparing for?" asked Hester of Sara.

"You are new, so I cannot tell you. Wait and find out," was the reply.

At tea-time the same heaviness of spirits hung over the dining-hall. Suddenly, a creaking sound was heard and a crush as though of breaking timber.

"The ice!" cried Erma. Her voice was distinctly heard throughout the large dining-hall.

Fortunately, they were at the dessert and Doctor Weldon excused them immediately. They were warned to fortify themselves with wraps against the weather. In a few moments, they had hurried to their rooms and were back again in raincoats, overshoes, and Tam-o-Shanters.

The Fraulein loved the storm. She and Miss Laird were the only two of the faculty who could be induced to leave the building. The rain was falling softly. The Fraulein led the way across the campus to the edge of the river. The water had risen six feet since morning, and had encroached upon the campus, and gurgled about the trunk of the old orchard trees. The ice jammed back on the shore, forcing the girls to retreat. Great cakes arose as a perpendicular, balanced for an instant and fell to pieces, or crushed against the trees until they groaned and bent under the strain. All the while the growling and seething and gurgling of the water was heard above all. It was glorious. Little wonder that Erma had anticipated this with delight.

The lights about the building were the only ones on the campus. The shadows were heavy where the girls stood along shore. Hester, to whom this scene was never old, although she had seen it every year of her life, stood entranced. Her umbrella had been tilted back and the rain beat down on her face, but she knew it not. She was unconscious of the chatter about her. She could not have talked. The river and noise and jamming ice held her spellbound.

Helen observed her as she stood so and believed that she was sad. Going up to where Hester was, Helen stood beside her, but no attention whatever was paid to her. Then she laid her hand lightly on Hester's arm. The result was the same. Hester stood with her eyes fixed upon the river, and made no response to the overture of friendship. Then Helen turned away, feeling that she had been repulsed.

When the heaviest flow had passed, the Fraulein took the girls back to the building. Helen went directly to her room to look over the evening mail; but Hester lingered with the Fraulein who was vainly trying to describe the flood which she had witnessed in her own little German village.

When Hester at length entered Sixty-two, Helen had read her letters and was standing by the study-table in deep thought. She looked at Hester a little wistfully.

"I had a letter from our pastor at home," she said, turning to Hester. "You have heard me speak of Dr. James Baker?"

"Yes, I have," replied Hester and took up her work. One could not begin a conversation on so little encouragement. Helen took up the letter from her pastor and read it a second time. He wrote to her as he did to all the absent young people whose church home was his church. He brought to their attention, the coming Sabbath, and reminded them that it should mean much to them. He suggested that they too, lay aside the old life with its troubles and its shortcomings and arise with new ideals and a new spirit. He had expressed himself finely. Helen, who was sympathetic, was touched by his words. She would put aside the old life. She would begin that instant to forget all that had passed and begin anew even her friendship with Hester.

Hester, fortified by her pride and the resolution she had made some weeks before, sat at her table writing. For weeks she had given Helen no opportunity for more than a passing word.

"This letter from Doctor Baker is beautiful," began Helen. "He is as good as he writes. He has been our pastor for fifteen years—more perhaps. Will you read it, Hester? It may do you good. It has me."

"Perhaps I do not need it," was the curt reply. "And perhaps Doctor Baker might object to a third party reading his letters."

"Nonsense. He would be delighted. Will you read it?"

"No, I thank you," said Hester, proudly. Then she added. "I may be beyond being reached, you know."

Her tone was sharp. It caused Helen to cease from further importunity.

"Very well, Hester. If you do not wish to, I shall not insist." She laid the letter aside.

"It will be the very last time, I shall try to make up with Hester," she said to herself. "She never really cared for me, or she would see that I wish to be friends. But she does not care."

When the half-hour bell rang, the girls began their preparation for bed without a word to each other. Since the first days of their misunderstanding, their politeness toward each other was so marked as to be burdensome.

They excused and begged pardon each time their paths crossed. The same formality was continued now. There was no conversation, although both were talkers and their heads were buzzing with the things they would like to have said.

When the retiring bell sounded, there was a short "Good-night, Hester," and as short a response, "Good-night, Helen."

There were to be sunrise services in the chapel at which every student was required to be present. But before that time, Hester was awakened by voices far in the distance. She sat up in bed to listen. The gray of the Easter morning was stealing through the window. The voices came nearer and nearer. At last she could distinguish the words.

"Christ is Risen. Christ is Risen. He hath burst His bounds in twain. Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen! Alleluia, swell the strain."

It was the chorus of girls. This had long been the custom of the school, to wake the pupils by song on Easter morning.

The voices drew nearer. The singers paused at the landing of the stair. Hester could distinguish Erma's loud, clear notes which soared upward like a bird and floated over all.

"Alleluia, Alleluia, swell the strain."

The spirit of the Easter morn came to Hester.

There was peace and joy. She wished for that. She really had not had it for weeks. While the song rose and fell, her heart softened toward Helen. She would make up with her. She would ask to be forgiven and be friends again. She crept out of bed and went to Helen's bed, but Helen had gone to make one of the Easter Wakening Chorus.



CHAPTER XIV

Proserpina had returned to earth again. The evidence of her visit was everywhere. The campus had turned into green velvet; the pussy willows were soft as chinchillas; the apple trees were in leaf, and just about to blossom. These were the signs of spring everywhere. In addition to these, the seminary had a sign which appealed to it alone. The man with the ice-cream cart had appeared. For several days, his cart had been backed against the curb of the campus and the sound of his bell was like the music of the hand-organ to the girls. It was a bluebird and a robin—the harbingers of spring to them.

May came and was quickly passing. The girls were talking caps and gowns and diplomas. The seniors went about with a superior air; the juniors were little better for they had a classday at least. The freshmen and sophomores, in the plans for commencement week, were but the fifth wheel to a wagon. They were ignored. If they offered suggestions they were snubbed, and informed, not too gently, that they could not be expected to know anything about such matters—being new to the ways of commencement.

Though they had neither commencement, class day, nor play, the freshmen and sophomores did not lose spirit. What was not theirs by rights, they meant to make theirs by foul means and strategy.

It had long been the custom of the seniors to follow the commencement proper with a banquet. This included only members of the senior class. The Alumnae banquet took place later and was in the hands of old students who had long since left the seminary. Among these were the wives of judges, physicians, bankers—people with whom the freshmen and sophomores dare not interfere, though it would have been an easy matter to have taken this Alumnae Banquet, for there was no one on hand to guard it. The menu and serving were wholly in the hands of a caterer from the city.

Knowing that the affairs of the Alumnae must not be tampered with, the freshmen turned all their energies toward the seniors and juniors.

The juniors were to give a play. The costumes were to be rented for the occasion. The play itself was zealously guarded lest it be stolen. Erma, whose talent lay in a histrionic direction, had charge of the copies of the drama. Erma had talent but no forethought. She put the pamphlets in the place most suited to them. Hester, who had been sent out by her class as a scout to find what she could of the plans of the juniors, discovered the books the first day; and not only the books but the names of the juniors and the parts which each was to take. Hester reported immediately the results of her investigation. The following day, while Erma was engaged elsewhere the play disappeared, was hurriedly copied by the freshmen and replaced. Not a member of the junior class, so the freshmen believed, was aware of what took place and was not the wiser that the freshmen had begun the preparation of the same play.

"We can outdo them," said Louise at the class-meeting. "The play is booked for Tuesday evening. Monday evening is the band concert and promenade from seven o'clock until eight-thirty. After that, the freshmen class will have the floor and we'll give the play before the juniors. Their efforts will fall flat on Tuesday evening."

"But the costumes!" exclaimed Hester. "What will we do for them?"

"Borrow them from the juniors when they are from their rooms. We will need them but one evening. We'll return them as fresh as ever the following morning."

"Will they lend them?" It was a little first term girl who asked the question.

"No, you dear little freshie, they will not lend them if they can help themselves. We will ask them Tuesday morning and use them Monday. It is the safest way," said Emma, who was exceedingly enthusiastic over this part of school life. While at home, she had read volumes on the subject of life at a boarding school. From the impression left by those books, life at school was one succession of receptions, public meetings, and practical jokes. Discipline and lessons were in the undercurrent of life. Life at Dickinson had been wholly different from what Emma had anticipated. This stealing of the junior play and presenting it before the juniors had the opportunity, appealed to Emma. This was more in the order of the books she had read.

Louise sat up on the rostrum, appointing the students to their parts. She looked at Emma quizzingly, "About your part, Emma," she began.

"I know what I want to be. Let me be queen. I'd dearly love to put my hair up and wear a train."

"You! The queen!" the girls laughed in scorn. "You never would have dignity enough for that. What you should be is a Dutch doll that moves with a spring."

"I could do the queen part—," she began.

"Hush, hush. You are talking too loud. Some one is coming."

Footsteps were heard along the stair. The door opened and Renee put her head in.

"Are you there, Louise?" she asked. "Do you object to my taking your umbrella? My roommate has gone off leaving mine locked in the closet, and I've permission to go down town."

"Yes, yes, take it," cried Louise. Renee closed the door and disappeared.

"I'm suspicious of that umbrella," said Edna. "I think Renee was sent up here to see what we were about."

"No, I'd be suspicious of any one but Renee. She wished the umbrella. I am sure of that."

"But why should she need it this afternoon. There is not the slightest suggestion of rain and the sun is not bright."

"Because, she couldn't go without borrowing something," said Louise. "It wouldn't be Renee if she could. I suppose she looked about and an umbrella was the only thing she did not have at hand, so that was the only thing she could borrow."

Eventually the parts were given out and partly learned. The girls had planned for a rehearsal the first week in June. The fact that everything had to be done under cover from the juniors, made the practice drag. They could assemble only at such hours when the juniors were in class, and the chapel vacant.

The sophomores, confident that the freshmen alone would be able to manage the juniors, turned their attention to the seniors. Their plan was to divert the banquet from the dining-hall to one of the society halls, and feast upon it while the seniors went wailing in search of it.

Their plans were developing nicely when the weather saw fit to interfere. The last day of May, which fell on Tuesday, set in with a soft, fine rain. This was nothing alarming in itself, had it performed its work and gone its way. But it lingered all day, all night and when Wednesday morning broke dull and gray, the volume of water had increased, and was coming steadily down. Thursday was but a repetition of Wednesday. The rain did not cease for an instant. The sun never showed his face.

The river had crept up gradually until the water was licking the trunks of the apple trees; but this was not alarming. The ice flood had been higher; and further back on the campus were the marks of the flood of '48, the highest flood ever known along the river. Even then the water had not touched the building. There was nothing at all to be alarmed by the river's rising.

After the afternoon's recitations, the girls went down to the river's edge, although the rain poured down upon them. They were learning the tricks of the old river men. They stuck sticks in the edge of the water to mark the rise or fall.

"It's risen over a foot since lunch time," cried Erma. "See, there is my marker. You can just see it. Think of it—a foot. What will become of us?"

"It will rise twenty feet before we need give it a thought," said Hester. She had been reared along the river and had no fear of it. She loved it in any form it could assume—tranquil and quiet—frozen and white—rolling and bleak and sullen. In every form, she recognized only the beautiful and knew no reason to fear.

"But if it should rise twenty-five?" cried Erma. She was running about excitedly like a water-sprite. Her red sweater gleamed in the sullen gray light. The rain was trickling from her Tam-o-Shanter; but she was oblivious of all, save the far remote danger.

"Oh, what if it should come up twenty-five feet!" she continued asking as she ran along the shore.

"Oh, what if the world should come to an end!" retorted the girls in derision.

The gong in the main hall sounded.

"I knew it," cried Emma. "I knew Doctor Weldon would not allow us to be out long. She's dreadfully careful of us. Now, what harm can a little bit of water do to anyone?" Emma shook her bushy, curly locks.

"Nothing, when one's hair curls naturally. But it can do a lot when one's hair is straight. Look at mine." Mame sighed dismally. "Did you ever see such locks? Every one as straight as a poker. I wish, just for once, I could look like other girls."

Josephine was standing in the hall, waiting when the little group of girls entered.

"Have you been in all the time?" asked Hester. "How could you? The river is fine and getting higher and higher each moment. You shouldn't miss such a sight as this."

"I have not missed it," was the reply, given while the speaker's eyes took a soulful upward glance. "I cannot enjoy nature with people laughing and talking about me. I must be alone and commune with it. I have stood here watching from the window. What a beautiful and yet a terrible scene it is. I feel uplifted."

"I wish I felt the same way—uplifted to the extent of two flights of stairs," said Hester. She had not meant to be funny, but the girls laughed. Josephine turned upon her a hurt, aggrieved look. But just for a moment, then she smiled and said gently, "Hester, you little water-sprite! How can you jest when nature is at war?"

Edna Bucher was another student who would not brave the elements. She stood at the hall window where the stairway makes a turn. She was dressed in very somber clothes, guiltless of curves or graces. She did not look with favor upon girls' trudging out in the storm. It had in it the element of tom-boyism upon which Miss Bucher looked with alarm.

"No, I did not go," she said meekly and apologetically. "I was brought up to think it wasn't ladylike to go out in all kinds of weather; ladies don't do it. It is just what you would expect of a man."

The hearers replied not a word. They did not so much as shrug their shoulders or glance at each other. But each girl resolved at that minute, if being hearty and hale and fearless were unladylike, from that moment they would be that very thing.

The weather soon had its effect upon the spirits of the girls. Gayety in the dormitories and parlors was reduced to the minimum. Pupils stood silent at windows, gazing out at the steady downpour. Where they did gather in groups of three or four, there was no laughing or bright talk. Just a word now and then, and a low reply. At intervals, someone grew intolerant and expressed herself. "Will this rain never stop?" "I was hoping it would clear so that we might go into town."