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diff --git a/old/69132-0.txt b/old/69132-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 8474ba0..0000000 --- a/old/69132-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7631 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Betty Wales on the campus, by Margaret -Warde - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Betty Wales on the campus - -Author: Margaret Warde - -Illustrator: Eva M. Nagel - -Release Date: October 11, 2022 [eBook #69132] - -Language: English - -Produced by: D A Alexander and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team - at https://www.pgdp.net Scans were from the New York Public - Library's Digital Collections; special thanks to the - University of Southern Mississippi for providing a quality - scan of the book's cover. - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BETTY WALES ON THE -CAMPUS *** - - -[Illustration: THEY WERE ALL THERE] - - - - - BETTY WALES - ON THE CAMPUS - - _by_ - MARGARET WARDE - - _author of_ - - BETTY WALES, FRESHMAN - BETTY WALES, SOPHOMORE - BETTY WALES, JUNIOR - BETTY WALES, SENIOR - BETTY WALES, B.A. - BETTY WALES & CO. - BETTY WALES DECIDES - - ILLUSTRATED BY - EVA M. NAGEL - - THE PENN PUBLISHING - COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA - 1920 - - - - - COPYRIGHT - 1910 BY - THE PENN - PUBLISHING - COMPANY - -Betty Wales on the Campus - - - - -Introduction - - -MOST of the girls in this story first became acquainted with each other -in their freshman year at Harding College, and the story of their four -jolly years together and their trip to Europe after graduation is told -in “Betty Wales, Freshman,” “Betty Wales, Sophomore,” “Betty Wales, -Junior,” “Betty Wales, Senior,” and “Betty Wales, B. A.” - -It was during this memorable trip that Betty met Mr. Morton, the -irascible but generous railroad magnate. “Betty Wales & Co.” describes -how Betty and her “little friends” opened the successful “Tally-ho -Tea-Shop” in Harding, and what came of it. Babbie Hildreth’s engagement -to Mr. Thayer was one result, and another was that Mr. Morton gave to -Harding College the money for a dormitory for the poorer girls. Betty’s -“smallest sister” Dorothy was also in Harding attending Miss Dick’s -school, and it was for her that Eugenia Ford invented the delightful -Ploshkin. Somebody modeled one, and as little plaster ploshkins were -soon being sold everywhere, it turned out to be one of the Tally-ho’s -most popular and profitable features. Betty had thought she would leave -the shop to Emily Davis and return to her family, but this story tells -how she found herself again on the Harding Campus. And finally, how -Betty Wales, with the aid of one other important person, chose her -career and left Harding, will be found in “Betty Wales Decides.” - - MARGARET WARDE. - - - - -Contents - - - I. “TENDING UP” AGAIN 9 - II. ARCHITECT’S PLANS--AND OTHERS 29 - III. THE CULT OF THE B. C. A.’S 47 - IV. THE GRASSHOPPER WAGER 62 - V. REINFORCEMENTS 78 - VI. FRISKY FENTON’S MARTYRDOM 98 - VII. THE DOLL WAVE 116 - VIII. MORE ARCHITECT’S PLANS, AND A MYSTERY 140 - IX. MOVING IN 158 - X. GHOSTS AND INSPIRATIONS 174 - XI. WHAT CHRISTMAS REALLY MEANS 191 - XII. RAFAEL PROPOSES 213 - XIII. GENIUS ARRIVES 229 - XIV. AS A BULL PUP ORDAINS 249 - XV. A GAME OF HIDE-AND-SEEK--WITH - “FEATURES” 268 - XVI. THE MYSTERY DEEPENS 285 - XVII. THE MYSTERY SOLVED 299 - XVIII. FRISKY FENTON’S FOLLY 318 - XIX. ARCHITECT’S FINAL PLANS--CONSIDERED 337 - - - - -Illustrations - - - PAGE - - THEY WERE ALL THERE _Frontispiece_ - “I’M SORRY I WAS LATE” 11 - SITTING DOWN TO REST ON A BAGGAGE TRUCK 84 - “YOU MUST TAKE OFF YOUR APRON” 160 - JUST AS THEY HAD GIVEN HER UP 241 - THE OTHERS STOOD AROUND LISTENING 282 - “WE’LL FIND ’EM, MISS,” HE ASSURED HER 327 - -Betty Wales On The Campus - - - - -CHAPTER I - -“TENDING UP” AGAIN - - -BETTY WALES, with a red bandanna knotted tightly over all her yellow -curls--except one or two particularly rebellious ringlets that -positively refused to be hidden--pattered softly down the back stairs -of the Wales cottage at Lakeside. Softly, because mother was taking her -afternoon nap and must on no account be disturbed. Betty lifted a lid -of the kitchen range, peered anxiously in at the glowing coals, and -nodded approvingly at them for being so nice and red. Then she opened -the ice-box, just for the supreme satisfaction of gazing once more upon -the six big tomatoes that she had peeled and put away to cool right -after lunch--which is the only proper time to begin getting dinner for -a fastidious family like hers. Finally she slipped on over her bathing -suit the raincoat that hung on her arm, and carefully opened the front -door. On the piazza the Smallest Sister and a smaller friend were -cozily ensconced in the hammock, “talking secrets,” as they explained -eagerly to Betty. - -“But you can come and talk too,” they assured her in a happy chorus, -for Betty was the idol of all the little girls in the Lakeside colony. - -Betty smiled at them and pulled back the raincoat to show what was -underneath. “Thank you, dears, but I’m going for a dip while the sun is -hot. And Dorothy, don’t forget that you’ve said that you’d stay here -and see to everything till I get back. And if more girls come up, don’t -make a lot of noise and wake mother. Good-bye.” And she was off like -the wind down the path to the beach staircase. - -Half a dozen welcoming shouts greeted her from the sand. - -“We’ve waited ages for you,” cried one. - -“Dare you to slide down on the rail,” called another. - -[Illustration: “I’M SORRY I WAS LATE”] - -“No, slide down the bank,” suggested a third. - -Betty gave her head a funny little toss, threw the raincoat down to one -of them and slid, ran, jumped, and tumbled down the sheer bank, landing -in a heap on a mound of soft sand that flew up in a dusty cloud around -the party. - -“I’m sorry,” she sputtered, wiping the dust out of her eyes. “Sorry -that I was late, I mean. The sand is Don’s fault, because he dared me. -You see, I had to mend all Will’s stockings, because he’s going off -to-morrow on a little business trip. And then I had to see to my fire, -and remind Dorothy that she is now in charge of mother and the house. -Beat you out to the raft, Mary.” - -Mary Hooper shook off her share of the sand-cloud resignedly. “All -right,” she said. “Only of course I’ve been in once already, and I’m -rather tired.” - -“Tired nothing,” scoffed one of the Benson girls. “You paddled around -the cove for five minutes an hour ago, poor thing! That’s all the -exercise you’ve had to-day. Betty’s the one who ought to be tired, -with all the cooking and scrubbing and mending she does. Only she’s a -regular young steam engine----” - -Betty leaned forward and tumbled Sallie Benson over on her back in the -sand. “Hush!” she said. “I don’t work hard, and I’m not tired, and -besides, I shall probably lose the race. Come along, Mary.” - -The race was a tie, but Betty declared that Tom Benson got in her way -on purpose, and Mary Hooper retorted that Sally splashed her like a -whole school of porpoises. So they finally agreed to try again going -back, and then they sat on the raft in the sunshine, throwing sticks -for Mary’s setter to swim after, and watching the Ames boys dive, until -Will appeared on the shore shouting and waving a letter wildly--an -incentive to Betty’s getting back in a hurry that caused Mary to -declare the return race off also, especially as she had lost it. - -“Didn’t want to bother you,” explained Will amiably, “but Cousin Joe -drove me out in his car, and I thought that maybe the chief cook----” - -Betty seized the letter and ran. “I knew things were going to happen,” -she murmured as she flopped up the beach stairway. “But there’s an -extra tomato that my prophetic soul told me to peel, and lots of -soup, and lots of ice-cream. Oh, dear, I’m getting this letter so -wet that I shan’t ever be able to read it.” She held it out at arm’s -length and looked at the address. It was typewritten, and there was a -printed “Return to Harding College” in the corner. “Nothing but an old -circular, I suppose,” she decided, and laid it carefully down in a spot -of yellow sunshine on the floor of her room to dry off. - -Of course there was no time to open it until dinner was cooked and -eaten; and then Cousin Joe piled his big car full of laughing, -chattering young people and drove them off through the pine woods in -the moonlight. - -Betty was in front with Cousin Joe. “Things look so much more enchanted -and fairylike if you’re in front,” she explained as she climbed in. - -Cousin Joe chuckled. “You always have some good reason for wanting -to sit in front, young lady,” he said. “When you were a kid, you had -to be where you could cluck to the horses. But I certainly didn’t -suppose you went in for moonlight and fairies and that sort of thing. -I thought you were a hard-headed business woman, with all kinds of -remarkable money-making schemes up your sleeves.” - -Betty patted the embroidery on her cuff and frowned disapprovingly at -him. “You shouldn’t make fun of the Tally-ho Tea-Shop, Cousin Joe. It -does make money--really and truly it does.” - -“Well, I guess I know that,” Cousin Joe assured her solemnly, “and I -understand the extremely marketable nature of ploshkins. Will keeps me -very well posted about his wonderful sister’s wonderful enterprises -that are backed by the Morton millions.” - -“Don’t be silly, please, Cousin Joe,” begged Betty. “I’ve just done -what any girl would have under the circumstances, and I’ve had such -very scrumptious luck--that’s all.” - -Cousin Joe put on slow speed, and leaned forward to stare at Betty in -the moonlight. “You’ve pulled off a start that any man might envy you, -little girl, and you’re just as pretty and young and jolly as if you’d -never touched money except to spend it for clothes and candy. And you -still love fun and look out for fairies, and some day a nice young -man--I say, Betty, here’s a long straight stretch. Change seats and see -how fast you can tool her up to the Pine Grove Country Club for a cool -little supper all around.” - -“Oh, could I truly try?” - -Betty’s voice sounded like a happy child’s, and her eyes sparkled with -pleasure and excitement, as her small hands clutched the big wheel. - -Cousin Joe leaned back and watched her. “I had a tough pull when I -started out in life,” he was thinking, “and no ‘such very scrumptious -luck,’ either, and I let it sour me. Betty’s game, luck or no luck. -Luck’s not the word for it, anyway. Of course people want to keep -friends with the girl who owns that smile. It means something, her -smile does. It’s not in the same class with Miss Mary Hooper’s society -smirk. I can’t see myself why that nice young man that I almost said -was going to fall in love with her some day doesn’t come along--several -of him in fact. But I’m glad I didn’t finish that sentence; I suppose -you could spoil even Betty Wales.” - -Betty remembered her letter again when she stepped on it in the -dark and it crackled. She had undressed by moonlight, so as not to -wake little Dorothy, who shared her room at the cottage. Now she -lit a candle, and opening her letter read it in the dim flickering -light. Something dropped out--a long slip that proved, upon further -examination, to be a railroad ticket from Cleveland to Harding and -back again. And the typewritten letter--that might have been “only an -old circular”--was signed by no less a personage than the President -of Harding College himself. Seeing his name at the end, in the queer -scraggly hand that every Harding girl knew, quite took Betty’s breath -away, and as for the letter itself! When she had finished it Betty blew -out the candle and sank down in an awe-stricken little heap on the -floor by the window to think things over and straighten them out. - -Prexy had written to her himself--the great Prexy! He wanted her to -come and advise with him and Mr. Morton and the architects about the -finishing touches for Morton Hall. Of all absurd, unaccountable ideas -that was the queerest. - -“Mr. Morton originally suggested asking you,” he wrote, “but I heartily -second him. We both feel sure that the ingenuity of the young woman -who made the Tally-ho Tea-Shop out of a barn will devise some valuable -features for the new dormitory, thereby fitting it more completely to -the needs of its future occupants.” - -Morton Hall was the result of a suggestion Betty had made to her friend -Mr. Morton, the millionaire. It was to give the poorer girls at Harding -an opportunity to live on the campus and share in the college life. - -“Gracious!” sighed Betty. “He thinks I thought up all the tea-room -features. It’s Madeline that they want. But Madeline’s in Maine with -the Enderbys, and wouldn’t come. And then of course Mr. Morton may need -to be pacified about something. I can do that part all right. Anyway, I -shall have to go, so long as they have sent a ticket--right away too, -or Mr. Morton will be sure to need pacifying most awfully. I wonder -what in the world that postscript means.” - -The postscript said, “I had intended to write you in regard to another -matter, connected not so much with the architecture of the new hall as -with its management; but talking it over together will be much more -satisfactory.” - -Betty lay awake a long while wondering about that postscript. When she -finally went to sleep she dreamed that Prexy had hired her to cook -for Morton Hall, and that she scorched the ice-cream, put salt in the -jelly-roll, and water on the fire. She burned her fingers doing that -and screamed, and it was Will calling to remind her that he wanted -breakfast and his bag packed in time for the eight-sixteen. - -At the breakfast table the cook--she ate with the family--gave notice. -She was going away that very afternoon. - -“Most unbusinesslike,” Mr. Wales assured her solemnly, but with a -twinkle in his eyes. - -“Most absurd,” Betty twinkled back at him. “I can’t suggest a thing to -those architects, of course, and they’ll just laugh at me, and Prexy -and Mr. Morton will be perfectly disgusted.” - -“You’ve got to make good somehow,” Will assured her soberly. “It isn’t -every girl that gets her expenses paid for a long trip like that, just -to go and advise about things. You’re what they call a consulting -expert, Betty. I’ll look up your trains and telephone you from town.” - -“And I’ll help you pack a bag,” announced the Smallest Sister. “You’re -just going in a bag, like Will, and coming back for Sunday, aren’t you, -Betty dear?” - -“Yes, I’m just going in a bag,” Betty assured her laughingly, -“and coming right back to Lakeside for Sunday. But perhaps in -September--well, we need not think about September when it’s only the -middle of August; isn’t that so, little sister?” - -The Smallest Sister stared solemnly at her. “We ought to make plans, -Betty. Now Celissa Hooper wants me to be her chum if I’m going to -school in Cleveland this winter, but if I’m going to be at Miss Dick’s -again why of course I can’t be chums with Celissa, ’cause I’m chums -with Shirley Ware. So I really ought to know before long who I’m to be -chums with.” - -“You certainly ought,” agreed Betty earnestly. “But you’ll just have -to be very good friends with Celissa and with Shirley and with all the -other girls until I come back, and then mother and father and you and -I can have a grand pow-wow over you and me and the tea-shop and Miss -Dick’s and everything else under the sun. Now, who’s going to wipe -dishes for me this morning?” - -“I am. What’s a grand pow-wow?” - -“We’ll have one in the kitchen,” Betty explained diplomatically, -hurrying off with both hands full of dishes. - -But the pow-wow was a rather spiritless affair. - -“You’re thinking of something else, Betty Wales,” declared the Smallest -Sister accusingly, right in the midst of the story of the Reckless -Ritherum, who is second cousin to the Ploshkin and has a very nice tale -of its own. “If you’re going to look way off over my head and think of -something else, I guess I’d rather go up-stairs and make beds all by my -lonesome.” - -“I’m sorry, dearie,” Betty apologized humbly, “but you see I feel just -like a reckless ritherum myself this morning--going out to play with -three terrible giants.” - -“What giants are you going to play with?” demanded the Smallest Sister -incredulously. - -“The fierce giant, the wise giant, and the head of all the giants,” -Betty told her. “The fierce giant eats reckless little ritherums for -his breakfast--that’s Mr. Morton. The wise giant laughs at them when -they try to show him how to make the house that Jack built--that’s the -New York architect. The head of all the giants--that’s Prexy--shakes -the paw of the poor little Ritherum kindly, and asks it not to be so -silly again as to try to play with giants, and it gets smaller and -smaller and smaller----” - -“Just exactly like Alice in Wonderland,” put in the Smallest Sister -excitedly. - -“Until it runs home,” Betty concluded, “to play with a little girl -named Dorothy Wales, and then all of a sudden it gets big and happy and -reckless again.” - -“Then don’t be gone long,” advised Dorothy eagerly, “because I’m always -in a hurry to begin playing with you some more.” - -“Thank you,” Betty bowed gravely. “In that case I won’t let the fierce -giant eat me, nor the wise giant blow me away with his big laugh, nor -the head giant stare at me until I vanish, recklessness and all, into -the Bay of the Ploshkin.” - -“I’d fish you up, if you did fall into the bay,” Dorothy assured her, -with a sudden hug that ended fatally for a coffee-cup she was wiping. - -“But it was nicked anyway, so never mind,” Betty comforted her, “and -you’ve fished me up lots of times already, so I know you would again.” - -“Why, I never----” began the Smallest Sister in amazement. - -“All right for you,” Betty threatened, putting away her pans with a -great clatter. “If you’ve stopped believing in fairies and if you’ve -forgotten how you ever went to the Bay of the Ploshkin and fished up -ritherums and did other interesting things, why should I waste my time -telling you stories?” - -This terrible threat silenced the Smallest Sister, who therefore never -found out how or when she had “fished up” her sister. But on the way -east Betty, still feeling very like a ritherum, consoled herself -by remembering first her own simile, and then Will’s “Maybe I’m not -proud to know you!” blurted out as he had put her on board her train. -A little sister to hug one and a big brother to bestow foolishly -unqualified admiration are just the very nicest things that a reckless -ritherum can have. And who hasn’t felt like a reckless ritherum some -time or other? - -Mr. Morton was pacing the station platform agitatedly when Betty’s -train pulled in. - -“Twenty-three minutes late, Miss B. A.,” he panted, rushing up to her. -He had always called her that. It stood for Benevolent Adventurer, and -some other things. Grasping her bag and her arm, he pulled her down the -stairs to his big red touring car. “The way these railroads are run is -abominable--a disgrace to the country, in my opinion. Now when I say -I’ll get to a place at four P. M.--I mean it. And very likely I arrive -at six by train--most unbusinesslike. Well, it’s not exactly your fault -that idiots run our railroads, is it, Miss B. A.? I thought of that -without your telling me--give me a long credit mark for once. Well, I -certainly am glad to see you, and to find you looking so brown and -jolly. No bothers and worries these days, Miss B. A.?” - -“Except the responsibility of having to think up enough good -suggestions for Morton Hall to pay you for asking me to come and for -taking the time to be here to meet me,” Betty told him laughingly. - -Mr. Morton snorted his indignation. “That responsibility may worry you, -but it doesn’t me--not one particle. Now, by the way, don’t be upset by -any idiotic remarks of the young architect chap that has this job in -charge. Whatever a person wants, he says you can’t have it--that seems -to be his idea of doing business. Then after you’ve shown him that your -idea of doing business is to do it or know the reason why, he sits -down and figures the thing out in great shape. He’s a very smart young -fellow, but he hates to give in. I presume that’s why Parsons and Cope -put him on this job--they’ve done work for me before, and they know -that I have ideas of my own and won’t be argued out of them except by -a fellow who can convince me he really knows more about the job than -I do. Just the same, don’t you pay much attention to his obstruction -game. Remember that you’re here because I want this dormitory to be the -way you want it.” - -Betty promised just as the car drew up in front of the Tally-ho. -“Thought you’d like a cup of your own tea,” explained Mr. Morton, -“and a sight of your new electric fixtures, and so forth. Miss Davis -is expecting you. Let’s see.” He consulted his watch, comparing it -carefully with Betty’s and with the clock in the automobile, which -aroused his intense irritation by being two minutes slow. “It’s now -three forty-one. I’ll be back in nineteen minutes. If I can find that -architect chap, I’ll bring him along. He knows all the main features -of the building better than I do, and he’s a pretty glib talker, so I -guess we’ll let him take you over the place the first time.” - -Exactly nineteen minutes later, just as Betty and Emily Davis had -“begun to get ready to start to commence,” according to Emily’s -favorite formula, the inspection of the tea-shop and the exchange of -summer experiences, the big red car came snorting back and stopped -with a jerk to let out a tall young man, who ran across the lawn and in -at the Tally-ho’s hospitably opened door. - -“Mr. Morton wishes to know if Miss Wales----” he began. Then he rushed -up to Betty. “By all that’s amazing, the great Miss Wales is the one I -used to know! How are you, Betty?” - -“Why, Jim Watson, where did you come from?” demanded Betty in amazement. - -Jim’s eyes twinkled. “From the Morton Mercedes most recently, and -until I get back to it with you I’m afraid we’d better defer further -explanations.” - -Betty nodded. “Only you must just meet Emily Davis--Miss Davis, Mr. -Watson. She’s a friend of Eleanor’s too. And you must tell me one -thing. Is the architect out there with Mr. Morton?” - -“No,” said Jim solemnly, “he isn’t, naturally, since he’s in here with -you. Architect Watson, with Parsons and Cope, at your service, Miss -Wales.” - -“Are you the real one--the one in charge?” persisted Betty. “You aren’t -the one that won’t let Mr. Morton have his own way?” - -“I am that very one,” Jim assured her briskly, “but there are some -lengths to which I don’t go. So please come along to the car in a -hurry, or I shall certainly be sent back to New York forthwith.” - -“Gracious! That would be perfectly dreadful! Good-bye, Emily.” Betty -sped down the path at top speed, Jim after her. - -“Did you stop to introduce yourself in detail, Watson?” inquired Mr. -Morton irritably, opening the door of the tonneau. - -“He didn’t have to introduce himself,” Betty put in breathlessly, “but -I made him stop to explain himself, and now I certainly shan’t worry -about his objections and opinions, because I’ve known him for ages. -Why, he’s Eleanor Watson’s brother Jim. You’ve heard Babe and me talk -about Eleanor.” - -“I should say that I have,” cried Mr. Morton jubilantly. “So you can -manage her brother as nicely as you manage me, can you, Miss B. A.? -I knew you ought to come up and see to things. Hurry along a little, -Jonas, can’t you? We’re not out riding for our health to-day. There are -some little things I haven’t just liked, and now that I’ve got Miss B. -A. to help me manage you---- Feeling scared, Watson?” - -“Not a bit, sir, thank you,” said Jim with his sunniest smile. “But I’m -certainly feeling glad to see Miss Betty again.” - -“What’s that? Glad to see Miss B. A.? Well, I should certainly hope -so,” snapped Jasper J. Morton. “I’d have a good deal less use for you, -sir, than I’ve had so far, if you weren’t.” - - - - -CHAPTER II - -ARCHITECT’S PLANS--AND OTHERS - - -STOPPING at Prexy’s house to get him to join the grand tour brought -back Betty’s “ritherum” feeling very hard indeed. Jim was so dignified -and businesslike when he talked to Prexy and Mr. Morton; they were both -so dignified and intent on their plans for Morton Hall. And evidently -they all seriously expected Betty to do something about it. Betty set -her lips, twisted her handkerchief into a hard little knot, and walked -up to the door, resolved to do the something expected of her or die in -the attempt. - -Jim, who was ahead, had the door open for the others when Mr. Morton -commanded a halt. - -“Might as well be systematic,” he ordered, “and take things as they -come,--or as we come, rather. Now, Miss B. A., shall there or shan’t -there be a ploshkin put up over this front door?” - -“A ploshkin over the front door?” Betty repeated helplessly. - -“Exactly,” snapped Mr. Morton, who disliked repetition as much as he -disliked other kinds of delay. “What could be more appropriate than a -large ploshkin, cut in marble, of course, by a first-class sculptor? -Stands for you, stands for earning a living when you have to, therefore -stands for me and my methods, stands for our coöperation in putting -through a good thing, whether it’s a silly plaster flub-dub that -half-witted people will run to buy, or a building like this with a big -idea back of it. But Mr. President here seems to think I’m wrong in -some way, and young Watson says a ploshkin won’t harmonize with the -general style of the architecture. Now what do you say, Miss B. A.?” - -Betty suppressed a wild desire to laugh, as she looked from one to -another of her three Giants’ faces. “Please don’t be disappointed, Mr. -Morton,” she began at last timidly, “but I’m afraid I think you’re -wrong too. A ploshkin--why, a ploshkin’s just nonsense! It would look -ridiculous to stick one up there.” She laughed in spite of herself at -the idea. “It’s 19--’s class animal, you know. The Belden might as -well have a purple cow, and the Westcott a yellow chick, and some other -house a raging lion to commemorate the other class animals. Oh, Mr. -Morton, you are just too comical about some things!” - -Mr. Morton frowned fiercely, and then sighed resignedly. “Very well, -Miss B. A. It’s your ploshkin. If you say no, that settles it. Mr. -President, you and young Watson can decide between that Greek goddess -of wisdom you mentioned and any other outlandish notion you’ve thought -of since. It’s all one to me. Now let’s be systematic. The next -unsettled row that we have on hand is about the reception-room doors.” - -This time, fortunately, Betty could agree with Mr. Morton, and the -others yielded gracefully, being much relieved at her first decision. -Then, quite unexpectedly, she had an idea of her own. - -“Laundry bills cost a lot, and the Harding wash-women tear your thin -things dreadfully. It would be just splendid if there could be a place -in the basement where the Morton Hall girls could go to wash and iron, -and press their skirts, and smooth out their thin dresses.” - -Everybody agreed to this; the Giants forgot their differences and grew -quite friendly discussing it. And up-stairs Betty thought of something -else. - -“Typewriters and sewing-machines are dreadfully noisy. That’s one -reason why the cheap off-campus houses are so uncomfortable, where most -of the girls use one or the other or both. I remember Emily Davis used -to say that sometimes it seemed as if her head would burst with the -click and the clatter. If there could only be a room for typewriters -and a sewing-room, with sound-proof walls----” - -“There can be,” interrupted Jasper J. Morton oracularly, “and there -shall be, if we have to put an annex to accommodate them. Miss B. A., -you’ll ruin me if you keep on at this rate. I presume I’m expected to -install typewriters and sewing-machines. They’re part of the fixtures, -aren’t they, Watson? If I say so they are? Well, I do say so, provided -Miss B. A. accepts that proposal from---- See here, Mr. President, why -don’t you take her off in a quiet corner and tell her what you want of -her?” - -Betty blushed violently at the idea of giving such summary advice to -the great Prexy. - -“Please don’t hurry,” she begged. “You can tell me what you want to any -time, President Wallace. Mr. Morton is always in such a rush to get -things settled himself; he doesn’t realize that other people don’t feel -the same way.” - -“Don’t I realize it?” snorted Mr. Morton indignantly. “Haven’t I spent -half my life hunting for people that can keep my pace? But I beg your -pardon, Mr. President, if I seemed to dictate or to meddle in your -personal affairs.” - -Prexy’s eyes twinkled. “That’s all right, Mr. Morton. Let’s give him -his way this time, Miss Wales, as long as we’ve got ours about the -ploshkin. Come and sit on that broad and inviting window-seat, and hear -what we want you to do for us.” - -It was an amazing proposal, though Prexy made it in the calmest and -most matter-of-fact way. The Student’s Aid Association, it seemed, had -reorganized at its commencement meeting, had received a substantial -endowment fund--so much Betty already knew--and had since decided -to employ a paid secretary to direct its work and to look after the -interests of the self-supporting students. It had occurred to President -Wallace that the right place for the secretary to live was in Morton -Hall, and to the directors that the right person to act as secretary -was Betty Wales. - -“The salary is small,” explained Prexy, “but the duties at first will -be light, I should think. I assume that you will be in Harding in any -case, to supervise your tea-shop enterprise. Now this salary will pay -several extra helpers there, and give you time for an occupation that -may be more congenial and that will certainly be of real help to the -girls you have always wanted to help--to the whole college also, I -hope. Living in this hall instead of the regular house teacher, you -will have a chance to keep in touch with us as you could not off the -campus, and you will still be reasonably near to the famous Tally-ho -Tea-Shop.” - -When he had finished, Betty continued to stare at him in bewildered -silence. “How does it strike you, Miss Wales?” he asked, with an -encouraging smile. - -Betty “came to” with a frightened little gasp. - -“Why, I--I--it strikes me as too big to take in all at once, and much, -much too splendid for me, President Wallace. I should just love to do -it, of course. But I can’t imagine myself doing it. Now Christy Mason -or Emily or Rachel Morrison--I could imagine them doing it beautifully, -but not me--I--me. Oh, dear!” Betty stopped in complete confusion. - -“But the rest of us can easily imagine you as the first secretary of -the Student’s Aid,” Prexy told her kindly. “We considered several -others, but none of them quite fitted. We are all sure that you will -fit. The board of directors wished you to understand that the choice -was unanimous. As for me, I’ve always meant to get you on the Harding -faculty some way or other, because the Harding spirit is the most -important thing that any of us has to teach, and you know how to teach -it. This position will enable you to specialize on the Harding spirit -without bothering your head about logarithms or the principles of -exposition or cuneiform inscriptions or Spanish verbs. It seems like a -real opportunity, and I hope you can take it.” - -“Oh, I hope so, too!” exclaimed Betty eagerly. “But the trouble -is, President Wallace, the world seems to be just crammed with -opportunities, and they conflict. One that conflicts with this is the -opportunity to stay at home with my family. I hadn’t decided, when I -got your letter, whether I ought to come back to the tea-shop, or be -with mother and father this winter. But living here and looking out for -the Morton Hall girls does sound just splendid. Please, what would be -the duties of the secretary, President Wallace?” - -The President smiled. “Whatever you made them, I think. Perhaps the -Student’s Aid directors may want to offer a few suggestions, but in the -main I guarantee you a perfectly free hand.” - -“Isn’t that even worse than to be told just what to do--harder, I -mean?” demanded Betty, so despairingly that Prexy threw back his head -and laughed. - -“Think it over,” he advised. “Talk it over with Mr. Morton and your -family. Write to your friends about it. By the way, I suppose you know -that Miss Morrison and Miss Adams are to be members of our faculty next -year.” - -Betty knew about Rachael’s appointment, but not about Helen’s. - -“Oh, it would be great to be back,” she declared. “There’s no question -of what I want to do,--only of what I ought to do, and what I can do. -It would be terrible if I should start and then have to give up because -I didn’t know how to go on. It would be worse than being ‘flunked -out’--I mean than failing to pass your examinations,” added Betty -hastily. - -“I understand the expression ‘flunked out,’” Prexy assured her gaily, -“but I never noticed any of your kind of girl in the ‘flunked out’ -ranks. Well, think it all over. Mr. Morton will dance with impatience -when he finds that everything can’t be decided in a breath, and just -as he wants it, but we’ll let him dance a little; and if he uses too -persuasive powers on you in the meantime I should not be unwarrantably -interfering if I objected.” - -“He can’t object to you dictating in his private affairs a little,” -quoted Betty gaily, as they went back to join the other Giants, who -were sitting on a pile of lumber, animatedly discussing the relative -merits of different makes of typewriters. - -“Sewing-machines we leave entirely to you, Miss B. A.,” Mr. Morton told -her, with a keen glance that tried to guess at her reception of Prexy’s -offer. “Just let me know the kind you want and the number. No hurry.” - -“That means that in about ten minutes he’ll ask you what you’ve -decided,” murmured Jim in her ear. “Haven’t you had enough of business -for to-day, Betty? Let’s cut out and take a walk in Paradise before -dinner. We can just about catch the sunset if we hurry. - -“My eye, but it seems good to see you again,” Jim assured her warmly, -as they scrambled down the path to the river. “And it seems good -to see Paradise again, only it doesn’t look natural in its present -uninhabited state. There ought to be a pretty girl in a pretty dress -behind every big tree.” - -Betty demanded the latest news of Eleanor, who was a very bad -correspondent, and then burst forth with her own plans and perplexities. - -“I think you should accept the Harding offer by all means,” Jim assured -her soberly. “Only there’s one thing I ought to tell you. I’ve been -trying for a week to screw my courage up to the point of confiding it -to the peppery Mr. Morton. His beloved dormitory can’t possibly be -finished in time for the opening of college.” - -Betty looked her dismay. “He’ll be perfectly furious, Jim.” - -“Can’t help it,” returned Jim firmly. “He comes up nearly every week, -and at least once in ten minutes, while he’s here, he decides to -enlarge or rebuild something. See how he upset everything to-day for -your sewing-machines and typewriters and washing-machines. To-morrow -some book-worm will get hold of him and suggest a library, and he’ll -want us to design some patent bookcases and build a wing to put them -in.” Jim looked Betty straight in the eyes. “You simply can’t hurry a -good honest job. I’m likely to be hanging around here till Christmas.” - -“As long as that?” - -Jim nodded, still scrutinizing her face closely. “Of course I know -it won’t make any difference to you, but it would make all kinds of -difference to me, having you here. You can be dead sure of that, Betty.” - -Betty smiled at him encouragingly. “You mean you want me to be here -to protect you from the pretty girls in pretty gowns who will begin -jumping out at you from behind the trees the day college opens?” - -Jim shrugged his broad shoulders defiantly. “I’m not afraid of any -pretty girls. I suppose it will be a fierce game going around the -campus with no other man in sight, but I guess I can play it.” - -“Oh, I see,” murmured Betty, who was in a teasing mood. “You want me to -introduce you to the very prettiest pretty girls.” - -“Prexy can do that,” Jim told her calmly. “He’s my firm friend since I -stood by him so nobly in the war of the ploshkin. But I do hope you’ll -be here. We could have some bully walks and rides, Betty--you ride, -don’t you?” - -Betty nodded. “But I shall be dreadfully busy--if I come.” - -“I’ll help you work,” Jim offered gallantly. “I understand this -secretary proposition pretty well. I was secretary to the O. M.--Old -Man, that stands for, otherwise the august head of our firm--until they -put me on this little job. I could give you pointers, I’m sure, though -it’s not exactly the same sort of thing you’re up against. And I say, -Betty, Eleanor has half promised me to come on this fall while I’m -here. I’m sure she’ll do it if you’re here too.” - -“That would be splendid,” Betty admitted, “only of course I couldn’t -decide to come just for a lark, Jim. I mustn’t let that part of it -influence me a bit.” - -“Well, just the same”--Jim played his last and highest card,--“if you -want to be a real philanthropist, Miss Betty Wales, you’ll let me -influence you a little. If ever there was a good object for charity, -it’s a fellow who hasn’t seen any of his family for nine months and has -had to give up a paltry two weeks’ vacation that he’d been counting -the hours to, to hold down a job that may, in a dozen years or so, -lead to something good. It takes stick, I can tell you, Betty, this -making your way in the world, and sometimes it’s a pretty lonesome -proposition. But I don’t intend to be just dad’s good-for-nothing son -all my life, so I’m bound to keep at it. I hate a quitter just as much -as dad does. I can tell you, though, it helps to have a good friend -around to talk things over with.” - -Betty’s brown eyes grew big and soft, and her voice vibrated with -sympathy. “Don’t I know that, Jim? Last year when Madeline and Babbie -were both away at once it seemed as if things always went wrong at -the Tally-ho, and I used to nearly die, worrying. And when they came -back and we talked everything over, there was usually nothing much the -matter.” - -“Exactly,” agreed Jim. “So don’t forget me when you’re footing up the -philanthropic activities that you can amuse yourself with if you decide -on a Harding winter.” - -Betty laughed. “I won’t,” she promised gaily, “although you don’t look -a bit like an object of charity, Jim.” - -“Appearances are frequently deceitful,” Jim assured her. - -“I should think so.” Betty jumped up in dismay. “I appear to have the -evening before me, but really I’ve promised to take dinner with Mr. -Morton.” - -“Who-can’t-be-kept-waiting,” chanted Jim, giving her a hand up the -steep bank. - -Betty stayed in Harding two days, during which she had many long talks -with Emily about the secretaryship and its possibilities. Being, as she -picturesquely put it, a Morton Hall girl born too soon, Emily could -speak from experience, and she suggested all sorts of things that Betty -would never have thought of. - -“But that’s all I can do,” she told Betty, when that modest little -person declared that Emily, and not she, was surely the ideal -secretary. “I can explain what ought to be done, but I couldn’t do it. -It takes a person with bushels of tact to manage those girls. Maybe you -aren’t as good at planning as Rachel or I. That’s nothing. You’ve got -the bushels of tact. That’s the unique quality that the directors had -the sense to see was indispensable. You’re ‘elected’ to accept, Betty -dear, so you might just as well telegraph for your trunks.” - -But Betty did nothing quite so summary. She wanted to talk things over -with the family, who would be sorely disappointed, she knew, if she -decided to come back to Harding, after she had hinted that perhaps -the Tally-ho could go on with only flitting visits from its Head -Manager. Besides, there was no use in losing the rest of August at -Lakeside, and the Smallest Sister would grieve bitterly if the ritherum -broke its promise to come home soon and play. Betty resolved to have -Dorothy back again in Miss Dick’s school. There were lonely times and -discouraged times ahead of her, she knew, and if a little sister is a -responsibility, she is much more of a comfort. Mother would have Will -and father, and if father went South again she would want to go too, so -it wouldn’t be selfish to ask for Dorothy, if---- - -But in her secret soul, Betty knew that the “if” was a very, very small -one. Father and mother would tell her to do what she felt was best, -and she had no doubt about her final decision. She almost owed it to -Mr. Morton to do anything she could toward making his splendid gift to -Harding as useful as possible, and if Prexy and the directors and Emily -were right she could do a great deal. - -“And isn’t it splendid,” she reflected, “that when I’ve got less money -than ever I can do more? That proves that money isn’t everything--it -isn’t anything unless you are big enough to make it something. Oh, -dear! What if I shouldn’t ‘make good,’ as Will says? Why, I’ve just got -to!” - -Betty set her lips again and walked down the platform of the Cleveland -station with her head so high that she almost ran into Will, who had -come to meet her. - -“Get along all right?” he demanded briskly. - -“All right so far,” Betty told him, “but there’s more ahead, and it’s -fifty times bigger than anything I’ve tried before.” - -“Of course,” Will took it placidly. “No better jobs in this world -without extra work. If it wasn’t a lot bigger thing than you’ve -tackled before, it probably wouldn’t be worth your while.” - -Betty sighed as she surveyed him admiringly. “I suppose you’re right. -I wish I were a man. They’re always so calm and cool. No, I don’t -wish that either. I’m glad I’m a girl and can get just as excited as -I like, and act what you call ‘all up in the air’ once in a while. I -don’t believe things are half so much fun when a person doesn’t get -dreadfully excited about them. So now, Will Wales!” - - - - -CHAPTER III - -THE CULT OF THE B. C. A.’S - - -WHEN Betty first unfolded what Will flippantly called the Morton-Prexy -Proposition to the family circle, the “if” loomed very large indeed on -mother’s face and larger still on Dorothy’s. - -It would be too much for Betty, mother said. “And I don’t want my -little girl to get tired and dragged-out and old before she has to. -There was some reason in her trying to earn money in her own way -last year, but now there isn’t the least sense in plunging into this -project, just when the tea-shop is so nicely started and she has won -the right to an easy time.” - -“But, mother dear,” Betty interposed, “an easy time isn’t the chief -thing in life.” - -“Not exactly a cause worth living for, is it, child?” laughed father. -“And being cook to the Wales family in the intervals when they happen -to have a kitchen never did seem to satisfy your lofty aspirations.” - -“Yes, it does, father,” declared Betty soberly, “but you’re going to -board again this winter, so I can’t be cook much longer. It’s just a -question of where I’m needed most. That sounds dreadfully conceited, -but it really isn’t.” - -So father laughed, and said that he and mother would “talk it -over,” whereat Will winked wickedly at Betty in a way that meant, -“Everything’s settled your way, then,” and hustled her off to dress for -a tennis match, in which the skill of the Wales family was to be pitted -against that of the Bensons. And just as the Wales family had won two -sets out of a hard-fought three, father was saying diplomatically to -mother on the piazza, “Well, dear, I think you’re right as usual; -we ought to let her go and try herself out. It’s not many parents -whose daughters are sought for to fill positions of such trust and -responsibility.” - -“I hope she won’t have to learn to run a typewriter like a regular -secretary,” sighed mother, who had never in the world meant to let -herself be coaxed, by father’s adroit methods, into approving or even -permitting another of those “dreadful modern departures” that her -old-school training and conservative temper united to disapprove. - -Father smiled at her indulgently. “If girls learned to write a -copper-plate hand nowadays as they did when you were young, we -shouldn’t be so dependent on typewriters. Betty’s scrawl is no worse -than the rest. Well, now that this matter is settled and off our minds, -let’s walk out to the big bluff before dark.” - -So the discussion was closed, the “if” dwindled to nothingness once -more, and two weeks after Jim Watson had assisted Mr. Morton to -see Betty off in a fashion befitting that gentleman’s idea of her -importance, he was at the Harding station to meet her--quite without -assistance. - -“Was I the last straw?” he inquired gaily, as they walked down the long -platform toward Main Street. - -“The last straw?” repeated Betty absently. She was wondering whether -the Student’s Aid seniors would expect her to help meet the freshmen at -their trains. - -“Well, the last figure in the column that you added up in order to -estimate the possibilities of Harding as a mission field,” amended Jim. -“Because if I helped to turn the scales in favor of your coming here I -can at last consider myself a useful member of society.” - -“Now don’t be absurd, Jim,” Betty ordered sternly. “Whatever else -you do, I’m sure you’ll never succeed in being a brilliant object of -charity.” - -“Unappreciated, as usual,” sighed Jim. “Nevertheless I invite you to -have an ice at Cuyler’s. It’s going to be very awkward, Betty--your -being proprietress of the Tally-ho. I can never ask you to feed there.” - -“But you can ask all the pretty girls I’m going to introduce you to,” -Betty suggested, but Jim only shrugged his shoulders sceptically. - -“Pretty girls are all right,” he said, “but I already know as many -girls here as I can manage--or I shall when they all arrive. Don’t -forget that I’m to help you meet Miss Helen Chase Adams to-night, and -Miss Morrison to-morrow, and Miss Ayres whenever she telegraphs.” - -“You mustn’t neglect your work,” Betty warned him. - -“Shan’t,” Jim assured her. “I’ve merely arranged it so I can meet -all Eleanor’s friends’ trains. There’s everything in arrangement. I -generally begin my arduous duties at nine, but to-morrow seven o’clock -shall see me up and at ’em--meaning the carpenters, bricklayers, -plasterers, sewing-machine agents, and all the rest of my menials.” - -“With all the extra men that Mr. Morton had sent up, can’t you possibly -get through before Christmas?” demanded Betty eagerly. - -“I can’t say yet,” Jim told her. “Is it so long to wait for your -sewing-machines and things?” - -“Perfect ages!” - -Jim frowned. Betty didn’t mean to be unkind, but any one else, he -reflected sadly, would have considered the personal side of the -matter. Betty was a jolly girl, but all she really cared for was this -confounded philanthropic job--and her tea-shop, maybe. She expected a -fellow to be the same--all wrapped up in his job. - -Madeline arrived, according to custom, ten minutes before her telegram, -and swung up the Tally-ho steps to the lilting tune of her famous song, -“Back to the College Again.” - -“Hello, Betty! Hello, Emily! Hello, Nora and Bridget! I say, but isn’t -this Improved Version of the Tally-ho almost too grand? No, I didn’t -write. I couldn’t; I didn’t decide in time. I had a special article on -fresh air children to write up for a friend of Dick’s, and a Woman’s -Page for the ‘Leader,’ because the person who does it usually, known -to Newspaper Row as Madam Bon Ton, has gone on a vacation to Atlantic -City. But I sat up all last night out at Bob’s, listening to her merry -tales and writing them down, and then pinching her awake to tell me -more whenever I ran out of material. And I did the Woman’s Page on the -train coming up here. We ought to have a real celebration for me after -I’ve worked so hard as all that just to come.” - -“You go ahead and plan one and we’ll have it,” Betty promised -recklessly. - -Madeline nodded, and rushed on to something else. “Is Rachel really -going to teach Zoo, and is Helen Chase Adams going to adorn the English -department? Christy wrote me about her appointment for History. Why, -Betty, there’ll be a regular Harding colony of the finest class this -year. You round them all up for tea to-morrow, and I’ll have the -celebration ready. Never fear about that!” - -“You want Mary Brooks Hinsdale, of course,” Betty suggested. - -Madeline nodded. “All the old bunch, but nobody who’s still in college. -It’s to be strictly a B. C. A. party, tell them.” - -“Madeline,” demanded Emily sternly, “do you know what that stands for, -or are you going to think something up later?” - -Madeline grinned placidly. “Dearest girl, as Madam Bon Ton calls all -her fair correspondents, never so far forget your breeding as to give -way to idle curiosity. It tends to create wrinkles. And speaking of -wrinkles, do you suppose Georgia will murder or otherwise dispose of -her new roommate and take me in for the night?” - -They were all there the next afternoon. Little Helen Chase Adams was -just as prim and demure as ever, but the great honor that had come to -her had put a permanent sparkle in her eyes, and added a comical touch -of confidence to her manner. Rachel’s air of quiet dignity that the -head of her department approved of only made the funny stories she told -of her first experiences as a “faculty” all the funnier. Christy was -her old, serene, dependable self. Mary, in a very becoming new suit, -smiled her “beamish” smile at everybody, and argued violently with -Madeline about the relative importance of being a “small” faculty or a -“big” faculty’s wife. - -“George Garrison Hinsdale is a genius, and he says he couldn’t live -without me,” declared Mary modestly but firmly. Then she smiled again -at the obvious humor of George Garrison Hinsdale’s remark. “Of course -he did live without me until he discovered me.” - -“We couldn’t live without you either, Mary dear,” Rachel assured her. - -“No indeed we couldn’t, you Perfect Patron,” added Madeline. “And that -reminds me that if you don’t hustle around and do something nice for -the Tally-ho right away, you’ll be expelled from the society.” - -“There’s no rule about how often you have to do things,” declared Mary -indignantly, “and anyway I can’t be expelled when I’m the only member. -It’s too utterly absurd.” - -“Is the Perfect Patrons a society?” demanded Christy eagerly. “Can’t we -join? It’s not limited to faculty’s wives, is it?” - -“Rules for the Perfect Patron,” chanted Madeline impressively. “Rule -one: Only the prettiest and best-dressed faculty wife existing at -Harding is eligible. Rule two: In estimating Perfection patronizing the -firm is counted against patronizing the menu. That’s where little Mary -always meets her Waterloo.” - -“I do not, and anyway those rules aren’t half so funny as the real ones -that you made up first,” interpolated Mary sweetly. - -“Well, I’ve forgotten the real ones. Anyway, we don’t need Perfect -Patrons nowadays as much as we did when we were young and poor, instead -of prosperous and almost too elegant. So suppose we attend to the -organization of the B. C. A.’s.” - -“Is that a society, too?” demanded Helen the practical. - -“No, it’s a cult,” explained Madeline curtly. - -“What’s a cult?” - -“What does it stand for?” - -“We’re all ‘Merry Hearts.’ What’s the use of any more clubs?” - -Madeline met the avalanche of questions calmly. - -“A cult is a highly exclusive club--nothing vulgar and common about a -cult, like the Perfect Patrons’ Society, with its crowded membership -list. As for the B. C. A. part, you can take a turn at guessing that. -If any one gets it right we shall know that it’s too easy and that we’d -better change to Greek letters or something. When you’ve guessed what -it’s the cult of, of course you’ll understand the object of organizing -it.” - -“Very lucid indeed,” said Christy solemnly. - -“Don’t try your patronizing faculty airs on me,” Madeline warned her. -“I may say in passing that in my humble opinion no faculty should be -caught belonging to a nice frivolous affair like the ‘Merry Hearts.’ -A kindly desire not to exclude our faculty friends of 19-- from our -councils was of course my chief object in promoting the more dignified -cult of the B. C. A.’s.” - -“B. C. A.--Betty Can’t Argue.” Mary, who had been lost in thought, -burst out with her solution. “She can’t, you know. She always smiles -and says, ‘I don’t know why I think so, but I do.’” - -“Beans Cooked Admirably,” suggested Emily. “Then the obvious -entertainment would be Saturday suppers à la Boston.” - -“Butter Costs Awfully,” amended Christy. “Then the obvious procedure -would be to open a savings account.” - -“Better Come Again,” was Rachel’s contribution. “That sounds nice and -sociable and Madelineish.” - -“Thanks for the compliment. You’re getting the least little speck of a -bit warm,” Madeline told her encouragingly. - -“Brilliant Collegians’ Association,” interposed Betty eagerly. “That -must be right, because you’re all brilliant but me, and I’m the -exception that proves it. Have I guessed, Madeline?” - -Madeline shook her head. “Certainly not. Brilliance should be seen, -not heard, Betty, my child. Besides, according to my well-known theory -of names, a good one should bring out subtle, unsuspected qualities. -That’s why editors get so excited, and even annoyed, about the titles -of my stories; they aren’t generally subtle enough themselves to get my -subtle points.” - -“Well, I may say that I sympathize with the editors,” declared Mary -feelingly. “Hurry and give a guess, Helen Chase, and then maybe she’ll -tell us.” - -“Bromides Can’t Attend,” said Helen timidly. “I suppose that’s wrong -too.” - -“Wildly,” Madeline assured her. - -“And also senseless, I should say,” added Mary. “What in the world are -Bromides?” - -“People who ask foolish questions,” explained Christy, “like that one -you’ve just propounded. The others are Sulphites. Get the book from -Helen, who had it presented to her to read on the train, and then -you’ll know all about it. Now, Madeline, tell us quick.” - -Madeline shrugged her shoulders and stirred her tea with a provoking -air of leisureliness. “It’s nothing to get excited about. Really, -after all your ingenious guesses, the humble reality sounds very tame -and obvious. We are the B. C. A.’s--the Back-to-the-College Again’s. -It sounds simple, but like all my titles it involves deep subtleties. -Why are we, of all the 19--’s who would give their best hats to be -here, ‘elected’ to honor Harding with our presence? What have we in -common? The answer is of course the sign of the cult and the mark of -eligibility. It’s rather late to-day, so probably we’d better postpone -the discussion until the next weekly tea-drinking.” - -“Oh, do we have weekly tea-drinkings?” asked Christy. “Goodie! now tell -our fortunes, Madeline.” - -“Yes, that’s a lot more fun than a silly old discussion,” said Betty, -holding out her cup. - -“Wait a minute, Betty,” interrupted the methodical Rachel. “She hasn’t -told us the object of the cult yet.” - -Madeline swept the circle with a despairing glance. “As if perfectly -good tea and talking about that ever-interesting subject, Ourselves, -wasn’t ‘object’ enough for anybody. But you can have an ‘object’ if you -like. I don’t mind, only you know I always did refuse to get excited -over objects and causes and all that sort of thing.” Madeline reached -for Betty’s cup, and promptly discovered a tall, fair-haired “suitor” -in the bottom of it. “He has an object,” she declared. “Can you guess -what it is? It’s Betty Wales.” - -“Well, I’m sure Betty’s a worthy object for any suitor or any cult,” -Rachel declared. “If you don’t believe it, watch her blush.” - -“I’m not blushing,” Betty defended herself vigorously. “I’m only -thinking--thinking how nice it would be if the B.C.A.’s would take me -for an object. I shall need lots of help and advice, and maybe other -things, and I shall make you give them to me anyway, so you’d better -elect me to be your object, and then you won’t mind so much.” - -“I shall be much relieved, for my part,” declared Madeline. “An object -with yellow curls----” - -“And a dimple,” put in Mary. - -“Isn’t likely to be very much of a bore,” Madeline finished, and -turned her attention to tea-grounds again, discovering so many suitors, -European trips, and splendid presents, that Christy, who was house -teacher at the Westcott, disgraced herself by being late to dinner. As -for Mary Brooks Hinsdale, in the excitement of recounting it all to -her husband, she utterly forgot that she had promised to chaperon the -Westcott House dance and had to be sent for by an irate and anxious -committee, who, however, forgave her everything when she arrived in her -most becoming pink evening gown, declaring fervently that she should be -heart-broken if she couldn’t dance every single number. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -THE GRASSHOPPER WAGER - - -THE two weeks after college opened were the most confused, crowded, -delightful, and difficult ones that Betty Wales had ever lived through. -There seemed to be twice as many freshmen as there had ever been in -Harding before. The town swarmed with them and with their proud and -anxious fathers and mothers and sisters and aunts. They fell upon the -Tally-ho Tea-Shop with such ardor that Emily was in despair--or would -have been if Betty hadn’t assumed charge of the dinner hour herself and -adroitly impressed Madeline with the literary value of seeing life from -the cashier’s desk at lunch time. - -Miss Dick’s school opened a fortnight after Harding, and then there was -Dorothy to meet--the Bensons had brought her east with them on their -way to New York--and the little girl was to be established this time in -the boarding department, to the arrangements of which she immediately -took a perverse dislike. Considering that she was the youngest boarder -and the pet and darling of the whole school, this seemed quite -unreasonable, particularly as all the year before she had teased to -be a “boarder.” But Eugenia Ford took most of this worry off Betty’s -hands, getting up early every morning to go over for a before-breakfast -story, told while she combed out the Smallest Sister’s tangled curls, -and never forgetting to appear in the evening at the exactly right -minute to deliver a good-night kiss. - -“Don’t thank me, please,” she begged Betty imploringly. “Feeling as -if I had to do it makes her seem a little more like my very own. Just -think!” Eugenia’s eyes filled, but she went on bravely. “I might be -doing it for my very own little sister, if a dreadful French ‘bonne’ -hadn’t been careless about a cold she took. How can mothers ever care -more about having dinner parties and dances and going to the opera, -Miss Wales, than about playing with their babies and seeing that -they’re all right? My mother is like Peter Pan, I think. She will never -grow up. And she never liked dolls when she was little, so naturally -she didn’t care to play with us.” Eugenia flushed, suddenly realizing -that she was indulging in rather strange confidences. “My mother is -a great beauty, Miss Wales, and awfully bright and entertaining. I’m -very, very proud of her. And if Dorothy is the least bit sick or tired -or unhappy on a day when you don’t see her, I’ll be sure to notice and -tell you, so you can feel perfectly safe.” - -Of course the greatest problem, and one that nobody but Betty could -do much to cope with, was the launching of the secretaryship. -The secretary had been provided with a cozy little office, very -businesslike with its roller-topped desk, a big filing cabinet, and a -typewriter stand, tucked away in a corner of the Main Building; but -beyond that the trustful directors apparently expected her to shift -for herself. Betty promptly interviewed the two faculty members of -the board, who smiled at her eagerness and anxiety to please, and -advised her not to be in a hurry, but to begin with the obvious routine -work--that meant interviewing and investigating the needs and the -deserts of the girls who had applied for loans from the Student’s -Aid--and to branch out gradually later, as opportunity offered. - -“But I can’t do just that,” Betty told the second B. C. A. -tea-drinking, “because it’s no more than they did themselves before -they had a secretary. It would be like stealing to take their money for -just that.” - -“Oh, I don’t know,” advised Madeline lazily. “If they want to make it a -snap course, isn’t that entirely their affair?” - -“Why, Madeline Ayres,” objected Helen Adams solemnly, “it’s a -charitable enterprise. I don’t suppose snap courses are exactly wrong, -though they never amount to much, and so they waste the time of the -ones that take them. But it would be positively wrong for the Student’s -Aid to waste its money, when so many more poor girls want educations -than can have them.” - -Madeline listened, frowning intently. “‘The Immorality of the Snap -Course’--I’ll do a little essay on that for the alumnæ department of -the ‘Argus.’ It will rattle the editor awfully, but she will almost -have to print it, after having teased and teased me for a few words -from my facile and distinguished pen. Thanks a lot, Helen, for the -idea. I’d give you the credit in a foot-note, only it might scare girls -away from your courses.” - -“Aren’t you thankful, girls,” began Mary, waving her teacup -majestically around the circle, “that only one of us is a literary -light? I wonder if real authors are as everlastingly given to changing -the subject back to their own affairs as is our beloved Madeline. Now -let’s get down to business----” - -“Hear! Hear!” cried Madeline. “Little Mary will now voice her own and -George Garrison Hinsdale’s sentiments on the immorality of the snap -course. Lend me a pencil, somebody, so I can take notes of her valued -ideas.” - -“The business,” continued Mary, scornfully ignoring the interruption, -“is to find more work for Betty, so she can earn her munificent salary -properly. The meeting is now open for suggestions.” - -“Well, Mary, fire away,” ordered Madeline briskly. “Of course a person -with your head for business is simply overflowing with brilliant -thoughts.” - -“You think you’re being sarcastic, but just the same,” declared Mary -modestly, “I have got a head for business----” - -“Witness the way you used to make your accounts balance when you -were in college, and the way your allowance lasted,” put in Rachel -laughingly. - -Mary smiled reminiscently. “My dear Rachel, a head for business is -entirely different from being able to remember what you’ve spent. And -even if I remembered, I couldn’t add it all up. But that’s bookkeeping, -not business. As for using up my allowance ahead of time, I’m naturally -an expansionist, and where would any respectable business be, may I ask -you, if it didn’t go out every now and then and get more capital to -expand with? I expanded the possibilities of the Harding course, and my -father paid the bills; unfortunately there are always bills,” concluded -Mary with a sigh. - -“Do you still finish your allowance on the fourth of the month?” -demanded Christy. - -Mary shook her pretty head smilingly. “Never--for the good and -sufficient reason that George Garrison Hinsdale understands me too well -to give me an allowance.” - -“The business of this meeting,” chanted Madeline sonorously, “is not, -as you might suppose, a discussion of little Mary’s domestic and -financial affairs.” - -“Well, the girls asked me questions,” declared Mary indignantly, “and I -didn’t know that there was any such awful rush. I’m not trying to gain -time while I think up an inspiration, as you--well, I won’t start any -more quarrels. I’ll only say that I’m not delaying in hopes of having -an idea for Betty, because I’ve already got one. I think she ought to -advertise.” - -“How?” - -“Why?” - -“Sounds as if she was a breakfast food or a patent medicine.” - -“She’s an employment bureau at present,” explained Mary serenely, -“and when Morton Hall is ready to open she’ll be a house agent. She’s -got to let people know that the bulletin-board in the gym basement is -a back member, because she has it beaten cold. She impersonates the -great and only link between the talented poor and the idle rich in this -community.” - -“That sounds well,” admitted Christy, “but how in the world is she to -do it--be the great and only link, I mean?” - -Mary shrugged her shoulders, and began putting on her gloves, which -were new and fitted beautifully. “I leave all that to you,” she -said. “I really must go now. Miss Ferris is having an intellectual -dinner party for a philosopher from Boston, and we’re asked. I always -make a point of wearing my prettiest things to their intellectual -dinners--it’s the least and the most that I can do--and one’s prettiest -things do take ages to get into. Good-bye, my dears.” - -“She’s hit it, as usual,” said Rachel admiringly, when Mary’s trim -little figure had rustled out of sight. “The important thing to do is -to make the girls realize what you’re here for. Most of them know that -you’re the new Student’s Aid secretary----” - -“But they don’t know how to use you in their business,” Christy took -her up. - -“And the ones that need you most will always be too scared,” put in -Helen Adams earnestly. “When I was a junior”--she blushed a little at -her tardy admission--“my mother lost some money, and we didn’t have -as much interest to live on. I thought I might have to leave college, -and I wondered if the Student’s Aid would help me to stay. But I was -too scared to ask. I started twice to go and see one of the faculty -directors, but I just couldn’t screw up my courage. And then mother -sold a farm that she’d wanted to get rid of for years, so it was all -right. But--well, I wasn’t ashamed to ask for help; I was just scared,” -ended Helen incoherently. - -“Results of investigation up to date,” began Emily, who was dividing -her time between the cashier’s desk and the B. C. A.’s table. “First, -let people know what you are here for; secondly, take away the scared -feeling from girls, who, as well as you can guess, may need help; -third--this is original with me--get the girls who have money properly -excited about having things done for them. I can tell you, I used -to bless the B’s for the sentiment they created in favor of hiring -somebody to sew on skirt braids and mend stockings.” - -“Well, the B’s aren’t the only ones who can create sentiments,” said -Madeline. “Georgia’s very good at it, and the Dutton twins are regular -geniuses. Fluffy Dutton could make people so wildly enthusiastic over -the binomial theorem that they’d be ready to die for it if she asked -them to.” - -“Then get them started on Betty,” ordered Rachel. “Madeline Ayres is -hereby elected to enthuse all the champion enthusers on the subject of -the enjoyability of being mended up by somebody else.” - -Madeline bowed gravely. “I hereby accept the chairmanship of the -committee on Proper Excitement of the Idle Rich, and I would suggest -Rachel Morrison as chairman of the committee on Proper Encouragement of -the Timid Poor, and Christy Mason to head one on Proper Exploitation -of Miss Betty Wales, the eager, earnest, and insufficiently employed -Student’s Aid Secretary.” - -“If I might humbly suggest something at this point,” laughed Christy, -“it would be that Betty might like to invent her own committees and -choose the chairmen of them.” - -“Oh, no indeed,” cried Betty heartily. “You all have such splendid -ideas and Madeline has such lovely names for things. Please go on and -think of something else. I haven’t dared to say a word all this time, -because I was so afraid that you would stop.” - -“That’s the proper spirit for an Object.” Madeline patted Betty’s -shoulder encouragingly. “Accept the goods the B. C. A.’s provide. -Instead of not earning your salary, my child, you’re going to give -the Student’s Aid the biggest kind of a bargain. Besides one small -secretary (with curls and a dimple) they’re getting the invaluable -assistance of at least six prominent graduates, and any number of -influential college girls. If that’s not a run for their money, I -should like to know what they want.” - -“Oh, they haven’t acted dissatisfied,” explained Betty hastily. “It was -only I that was worried.” - -“Well, I should like to know what you want, then,” amended Madeline -with severity. Then she smiled a self-satisfied little smile. “It’s all -right to ask ‘What’s in a name?’ There’s nothing much in some names, -but if these committees of mine aren’t rather extra popular on account -of their stylish headings, I shall stop trying to make a reputation for -clever titles and devote my life to producing horrible commonplaces -for the Woman’s Page of the Sunday papers. I’m going up to the campus -this minute to talk to Georgia and Fluffy Dutton. Come along, Rachel, -and get your committee started too.” - -“Wait a minute, Madeline,” Emily broke in. “Why not organize a sort -of council of all the committees, and have a meeting of it here some -afternoon next week to talk over the situation?” - -Madeline stared at her sadly. “If you think I’m going to spoil my -perfectly good committee by asking it to meet, you don’t understand -the first principles of my sweet and simple nature. The last way to -properly excite people is to hold stupid meetings. Come along, Rachel, -before my beautiful enthusiasm vanishes.” - -The next morning Fluffy Dutton appeared in “Psych. 6” ten minutes after -the hour, with a yard of black mohair braid trailing conspicuously from -her note-book. - -The lecture was hopelessly dull, and the class concentrated its -wandering attention on the braid which, with a notice pinned to one -end, traveled slowly up and down the room. - - “For those wishing to be neat - Here’s a plan that can’t be beat. - Pin your name upon this braid - You’ll a needy student aid. - Tell her where and when to call - And she’ll do it--that is all. - She’ll rip the old braid, sew on new, - And prompt return your skirt to you.” - -So read the rhyming notice, and below it was printed in large letters, -“Lowest Prices for all Repairing, Mending, and Plain Sewing (including -Gym Suits).” - -When the strip of braid got back to Fluffy it looked like the tail of a -kite, with its collection of orders scattered artistically up and down -its length. - -“Yes, I wrote the rhyme,” Fluffy admitted modestly, when the class was -dismissed. “Wrote it between breakfast and chapel. What made me late to -Psych. was buying the braid. Georgia wrote one too, and we are racing -each other to see who gets the largest number of orders. Oh, yes, I -suppose they do need the work--or the money rather. But the thing that -appeals to me is the impression I shall make on my mother when I go -home all neat and tidy and mended up for once. Haven’t you a freshman -sister? Well, put her down for a gym suit, that’s a dear! Georgia’s -going to catch me a dozen grasshoppers if I win. I hate catching things -so--my hair always blows in my eyes.” - -“And what if Georgia wins?” - -“Oh, then I’ve got to catch her a dozen grasshoppers,” said Fluffy -resignedly. “But I don’t care much, because I shall hire it done, -and that will be all for the good of the cause. But I can’t believe -that she will win, because gym suits count as three skirt braids, and -positions for waitresses count as five. I’m going to get a lot of those -from eleven to twelve. Georgia is furious because this is her lab. -morning, and she can’t get a good start.” And Fluffy trailed her skirt -braid over to Junior Lit. where she got so many orders that she had -to unpin them, place them on file, so to speak, in the front of her -shirt-waist, and start over. - -It may be reprehensible to wager grasshoppers; but, as Fluffy pointed -out to some humane friend, they were doomed in any case, and there -was a piquant flavor of adventure about the whole proceeding that -appealed strongly to one type of the Harding mind. The committee on -the Encouragement (and discovery) of the Timid Poor convened hastily -that same evening in Betty’s shiny new office, and discovered that -while their day’s work had necessarily been less spectacular than their -rivals’, it had been equally effective. There would be no trouble in -matching workers to skirt braids. - -“But there’ll be all kinds of trouble about flunked courses,” announced -Eugenia Ford solemnly, “unless we remember to pay better attention in -‘Psych. 6.’ He gave out a written lesson for to-morrow on purpose, -because there was so much whispering and rustling around to-day.” - -“The more flunking, the more tutoring,” suggested a pretty junior, and -blushed very pink when she remembered that Rachel Morrison was on the -faculty. - -“That was a foolish remark,” she added apologetically. “For my part, I -honestly think there’ll be less flunking than usual. It makes you more -in earnest about your own college course when you see how some girls -value it, and what they’ll sacrifice to get it. Come along, Eugenia, -and let’s begin to burn the midnight oil.” - - - - -CHAPTER V - -REINFORCEMENTS - - -THE initiation of Babbie Hildreth, which had to be over in time for the -participants to meet Eleanor Watson’s train, was the feature of the -next B. C. A. tea-drinking, held two days ahead of time in honor of the -double reinforcement to the ranks of 19--. - -“I hope you’re all satisfied. I’ve come up here out of pure curiosity -about this old cult,” announced Babbie, when they were settled cozily -in Flying Hoof’s stall. “You all wrote the most maddening letters--it -was arranged, I know, what each one should say, so that I’d keep -getting crazier and crazier to be let into the secret.” - -“Didn’t you rather want to see your elegant new tea-shop?” demanded -Rachel innocently. - -“Ye-es”--Babbie flushed,--“of course I did. It’s lovely, isn’t it? Nora -must appreciate her splendid kitchen----” - -“Why, you haven’t seen the kitchen yet, Babbie,” cried Helen Adams -reproachfully. “I’ve been with you every minute since you came.” - -“Well, I can guess what it’s like, can’t I?” Babbie defended herself. - -“Babbie Hildreth,” demanded Madeline, sternly, “when were you up here -last?” - -“In August,” Babbie admitted sulkily, “if you must know. My Aunt -Belinda brought me up in her car.” She brightened in spite of herself. -“Aunt Belinda is so lovely and romantic. She thinks it’s all right for -me to come up and see Robert, since he can’t come very often to see me. -Mother doesn’t, exactly. But she was terribly amused at this B. C. A. -cult. She told me to run along and satisfy my ‘satiable curiosity’ if I -wanted to. I--oh, excuse me one minute, please!” - -Having thoughtfully secured a seat at the end of the stall, Babbie -had been the first to observe a dark object in the act of vaulting -the Tally-ho’s back fence. She intercepted the dark object on the -front walk, and accompanied it forthwith to Paradise, where the tea -and marmalade that you hunger for and the curiosity that you feel -about mysterious “cults” may both, under favorable circumstances, be -forgotten as utterly as if they had never been. - -So the B. C. A.’s amused themselves by inventing some stunning -“features” for a formal initiation ceremony to be held later for -Eleanor and Babbie together, ate Babbie’s share of the muffins and -jam, congratulated themselves on the way they had “set Betty up in -business,” as Mary Brooks modestly put it, and waited so long for their -beloved “Object” to appear--it was an office-hours afternoon, and Betty -had refused to desert her post even for a B. C. A. tea-drinking--that -they had to run all the way to the station, only to discover, on -arriving there breathless and disheveled, that the train was an hour -late. - -“So we might just as well have preserved the dignity of the Harding -faculty and wives,” sighed Mary, straightening her new fall hat. “It’s -all your fault, Betty Wales. You said you’d come in time to go to the -train, and we kept thinking you’d arrive upon the scene every single -minute. And the longer we waited the more we ate, and then the harder -it was to run.” - -“Some one came in to see me just at the last minute,” Betty explained. -“I couldn’t say that I had an engagement when it was just larks.” - -Betty let the cult and its friends get all the orders they would for -skirt braids and gym suits, and all possible data about needy girls; -but she never confided in them, in return--a conservative attitude -which Madeline considered “distinctly snippy.” - -“I just know you’re concealing all sorts of stunning short stories -about your person,” she declared. “Now Bob tells me lovely things about -her fresh-air kids. She isn’t such a clam.” - -But Betty was equally impervious to being called a clam and to -fulfilling her obligations toward Madeline’s Literary Career. The humor -and the pathos that came into the secretary’s office she regarded as -state secrets, to be never so much as hinted at, even to her dearest -friends. - -“But it sometimes seems as if I should just burst with it all,” she -told Jim Watson, who poked his head in her door nearly every day, and -rapidly withdrew it again if any one else was with her. “It isn’t only -the girls who come on regular business that are so queer, but the ones -that come just for advice. Eugenia Ford has the strangest ideas about -my being able to straighten things out, and she’s told her crowd, and -they’ve told their friends. Every day some girl walks in and says, -‘Are you the one who will answer questions?’ Then I say who I am, and -suggest that maybe she wants her class officer. But she says no, she -means me; and maybe she’s a freshman who has decided that she can’t -live another day without her collie dog, and maybe she’s a senior, who -has cut too much and is frightened silly about being sent home, and -maybe she’s a pretty, muddle-headed little sophomore who’s in love -with a Winsted man and doesn’t dare tell her father and mother, and -is thinking of eloping. Oh, Jim, these are just possible cases, you -understand, not real ones. But you mustn’t ever breathe a word of what -I’ve said.” - -“I’m as silent as a tomb,” Jim would assure her gravely each time that -something too nearly “real” slipped out. - -“Well, you’re the only one I ever do burst out to,” Betty assured -him, “except when I decide that it’s only right to ask Miss Ferris or -Prexy or some responsible person like them for advice. I don’t know -why I should talk so much more about it to you, except that you don’t -know any of the girls and never will, whereas Madeline would be sure -to write up anything funny that she heard, and Rachel and Christy and -Helen are on the faculty and the girls who come to see me might be in -their classes, and if Emily Davis knew she’d want terribly to tell the -rest.” - -“All girls are leaky,” Jim would announce sententiously at this point -in the argument. “Besides, I’ve been a secretary myself. My job was -exactly the same as yours in the matter of holding confidential -information. Now when are you coming over to see about that linen -closet?” - -It was really not at all surprising, considering how highly Jasper J. -Morton valued her opinion, that his architectural representative found -it necessary to consult Betty Wales almost every day on some problem -growing out of the peculiar adaptabilities and arrangements of Morton -Hall. - - * * * * * - -The B. C. A.’s paced the station platform till they were tired, and -then they further outraged the dignity of the “faculty and wives” -by sitting down to rest on a baggage truck, and swinging their feet -off the edge. It was thus that Jim, who had taken the precaution to -telephone the ticket agent before leaving home, found them a few -minutes before Eleanor’s arrival. - -“Do make yourselves as fascinating as you can,” he implored them all -naïvely, “so she’ll stay. She’s been taking singing lessons lately at -home, and her teacher had a New York teacher visiting her, and both of -them got excited about Eleanor’s voice. So now she’s written about some -crazy plan she has for a winter in New York, studying music. That’s all -right after Christmas, maybe, but at present I want her right here, -and the person who can make her see it that way wins my everlasting -gratitude.” - -[Illustration: SITTING DOWN TO REST ON A BAGGAGE TRUCK] - -“You’ll be likely to win your own everlasting gratitude, I should -say,” Madeline told him. “Eleanor was always expatiating on the charms -of her brother Jim.” - -Jim blushed. “That’s all right, but I have a feeling that she’s keener -about some other fellow’s charms by this time. Plenty of fellows are -certainly keen about hers. But lately she doesn’t pay any attention -to them--just goes in for slumming and improving her mind, and now -her voice. So give her a good time, and get her excited about your -mysterious club, and when she begins on the earnestness of life and the -self-improvement business, ring in all Miss Betty’s philanthropies. And -I’ll come in strong on the lonely brother act. I say, there she is this -minute!” - -Jim gave a running jump on to the platform of a passing car and had his -innings while the girls, taken unaware, scrambled down from their truck -and hurried after him. - -It didn’t seem as if it would be hard to keep Eleanor. There was -the little awkward moment at first, that even the best of friends -experience when they haven’t seen each other for over a year; and then -such a babel of talk and laughter, of questions asked all at once -and never answered, of explanations interrupted by exclamations, and -rendered wholly incoherent by hugs and kisses. - -“You haven’t changed a bit,” they told her. - -“Yes, you have! You’re prettier than ever.” - -“When will you sing for us?” - -“Have you done any writing lately?” - -“Are you too tired to see the Tally-ho right away?” - -“You’re to live in Rachel’s little white house, you know, and we’re all -quarreling about when we can have you for dinner.” - -“Picnics! I should think so. As many as you want.” - -“Don’t those infants make the absurdest imitations of faculties?” - -“How do you like little Mary’s new hat?” - -They walked up Main Street chattering like magpies and forgetting to -turn out for anybody, Jim bringing up the rear with Eleanor’s suit case -in one hand and a book of Babbie’s and an untidy bundle of manuscript -that Madeline had dropped in her excitement tucked under the other arm. - -Christy invited the whole party to dinner at the Tally-ho, and they -decided that it was quite warm enough to eat in the top story of the -Peter Pan annex. Jim had lighted all the Chinese lanterns and hauled -up two baskets full of dinner, while the girls chattered merrily on -as if they never meant to stop, when Babbie and Mr. Thayer appeared, -sauntering slowly down the hill from the direction of Paradise. They -didn’t seem at all ashamed of the way Babbie had been snatched away -from her own initiation party, but shouted up that they were simply -starved to death, and cheerfully assuming that there was dinner enough -and room enough for all comers, they annexed themselves to Christy’s -party. - -“You’re lucky to have a sister to look after you,” Mr. Thayer told -Jim. “I opened a big club-house for my mill people last winter, just -to please these young ladies, and how do they pay me? By cold, cruel -neglect.” - -“Nonsense!” Madeline contradicted him cheerfully. “We gave you a -splendid start. That’s all we do for anybody.” - -“We’re all so busy,” Betty added quickly. “But we are just as -interested as we ever were. Isn’t the girl I sent you managing well?” - -Mr. Thayer nodded. “Only she can’t seem to discover a genius who’s able -to take hold of the prize class.” - -“Is that the one my adorable Rafael is in?” demanded Madeline. “Because -if it is, I might----” - -“It is, but you can’t have it,” Babbie told her firmly. “They -changed teachers four times last year, after you dropped them so -unceremoniously. This time they’re to have some one who will stick, -aren’t they, Robert?” - -Mr. Thayer looked uncomfortable, not wishing either to contradict -Babbie or to slight Madeline’s offer. “It’s better, of course, but -perhaps Miss Madeline will stick this time.” - -“Robert!” Babbie’s tone was very hopeless. “Can’t you understand that -Madeline is about as likely to stick as Prexy is to dance a hornpipe -at to-morrow’s chapel?” She sighed deeply. “It must be terrible to be -a reformer; you have to be so hopeful about people’s turning over a -new leaf--whether it’s Madeline sticking, or a dreadful old Frenchman -beating his wife, or the angelic-looking Rafael learning his alphabet.” - -“Haven’t they learned that yet?” asked Madeline incredulously. - -“Certainly not,” retorted Babbie. “You jabbered Italian all the time -to them, and that spoiled them so that they never would study for the -other teachers.” - -“I regret my reprehensible familiarity with their mother tongue,” -announced Madeline grandiloquently, “and I hereby make due reparation.” -Her glance wandered around the table. “I elect Eleanor Watson to take -the prize class.” - -“Tell me about it,” Eleanor asked. “I don’t understand at all. I didn’t -know there were any foreigners in Harding.” - -So they told her about Factory Hill, about Young-Man-Over-the-Fence -and his Twelfth-Night party that accidentally started the fund for -the club-house, about the education clause in the new factory laws, -the club organization, which was now so efficiently managed by the -Student’s Aid’s prize beneficiary--a senior who had earned every bit -of her college course--and finally about Rafael and Giuseppi and -Pietro and the other Italian boys, who scorned their French and Polish, -Portuguese and German comrades, and insisted upon their own little -club--a concession in return for which they played truant, refused -to study or pay attention, and quarreled violently on the slightest -provocation. They would have to be dropped from the factory pay-roll, -according to the new law, if they did not speedily mend their ways and -learn to read and write. - -“Why, I should be almost afraid to be left alone with them,” Eleanor -exclaimed at the end of the recital. “Do they carry daggers?” - -“No, they’re not quite so barbaric as that,” Mr. Thayer told her. -“They are just lively boys, who’ve been brought up with strong race -prejudices and no chance to have the jolly good times that would make -them forget their feuds and revolts. They work hard because their -fathers make them, and because it’s the regular way of living for them. -But being forced to study they consider the most bitter tyranny. The -factory inspectors have had their cases up twice now, and if I can’t -make a good report on them at Christmas I shall have to let them go. -I hate to, because they can’t get other work here, and if they leave -their homes and friends, nine out of the ten will probably go straight -to the bad.” - -“There’s your chance, Eleanor,” Jim told her eagerly. - -“But, Jim, I can’t ‘stick,’ as Babbie calls it. I’m here only for a -little visit. My music----” - -“Go down every week for a lesson,” Jim ordered easily. “Don’t miss -a chance at a ripping New England autumn with all this good society -thrown in.” - -“Even if you’re not staying long, do take them off my hands for a few -weeks,” begged Mr. Thayer. “They’re afraid of me and sulk stupidly if -I try to teach them, and they’ve been rather too much for any of the -girls who’ve tried.” - -“Then what makes you think----” began Eleanor. - -“You’ve been elected, Eleanor,” Madeline broke in impatiently. “That -settles it. You can manage them the way you managed that newsboys’ -club in Denver. Oh, I’ve heard----” as Eleanor flushed and protested. -“That’s why I elected you. Now we want some songs. Where’s her guitar, -Monsieur Jacques? If Rafael won’t learn the alphabet any other way, you -can sing it to him.” - -So Eleanor laughingly consented to meet the Terrible Ten, as Babbie -called them, the next night, and the Ten won her heart, as Jim had -hoped they would. - -Eleanor never mentioned the alphabet. She merely inquired of the circle -of dark faces who had heard of Robin Hood, and receiving only sullen -negatives, she began a story. One by one the sullen faces grew eager. -At a most exciting point, where Robin and his band were on the point of -playing a fine joke on the Sheriff of Nottingham, she stopped abruptly. - -“I’m tired,” she said. “That’s all for to-night.” - -“You tella more next day?” demanded the graceless Rafael. He had fairly -drowned out the first part of the tale with muttered threats upon -Pietro, who had hidden his cap. - -Eleanor hesitated diplomatically. “Would you really like to hear the -rest?” she asked finally. - -Rafael’s brown eyes met hers, clouded with supreme indifference, and -his expressive shoulders shrugged coldly. - -“Oh, maybe,” he admitted. - -“Then what will you do for me? You can’t expect me to amuse you big -boys the whole evening, while you do nothing to amuse me in return. -This is a club, you know. In a club everybody does something for -everybody else.” - -“What you like?” demanded Rafael, with suppressed eagerness. - -“Yes, what you like?” echoed Pietro, the quarrel between them quite -forgotten. - -“I’m very fond of pictures,” announced Eleanor gravely. “If you’d each -draw a picture of Robin Hood on the blackboard over there--here are a -lot of colored chalks--and put his name under it--Robin, we’ll call him -for short--why, I should think you’d done your full share.” - -The Terrible Ten exchanged bewildered glances, and one after another -slouched nonchalantly to the chalk box. The colored crayons were -a novelty, nine of the Terrible Ten were born artists, and the -tenth--Rafael, whose crushed hand was still stiff and awkward--was -pathetically anxious to satisfy the new teacher’s strange demands. His -Robin Hood looked like a many colored smutch, with a sprawling green -frame around it--that was Sherwood forest, thrown in for good measure. - -“Don’t forget the name,” Eleanor reminded them calmly, when, the -pictures finished, the artists began to exchange furtive glances again -in regard to the next requirement. - -“You make lil’ sample on mine,” suggested Rafael craftily. - -“No, I’ll make one up here,” Eleanor amended, “where everybody can see -it.” - -And to her surprise the Terrible Ten, with many sighs and grimaces, -and much smutting out of mistakes with wetted fingers, toilsomely -accomplished the writing. - -“Now,” Eleanor said, “let’s talk for a while before we go home. There’s -a bag of peanuts under my coat. Will you bring it, please, Pietro?” She -took the bag and grouped the boys around the long table. “Now let’s -play a game while we eat. I’ll ask questions, and the one that answers -quickest gets some peanuts. Listen now: if I give Pietro six peanuts -and Giovanni five, how many will that be?” - -Dazed looks on the faces of the Ten, followed by anxious -finger-counting. - -“Fifteen,” hazarded Pietro. - -“Nix, nine,” shrieked Rafael. - -Giuseppi got it right, and to make sure they counted at the top of -their lungs, while Eleanor passed him, one by one, the eleven peanuts. - -“Now, if he gives Pietro two----” began Eleanor. - -“Aw, come off. You say you gif to me,” interrupted Giuseppi. “I wish to -keep my peanuts.” - -Eleanor gravely accepted the amendment. “All right.” She counted out -eleven peanuts, and held them up in her hand. “Now I have eleven -peanuts. If I give Pietro two”--she suited the action to the word--“how -many have I left?” - -More frantic finger-counting, and this time Giovanni got the prize. - -Then Rafael and his six unfed comrades burst into angry protests. “You -give Pietro two for nix. He never guess right.” - -“No fair that he gets some for nix.” - -Eleanor met the crisis calmly. “They’re my peanuts, so I can give him -two if I like. But wait a minute. See what I do now. I give Rafael two, -you two, you two, and you, and you, and you, and you. How many is that? -The one that guesses right gets as many as all you boys have together. -Quick now.” - -Efforts to eat the peanuts and count them at the same time resulted in -absolute pandemonium. - -“Let’s have paper,” Eleanor suggested. “That’s easier than doing it all -in your head.” - -Before the evening was over the passing out of peanuts two by two had -accomplished the learning of the “two-times” table, as far as two times -ten. - -“Who promises to come next time?” asked Eleanor, while they waited -awkwardly for her to gather up her wraps. - -“Me.” - -“Me.” - -“Me.” - -“You bet I do.” - -“Dis club is O.K.” - -“You doan fergit the story?” - -“Not if you’ll all try to remember the ‘two-times’ table,” Eleanor -promised, shaking hands gravely all around. - -“She’s de peach fer sure. Gotta all dem oder teachers beat,” announced -Pietro on the steps. - -“Don’t you call her no peach. She’s a lovely lady,” corrected Rafael, -aiming a deft blow with his left hand. - -“Ain’t a lada a peach?” challenged Pietro, dancing out of reach. - -“All right for Italian girl, not good enough for lika her,” Rafael -answered fiercely. - -“Wonder if she bring more dem peanuts next week,” speculated Nicolo. - -“She ain’t no millionaire, maybe.” Rafael turned upon him scowling. -“But doan you dare fergit the two-times, ’cause den she’ll fergit -Robin. I killa de kid dat fergits.” - -Rafael was evidently the Ten’s leader. They received his dire threat -in awed silence, and tramped off, chanting the two-times table with a -vigor that reached Eleanor, reporting her evening’s experiences to Mr. -Thayer, and clinched her wavering determination into a promise to stay -for at least a month in Harding. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -FRISKY FENTON’S MARTYRDOM - - -THE Smallest Sister was reconciled at last to being a boarder. - -“I’ve got a new chum,” she announced eagerly, coming to see her sister -on an afternoon which Betty, feeling more than usually “caught-up” with -her other activities, had decided to devote to Dorothy. - -“What’s happened to Shirley Ware?” asked Betty. - -“We’re mad at each other--at least I’m mad at Shirley.” The Smallest -Sister assumed an air of injured innocence. “We don’t speak any more, -except to say good-morning at breakfast if Miss Dick is looking right -at us.” - -“But that’s so silly, Dorothy,” Betty protested. “Shirley is a dear -little girl, and if you’ve quarreled it’s probably more your fault than -hers. Tell me all about it, dearie.” - -“Well,” Dorothy began sulkily, “I’d just as soon tell you, only -Frisky--that’s Francisca Fenton, my new chum--she asked us all not to -say anything more about it. I’m not the only one that’s mad at Shirley. -Nearly every single girl at Miss Dick’s is too,--only being chums with -her makes it worse for me, because I’m so ashamed of her.” - -“Who is this Francisca Fenton?” asked Betty, digressing diplomatically -for a moment from the main issue. “I never even heard you speak of her -before. Haven’t you become chums very fast?” - -Dorothy nodded importantly. “She’s one of the older girls. Maybe you -haven’t heard me speak of her, but I’ve just nearly worshipped her ever -since she came last fall. The other day when I cried because I was so -mad at Shirley and so ashamed of her, why, she came and asked me to -be chums. Her chum was in it too, you see. I mean she took sides with -Shirley.” - -“Sides about what?” asked Betty innocently. - -“About being a tattle-tale, of course,” Dorothy began, and stopped -short, setting her pretty little mouth in a straight, determined line. -“Frisky asked me not to talk about it, and I shan’t,” she announced. -“So don’t you try to make me.” - -Betty was mending a pair of Dorothy’s gloves. She stuck the needle into -the rip, folded the gloves, and silently began upon the holes in her -own stockings. Dorothy pretended to look out the window, but she kept -one eye on Betty, who appeared completely absorbed in her work. - -“It’s a lovely day,” the Smallest Sister observed presently. - -No answer. - -“Aren’t we going for our walk pretty soon?” demanded the Smallest -Sister, after a polite interval. - -There was another polite interval, then she came over to Betty’s chair -and repeated her question. “Didn’t you hear me, Betty? I asked can’t we -go for our walk pretty soon?” - -Betty looked at her coldly. “You can go any time you like,” she said. - -“But I’m your company. You asked me to spend the afternoon, and have -supper with you and Miss Eleanor and Eugenia.” - -Betty continued her cold scrutiny of the Smallest Sister’s small -person. “I asked my nice little sister to supper,” she announced -judicially. “I didn’t ask a silly little girl who has silly little -quarrels with her best friends, and then won’t talk it over with me and -let me help her straighten it all out.” - -“I don’t want to straighten it out,” muttered Dorothy defiantly, “and -Frisky specially asked us----” - -“Not to talk about it in the school,” concluded Betty. “If she asked -you not to talk about it to your mothers and big sisters, why, she -isn’t a good kind of chum for you. She can’t be.” - -Dorothy flushed an angry pink. “Just wait till you see her. She’s -lovely. She’s the nicest chum I ever, ever had.” - -Betty got up quietly and handed the Smallest Sister her hat and coat. -“You’d better be going back, I think,” she said very cheerfully. - -“Back where?” - -“To school, of course, for supper.” - -“I can’t do that,” Dorothy interposed hastily. “Why, I asked Miss Dick -for permission to come and stay with you till the evening study hour. -She’d think it was very queer for me not to stay.” - -“I’ll telephone her and explain,” said Betty inexorably. - -“I shan’t go if you do,” declared the little rebel. “So now! I shan’t -go!” - -“Dorothy Wales,” began Betty gravely, putting one arm around the -Smallest Sister’s waist and drawing her stiff little figure closer, -“if mother were here and you acted this way you know as well as I do -what she’d do. She’d send you straight to bed to stay all this lovely -long afternoon. Now I’m not mother, so I can’t do that. It’s not my -place. But I can see that I’ve made a mistake in bringing you here. I -thought you loved me enough to do as I want--as I think best, I mean. -You don’t, so I must send you home to mother at once. Now I want you to -go right back to Miss Dick’s, and tell her that I can’t have you to tea -to-day. You needn’t say why. And I shall write to mother to-night.” - -“But Betty----” - -“There’s no use arguing about it, Dorothy,” Betty cut her short. “I -mean exactly what I say. Put on your hat at once.” - -A month of being the youngest boarder and the school pet, supplemented -by Eugenia’s many flattering attentions, had badly spoiled the Smallest -Sister, but she could still recognize the voice of authority. In an -uncomfortable flash she came to her senses. Her sister Betty meant -what she said. She was going to be sent back to mother in disgrace. -For a few minutes longer pride sustained her. Silently she lifted her -chin for Betty to draw the elastic of her hat beneath it. Silently she -stretched out her arms for Betty to pull on her coat. With only a faint -tremor in her voice she said good-bye, and holding herself very erect -marched out of the room, shutting the door after herself in a fashion -that could not absolutely be called banging, because then Betty might -tell her to come back and do it over, but was perilously near that -unladylike mode of procedure. - -When she had gone Betty sank down wearily in her big chair. She was -bewildered, frightened, discouraged. “I didn’t manage right,” she -reflected sadly. “I ought to have got around her some way. I can’t bear -to send her home. I love to have her here so, and then she will feel -that it’s a punishment--and it is too--when it’s only that I have to -do it, because I don’t know how to manage. I’ve tried to do more than -I can. Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear!” Betty’s golden head sank down on -the arm of the big chair, and her slender figure shook with her tears. - -It was thus that the Smallest Sister, flying up the stairs and bursting -precipitately into the room she had left with such dignity, found her. - -“Please go away. I’m t-tired. I’d rather be let alone,” Betty sobbed, -evidently mistaking the invader for somebody else. - -The Smallest Sister hesitated, then her soft little arms tugged at the -prostrate figure. “Please don’t cry,” she begged. “Please listen to -me, Betty. I know I’ve got to go home. I haven’t come to tease you to -take it back--honestly I haven’t. But I’m going to tell you all about -Shirley and Francisca and me. I’d rather. Please don’t cry any more, -Betty dear.” - -Betty sat up, dabbing at her wet cheeks with a damp handkerchief. -Dorothy offered her a dry one, and when Betty moved to one side of the -big chair and smoothed down her skirts invitingly, the Smallest Sister -climbed in beside her. Two in a chair is always the way to begin to -make up. - -“Now I’ll tell you,” she began. “You see Frisky had a spread for her -four roommates in their study after the lights were out. She rooms ’way -down at the end of the long corridor, and they shut the door--that’s -against the rules--and lit a candle, and trusted to luck that nobody -would see it shining underneath the door. Miss Carson--the one we call -Kitty Carson, because she comes along so still--is their corridor -teacher, and she doesn’t often bother to go ’way down to that end, -unless there’s a noise. She didn’t that night, but Shirley woke up -and was thirsty and wanted a drink. And on the way to where the table -with the pitcher of ice-water is, she got lost, because the hall is -pretty dark, and she saw the light under the door and knocked, and they -started her back the right way. Next morning she was telling about it -at breakfast, and Kitty Carson heard her, and asked her all about how -she got back, and Shirley told every single thing--about the spread -and who was there and all. And so now Frisky has to stay in bounds for -two weeks, and she can’t have any candy or a box from home till after -Christmas. Kitty Carson wrote to say so--and that’s all, Betty dear. -Frisky said she was sick of the subject, and not to mention it again, -but of course she never meant not to tell you. I s’pose you have a good -reason to want to know. I’m sorry you had to cry.” - -Betty leaned over and kissed the flushed, eager little face so close -beside hers. “Thank you for coming back,” she said. “Now we’re good -friends again, aren’t we?” - -Dorothy nodded. - -“And do you want to know what I think?” - -Another nod. - -“Well, I’m afraid you’ve all been very unkind to Shirley. Have you -called her tattle-tale, and shut her out of all the fun, and maybe made -her cry?” - -This time the nod was very emphatic. - -“We call her Tattle-tale Shirley. How did you ever guess that, Betty? -And we don’t associate with her at all. And she cries into her pillow -at night, because she hears us whispering secrets and we leave her out. -But, Betty, she ought to have to feel bad. It’s just mean to tell on -another girl. Poor Frisky has to walk up and down the tennis-courts -alone for her exercise hour, with Kitty Carson watching out of her -window to see that she does it. But she says she wouldn’t mind that. -What she minds is thinking anybody could be so hateful that she’d go -and tell.” - -“But did Shirley mean to tell, or did she just get frightened and -confused and speak before she thought?” - -“Well,” the Smallest Sister admitted reluctantly, “I s’pose maybe she -got rather frightened. Kitty Carson looks at you so hard through her -big specs that you generally do. But she had ought to have thought.” -Dorothy was earnest if not grammatical. “Frisky says she’d sooner be -expelled from school herself than get another girl into disgrace.” - -“Frisky, as you call her, is older. Shirley is little and timid, and -I’m sure she didn’t realize that she was saying anything wrong. Did -she now, Dorothy? Tell me ‘honest and true,’ what you think. Did she -dislike Frisky, and want to get her into trouble?” - -“No-o, I s’pose not. She used to say she worshipped her just as much as -I did.” - -“Then do you think it’s quite fair to treat her as you have?” - -“No-o, I guess maybe not. Frisky’s old chum, that she had before me, -said it wasn’t, but I didn’t s’pose she knew. I’ll tell Frisky what you -think, and I’ll tell Shirley that I forgive her if she truly didn’t -mean it. Of course I can’t be chums with her again, because now I’m -chums with Frisky. But I won’t call her tattle-tale any more, and I’ll -tell the others what you think.” The Smallest Sister sighed and slipped -off the chair. “I guess--I guess I’d better be going,” she said very -softly. “Were you--were you going to have ice-cream for supper, maybe?” - -Betty stifled an impulse to take the appealing little figure in her -arms and promise her ice-cream and chicken patties and hot chocolate -and all the other dainties she loved best. She had been a very naughty -little girl, and mother would say---- - -The Smallest Sister, oddly enough, was also thinking of mother. “I -guess it doesn’t matter what you’re going to have,” she announced -hastily. “I guess mother would say I’d better go back and think it -all over by myself quietly, and--and next time ’member to ask you -first what you think about tattle-tales that don’t mean to be and--and -perhaps come some other night for supper. Oh”--her voice broke--“I -honestly forgot that I’m to go home.” - -“But we’re friends again, now,” Betty told her, “and you’re going to -tell me things just as you always have. Aren’t you? Will you, I mean, -if I should think it over, and decide that it will be all right for you -to stay?” - -“Yes, I will. I will ask you about every least little thing I want to -do,” declared Dorothy earnestly. “Do you think that maybe you’ll decide -I may stay?” - -“Yes, I think I’ll decide that you may stay,” laughed Betty. “So don’t -ever make me sorry that I’ve decided that way.” - -“I won’t. I’m sure I won’t. I just hate to have you cry, Betty.” - -“I think,” Betty told her with a very sober face, “that you’d better -not come for supper for two whole weeks. That will make you remember -better perhaps. And when you come you may bring your new chum, if Miss -Dick is willing.” - -“Oh, goody for joy!” The Smallest Sister quite overlooked the penalty -imposed on herself in the idea of being able to do something for her -dear, misused Frisky. - -She said good-bye contentedly, because she could tell Frisky the sooner -by going home to tea, and she skip-hopped down-stairs and up the street -much too gaily for a naughty little girl who had been deprived of a -treat and sent away to think over her naughtiness in private. - -Betty watched her smilingly. “I don’t seem to be able not to spoil -her,” she reflected. “But she’s just as sweet as she can be usually. -And she came back of herself to tell me, and she really sent herself -home, so I guess it’s all right--that is, if this new chum is a nice -girl. I do hope she is.” - -The Smallest Sister did not ask to be invited to supper before the -appointed time, though two meals a week with Betty or Eugenia were -her usual allowance, and she had grumbled and even wept before, if -anything had happened to keep her away. - -“Poor Francisca can’t even go to walk or down-town for two weeks. -I guess I can give up one thing I like as long as that,” she told -Eugenia, when that soft-hearted little person suggested intervening -with Betty for a restoration of privileges. “Francisca says it’s a -comfort to her to feel that somebody else has troubles.” - -On the appointed evening Eugenia had a house-play rehearsal from five -to six, a class officers’ meeting at quarter to seven, and a written -lesson to cram for in Psych. 6. So Betty and the chums supped alone -at a cunning little table by the Tally-ho’s famous fireplace. It -was lighted with the “extra-special” candle-shades and there were -new menu-cards with fat, rosy-faced, red-coated coachmen cracking -long whips at the top, and an adorable sketch of the Peter Pan Annex -growing up the left side. Bob Enderby had designed them--under protest, -because he said he was much too famous to be doing menu-cards nowadays; -Madeline had colored them by hand, and the Tally-ho waitress had to -keep a sharp lookout to prevent their all being carried off for -souvenirs. One was lost that very evening; yes, for the first time in -the Tally-ho’s history, an extra-special candle-shade was missing at -the close of the dinner-hour. - -Francisca and Dorothy arrived late and breathless--they had been kept -to tidy their rooms, Dorothy explained, but Francisca shook her head -playfully at her small friend and took all the blame. - -“I’m always being kept for something,” she said cheerfully. “It’s a -perfect miracle that I’m here at all. If I don’t have to copy my French -exercise one hundred times because I didn’t pay attention in class, I -have to learn ‘Paradise Lost’ because I contradicted Kit--Miss Carson, -or else I don’t pick up my nightie and--well, I’m just always in hot -water, Miss Wales. It was lovely of you to ask me. Please call me -Frisky--everybody does.” - -Francisca was the prettiest girl--next to Eleanor Watson--that Betty -had ever seen. Her eyes were soft and deep and very, very brown--like -big chocolate creams. Her hair was dark and wavy, growing low down on -her forehead in a widow’s peak. She puffed it out around her face in a -fashion that was too old for her, but was nevertheless very becoming. -Her manner was that of an older girl too--very assured and confident, -but very charming. When she smiled, which she did most of the time, -two big dimples showed. She lisped a little, and this gave a funny, -childlike twist to her remarks, which were not at all childlike. She -adopted a curious attitude of resignation toward the cruel fate that -kept her always “in hot water.” She was sweetly forgiving toward those -who had inflicted the two weeks’ penance just ended, and she thanked -Betty for her opinion, sent by Dorothy, about little Shirley Ware. She -had entirely forgiven Shirley, she said, and she meant to forget about -it and hoped Shirley would do the same. - -“You see,” she explained, “all the little girls love me so that I -imagine they did make her pretty uncomfortable. I never meant them -to, Miss Wales, but you can’t help being a favorite and having people -champion your cause. Can you now?” - -She made picturesquely vague references to some secret sorrow that was -even worse than being in perpetual hot water at Miss Dick’s. Afterward -Betty inquired about it from Dorothy. - -“Oh, she’s got a stepmother,” Dorothy explained in awe-struck -tones. “They don’t get along well together. Frisky says she’s very -unsympathetic.” Dorothy pulled out the long word with much difficulty. - -But for all her vanity and absurdity Frisky Fenton was a lovable -creature. She was preëminently a “jolly girl.” She had comical names -for all Miss Dick’s teachers. She hit off the peculiarities of her -schoolmates, and told absurd stories about them. She noticed everything -that went on around her and kept up a vivacious fire of comment. As -soon as she forgot to affect resignation and the secret sorrow, she -was most appreciative of all the pleasures life had to offer and -particularly of the treat Betty had given her. Everything they had to -eat was “simply great,” the Tally-ho was “exactly perfect,” Betty was -“too sweet,” and Dorothy “a little darling.” - -Betty decided that she was only silly on top, and, though she much -preferred Shirley as a best friend for Dorothy, she saw no reason to -worry about Francisca’s bad influence, especially as the Smallest -Sister displayed much conscientiousness in the matter of coming to -consult her big sister on all important matters. - -She came twice that very week. Once it was to ask if she should wear -her best white dress, or only her second best blue one to Shirley’s -birthday party. Frisky had advised the best, under all the delicate -circumstances, but Dorothy wanted to be quite sure. The next time -a moral question was involved. If you were asked to a spread after -bedtime was it wrong to go? Betty, who detested prigs, dexterously -evaded the issue. - -“It’s rather messy eating in the dark, and you must get awfully sleepy -waiting for the teachers to go to bed. When you’ve all got desperately -hungry for good eats let me know, and we’ll have a scrumptious spread -at the Tally-ho.” - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -THE DOLL WAVE - - -THE B. C. A. initiation was naturally a joyous occasion. To begin -with, Babbie Hildreth was commanded to stand for half an hour outside -the tea-shop with a huge “engaged” sign pinned across her shoulders. -She smiled composedly, waited patiently for the sign to be adjusted, -and then, since no particular position had been specified, mounted -hastily to the top story of the Peter Pan Annex, where the yellowing -leaves completely hid her from curious eyes. Eleanor was meanwhile -led to the kitchen and told to make sugar-cookies after the family -recipe. As she had never in her life made sugar-cookies--or any other -kind--her demonstration proved entertaining enough to while away the -half hour very pleasantly. Then Babbie was called down, given one of -Eleanor’s cookies, and told to keep on eating it until she could guess -what it was meant to be. She ate it all, making many vain protests, -and was only excused from sampling another because she threatened, in -an irresistibly clever speech, to appeal to the Humane Society. Mary -Brooks was next instructed to write to the person whom she thought -it most concerned, warning him about Eleanor’s lack of domestic -accomplishments. Then Madeline read some “Rules for the Engaged -Member,” which were almost as funny as the “Rules for the Perfect -Patron.” - -Babbie had just been put in the most retired corner of the B. C. A.’s -stall and told to do her “Mary-had-a-Little-Lamb” stunt, when Georgia -and the Dutton twins arrived upon the scene, hot from a tennis match -and voicing a reckless determination to go straight through all the -sundaes and cooling drinks on the new menu. - -“We can sit with you, can’t we?” asked Straight Dutton. “The other -stalls all have people in them, and Fluffy’s hair is a disgrace to be -seen.” - -“Then take her out behind the house--or shop or barn, whatever you call -it--and pin it up,” Madeline told them severely. “Certainly you can’t -come in here. This is a B. C. A. tea-drinking and initiation. You’re -not B. C. A.’s.” - -“That’s not our fault. It’s perfectly mean of you to have a secret -society and leave us out,” wailed Fluffy. “Think of all the orders we -got you for skirt braids.” - -“In this hard world, my children, virtue is often its only reward,” -Mary reminded them sweetly. “Run away now and play.” - -“Let’s spite them by stalking out of their old tea-shop and -transferring our valuable patronage to Cuyler’s,” suggested Georgia. - -“I’m too tired to stir,” protested Fluffy. “Let’s stay here and play a -lovely party of our own right under their noses, and never ask them to -come.” - -“Let’s sit down quick.” - -“Shall we begin with sundaes or lemonade?” - -“With both,” announced Fluffy with decision, smiling so persuasively at -Nora that she abandoned two fussy heads of departments, who wanted more -hot water, milk for their tea instead of lemon, and steamed muffins -instead of toasted, while she supplied Fluffy, first with hairpins from -the box that Betty kept in her desk on purpose for such emergencies, -and then with three sundaes and two cold drinks. - -Fluffy arranged the five glasses in an artistic crescent in front of -her, and sipped and tasted happily. - -“You’re not true sports,” she told the others, who had been content to -begin with one order each. “You won’t be hungry after the second thing -you order--or maybe the third for Georgia-of-the-huge-appetite--and -then you’ll stop, whereas I----” She waved her hand around the inviting -crescent. “The fateful check is made out, and I can eat ’em or leave -’em--it’s all the same to my pocketbook and the Tally-ho. I wish Betty -Wales would come out and say if I’m not the Perfect Patron this trip.” - -“Well, she won’t,” declared Straight practically, “and if she should -you’d better remember that it’s your duty to act very haughty and -independent. Come on now and think up something nice for us to do.” - -“Wish we knew what B. C. A. meant,” Georgia reflected. “Then we could -parody it.” - -“Well, we don’t,” Straight reminded her sharply, “so it’s no use -wishing. We’ve worn ourselves out before this trying to guess. The -thing to do is to think of some regular picnic of a stunt that they’ll -just wish they’d thought of first. Then they’ll respect us more, -and realize what a mistake they made in having a snippy little 19-- -society, when they might have had us in it too.” - -“S-h!” ordered Fluffy impatiently. “Nobody can think of anything while -you chatter along like that. Let’s keep perfectly still for five -minutes--just eat and think. I’m sure we shall get at it that way. -Georgia, you’ve got a watch that goes. Tell us when time’s up.” - -Georgia was too much occupied with keeping track of the time limit to -hit upon an idea, and when Straight’s sundae gave out at the end of -the second minute, she could not keep her eyes and her mind from a -furtive consideration of the menu. So nobody interrupted Fluffy when, -at Georgia’s “Time’s up,” she shot out a triumphant, “I’ve got it!” - -“I’m not sure whether it’s four minutes or five,” said Georgia -anxiously, “but if you’ve got it, Fluffy, fire away.” - -“Well, only the general plan,” explained Fluffy modestly. “I think we -ought to set a silly fashion. We can--girls are like sheep, and we’ve -made a reputation for doing interesting things that all the others wish -they could do too. We can call the thing the ‘C. I.’s’--that’s for -Complete Idiots--and not tell a soul what it means until we’re ready to -back out and let our devoted followers feel as silly as they have to. -It will be a circus pretending to be keen for it ourselves and egging -the others on, and it will just show the B. C. A.’s that we’re not as -young and simple-minded as maybe they think us.” - -“That sounds good to me,” agreed Georgia, “only what fashion shall we -set?” - -Fluffy frowned and rumpled her hair absently. “I can’t think of -anything silly enough. Big bows and pompadours and coronet braids and -so on are as silly now as they possibly could be. Shoes without heels -wouldn’t be extreme enough. Prexy wouldn’t let us wear a uniform, even -if we could think of a ridiculous enough one. I guess it can’t be -anything about dress.” - -“Some fad for our desks, like ploshkins,” suggested Straight. - -“Only not a bit copy-catted from that, because some of the B. C. A.’s -helped start ploshkins,” amended Georgia. - -“Let’s take another think,” said Fluffy. - -“Wait a minute,” begged Straight, and providently ordered two more -sundaes to span the terrible interval. - -“You keep time on this thought,” ordered Georgia, passing her watch to -Fluffy. - -Fluffy nodded abstractedly. - -“Five minutes,” she announced presently. “I can’t think of----” - -“This time I’ve got it,” Georgia broke in eagerly. “First I thought of -a silly game like tops or marbles or skipping ropes, and then I thought -of dolls--buying them and dressing them and carrying them around. I -heard of a girls’ school that did it once in dead earnest.” She looked -anxiously at Fluffy, who could “get people excited over the fourth -dimension if she wanted to.” “What about it, Fluff?” - -Fluffy sipped from each of her five glasses reflectively before she -answered. - -“Dolls it is,” she said briefly at last. “Come on down and buy ours -now.” - -The straight-haired twin had never played with dolls in her life, -having scorned all feminine diversions and spent her youth chasing -rabbits, riding her pony, or playing tag, hockey, and prisoner’s base -with her brothers and her brothers’ friends. She chose the biggest, -most elegant, and expensive French doll in the shop, named her Rosa -Marie on the spot, and paid for Georgia’s choice--a huge wooden doll -with staring blue eyes and matted black hair--on condition that Georgia -would help her dress Rosa Marie. - -“You’re actually getting fond of Rosa Marie already,” Georgia teased -her. - -“Maybe I am,” said Straight stoutly, “but you’d better not fuss, when -I’m spending such a lot to help along your game.” - -“Lucky we’re starting on it so early in the month,” Fluffy said, a -baby doll in a lace bonnet and a long white dress in one hand, and an -Esquimaux, in white fur from head to foot, in the other. - -“Get ’em both and come along,” advised Georgia. “You’ll look terribly -cute going home with one on each arm.” - -“And if you get small ones you can be getting more all the time,” -Straight took her up. “Have a regular family, you know, and a carriage -to take them out in, and a doll’s house to keep them in at home. A -doll’s house would look great in your room, Fluffy dear.” - -“It’s so bare and cheerless that it just needs a doll’s house,” -declared Georgia. “I dare you to buy one and put it on your royal -Bokara rug, between your teakwood table and your Dutch tee-stopf, with -your best Whistler print hanging over it.” - -Fluffy turned to the saleswoman. “These two, please,” she said, “and -let me see your largest, loveliest doll’s house.” - -The organizers and charter members of the C. I.’s tramped home in the -autumn twilight, quarreling amiably about the relative advantages of -“risking” to-morrow’s Logic quiz and writing “Lit.” papers between -breakfast and chapel, or making a night of it--and in that case should -the doll-dressing come before or after ten? - -“I can’t ‘risk’ Logic,” Straight confessed sadly. “I’ve been warned -already. Don’t make me sit up all by myself to cram. I’d almost rather -not dress Rosa Marie to-night than do that.” - -Just then they ran into Eugenia Ford coming out of the Music Building. - -“Hello, Miss Ford,” Georgia greeted her pleasantly. “Look at Fluffy’s -dolls. Have you got one yet?” - -Eugenia, somewhat dazed by the suddenness of the onslaught, went into -raptures over the baby doll, blushingly acknowledged that she hadn’t -one, and begged for more light on the matter. - -“Oh, well, you’re not so far behind the times,” Fluffy consoled her -sweetly. “The limit is day after to-morrow, isn’t it, Georgia? If you -get one all ready by then, you can join the C. I.’s.” - -“What in the world is that?” demanded Eugenia eagerly. - -“I believe the meaning’s to be a secret for a while,” Straight -explained solemnly, “but if you have a doll you can belong; that I’m -sure of. We’ve got ours here.” She patted Rosa Marie, and pointed to -Georgia’s ungainly parcel. “It’s sure to be fun. Anyway, we’re all for -it.” - -“It sounds just splendid,” declared Eugenia, who still had aspirations -toward intimacy with the jolliest, most exclusive crowd in Harding. -“It’s lovely of you to tell me about it. Can anybody--can I tell my -friends?” - -The conspirators exchanged glances. Democracy would repel Eugenia. To -her the C. I.’s must be made to appear highly exclusive. - -“Ye-es,” Fluffy said at last. “It’s for anybody--that is anybody you’d -ask. The dolls have got to be dressed by day after to-morrow, you -know. Straight’s is going to be a perfect wonder. We’re thinking of -having a doll-show later, so you’d better take some pains with yours. -Good-night.” - -“I wonder if the stores are closed yet,” added Straight loudly as -Eugenia started off. “I ought to have bought some real lace for Rosa -Marie’s petticoat.” - -“Let’s go back, even if we are late to dinner,” declaimed Georgia -distinctly. “By to-morrow everybody in the place will be rushing down -for dolls and dolls’ dresses, and they’ll be dreadfully picked over.” - -The conspirators paused to watch the effect of their sallies, and -subsided, overcome with mirth, on the Music Building steps, when little -Eugenia walked more slowly, halted, and finally turned down the hill -toward Main Street. - -“She’s not going to be at the tail of any procession of Complete -Idiots,” chuckled Georgia. “Oh, I say, here comes Christabel Porter! -Let’s tackle her.” - -Christabel Porter was a lanky, spectacled senior with a marvelous -memory, a passion for scientific research, a deep hatred of persons -who misnamed helpless infants, and a whole-hearted contempt for the -frivolity of the Dutton twins and their tribe. She respected Georgia, -making an exception of her because she always wore her hair plain and -never indulged in any kind of feminine furbelows. - -“No use,” objected Fluffy. “Let’s go along to dinner so we can get -through and begin on Rosa Marie’s clothes.” - -“We’ve got all night,” said Georgia easily, “if we need it. Let’s have -a try at the impossible. Hello, Christabel. Have you been buying one -too?” - -Christabel squinted near-sightedly at the trio. “Oh, it’s you,” she -said. “What on earth are you doing up here on those cold steps, when -it’s past six already?” - -“Talking to you,” Fluffy told her sweetly, holding the Esquimaux -up against the western light and smoothing the baby’s skirts -ostentatiously. - -Christabel squinted harder. “Dolls!” she scoffed at last. “What on -earth are you up to now?” - -“Georgia’s is the biggest,” said Straight sulkily. “Tell her about the -C. I.’s, Georgia. You were the one that thought of it. It’s nothing to -blame us about.” - -Christabel listened to the tale in bewildered silence. At the -conclusion she gave a deep sigh. “Count me in,” she said. “I’m thinking -of taking a Ph. D. in psychology at Zurich next winter. I guess this -is as good an experiment on the play instinct as I’m likely to run up -against.” She sighed again deeply. “Of all the queer unaccountable -reactions! If it was after midyears, perhaps I could understand it, -but now---- Don’t tell any one else that I’m studying it, please; they -wouldn’t be quite natural if they knew. Where do you buy dolls?” - -That evening the Belden House was in a flutter of excitement. The -Dutton twins were in Georgia’s room with the door locked. Fluffy’s -dolls were reposing on her bed, carefully pillowed on two lace-edged -sachets. The doll’s house was delivered about eight o’clock, and most -of the paper was torn off it in some way or other before Fluffy saw -it. Georgia sternly refused to open the door to any one. The sound of -cheerful conversation, laughter, and little squeals of pleasurable -excitement floated out over the transom. Plainly the Dutton twins -and Georgia Ames were not studying Logic--or they were studying it -after peculiar methods of their own. Furthermore, Fluffy’s note-book -was lying conspicuously on her table, and Barbara West had borrowed -Georgia’s, and was almost in tears over its owner’s curt refusal to -come out and explain what Barbara angrily described as “two pages of -hen scratches about undistributed middle, and that was just what I -didn’t get!” - -When the quarter to ten warning-bell jangled through the Belden House -halls, Georgia threw her room hospitably open. With magic celerity it -filled up with curious girls, who stared in amazement at the spectacle -of Straight Dutton rocking a huge doll to sleep, laughed at Wooden’s -mussy wig and checked gingham apron--“Exactly like the ones I used to -have to wear,” Georgia explained pathetically, “and the other girls -laughed at me just that way”--and noisily demanded explanations of -the absurd trio’s latest eccentricity. Next morning alarm clocks went -off extra early, Main Street swarmed with Belden House girls on a -before-chapel quest for dolls, the toy-shop proprietor telegraphed a -hurry order to the nearest doll factory, and surreptitious examination -of queer, hunchy bundles broke the tension of the Logic quiz and -blocked the hallways between classes. - -That afternoon there were doll-dressing bees at every campus house, and -Fluffy’s doll-tea in Jack o’ Hearts’ stall was the centre of interest -at the Tally-ho Tea-Shop. - -A pleasant vagueness about the C. I.’s continued to pervade the -speech of its founders. Nobody seemed to know exactly where or when -the first meeting would be held. But, quite irrespective of the club -or the mystic time-limit imposed for membership, the doll fad took -possession of Harding. It was a red letter day for the conspirators -when the junior class president, an influential young person who prided -herself on her independence of character, appeared on the platform at -class meeting, with her doll in her arms. The college poetess, who -went walking alone and had had several of her verses printed in a real -magazine--sure signs of genius--took her darling doll to call on the -head of the English Department, with whom she was very intimate. A maid -who went to the door with hot water for the tea declared “cross her -heart” that she saw Miss Raymond with the doll on her lap, undressing -it, “just like any kid.” However that might have been, the poetess -continued to be great friends with Miss Raymond; evidently the doll -episode had not “queered” her with that august lady. - -So the doll wave swept the college. Spreads became doll parties, French -lingerie was recklessly cut up into doll dresses, girls who had never -sewed a stitch in their lives labored over elaborate doll costumes, and -on warm October afternoons the campus resembled a mammoth doll market, -with Paradise as an annex for exclusive little parties. Tennis matches -and basket-ball games were watched by doll-laden spectators, and some -of the best athletes actually refused to go into their autumnal class -meets because it took too much time when the doll parties were so much -more fun. - -Christabel Porter showed Georgia, in strict confidence, the tabulated -results of her observations. - -“Insane, one,” it read; “still infantile, all freshmen, nearly all -sophomores, many juniors and seniors; slavish copy-cats, practically -all the rest of the college; can’t be accounted for, three.” - -“The one,” she explained, “is the college poetess, and the three are -you and the Duttons. You’re not infants, you’re not stupid, you’re not -exactly crazy, you’re far from being copy-cats. I don’t understand you -at all.” - -“You never will, Christabel,” Georgia told her sweetly, “no matter if -you take a dozen Ph. D.’s in Psych. at Zurich. But you shall presently -understand the C. I.’s. There is a meeting in my room to-morrow at two.” - -“Won’t it be rather crowded?” inquired Christabel anxiously, glancing -around Georgia’s particularly minute and very much littered “single.” - -Georgia smiled enigmatically. “Oh, it won’t take long, I think. It -means so much red tape to arrange for a more official place, like the -gym or the Student’s Building hall. The back campus would do, only the -weather man says rain for to-morrow.” - -Next morning Georgia and the Duttons cut Logic (except Straight, who -dared not), Lit., and Zoölogy lab. - -By noon Georgia’s walls were ablaze with effective decorations. -“Complete Idiots,” printed in every color of the rainbow, was -interspersed with sketches of every conceivable type of girl playing -with every possible variety of doll. Straight could draw, if she could -not adorn a Logic class. Fluffy and Georgia sighed to think that other -people’s “memorabils” would be enriched with these fascinating trophies. - -At a few minutes before one Straight and Fluffy slipped -unostentatiously down-town in the rain to have lunch at a small new -place where there would be no gamut of inquiry to run about the -afternoon’s plans. Georgia meanwhile locked her door and waited until -the house was at lunch, when she let herself out, posted a sign, -reading, “Please don’t disturb until two o’clock,” hurried down-town -by a back way, and joined the Duttons just in time to gobble a sandwich -or two before the next train to the Junction. - -On the station platform they met Madeline and Babbie Hildreth. - -“Where are you going?” demanded Madeline. - -“To the big city to buy Georgia a turban swirl,” Fluffy told them with -a smile. - -“I thought your C. I. blow-out was to-day,” said Madeline innocently. - -“Oh-ho!” cried Georgia. “So you do take some interest in our society, -though you haven’t appeared to. You’ll take more by to-morrow. Why -don’t you go to the meeting? You’ve just got time. I know they’d vote -to set aside the entrance requirements in favor of such distinguished -persons as yourselves.” - -“But why----” began Babbie. - -“Georgia can’t live another minute without a turban swirl,” jeered -Straight, climbing on to the train before it had fairly stopped. - -“Tell all inquiring friends that we deeply regret not being able to be -present at the fatal moment,” added Georgia. - -“Be a dear, Madeline, and go, so you can tell us how they took it,” -begged Fluffy. - -“There are perfectly lovely souvenirs,” chanted the trio in chorus, as -their train pulled out. - -The organizers of the C. I.’s witnessed part of the matinée. Georgia -and Straight bought a blue chiffon waist in partnership, and Fluffy, -from force of habit, bought a Chinese doll. They had an early dinner -to conform as far as possible to the rules about being chaperoned in -town after dark, and they arrived in Harding again, tired and damp but -expectant, soon after seven. - -At the Tally-ho they stopped to find out, if possible, what sort of -reception they were likely to get further on. Madeline welcomed them -joyously. - -“I went,” she said, “and I knew you’d want me to take charge in your -absence, so I did. Everybody who got a souvenir”--she pointed to hers, -decorating the wall back of the famous desk--“is happy. Others are -amused or wrathful according to the stage of development of their sense -of humor. Christabel Porter sent word that she understands you less -than ever. The poetess almost wept at such desecration of her idyllic -amusement. About two hundred girls came, and the rest of the college -either tried to and couldn’t get inside the Belden House door, or wept -at home because of their ineligibility. Mary Brooks wept too, because -her famous rumor stunt isn’t in it any longer with this gallery play -of yours. She wants you three to come to dinner to-morrow--Professor -Hinsdale is away--and tell her all about it.” - -“Thanks,” said the trio nonchalantly. - -“Don’t you think we’re pretty nearly smart enough to belong to the B. -C. A.’s?” demanded Georgia tartly at last. - -“The B. C. A.’s?” repeated Madeline. “Oh, was that what you were -venting your beautiful sarcasm on? We thought you were hitting all -those new department societies that everybody is making such a silly -fuss about getting into.” - -The trio exchanged glances. - -“It was partly that,” admitted Georgia. “We’ve absolutely sworn off -from being in such things ourselves, or sending violets, except to -girls who make Dramatic Club or Clio--the real big honors, you know.” - -“And have you also sworn off from going to the celebration dinners?” -inquired Madeline with a wicked smile. - -“We haven’t decided about that,” Georgia informed her with dignity. -“But please don’t forget,” she added solemnly, “that your crowd began -this foolish club idea, and has done a lot to develop it. It was you -principally that we meant to hit off.” - -Madeline grinned. “I really wish you were eligible to the B. C. A.’s,” -she said, “because then we could see how manfully you would resist -temptation. But it will be at least a year before you can any of you -possibly meet--well, we’ll call it the age limit. So don’t waste time -hunting over the bulletin-boards for a notice of your election.” - -“We are generally considered rather frivolous,” Georgia told her -severely, “but we do stick to our principles--of which the anti-club -idea is one that we cherish greatly.” - -“Though you’ve very recently acquired it,” murmured Madeline. - -“Very,” agreed Georgia cheerfully. “Good-night.” - -Outside the bewildered Dutton twins sorrowfully took Georgia to task -for spoiling forever their chances with the B. C. A.’s. - -“Are you crazy?” demanded Straight. - -“Don’t you remember why we started the whole doll business?” asked -Fluffy. - -Georgia, who had been rather absent and constrained during the -afternoon’s adventures, gazed at them pityingly. “You little -innocents!” she said at last. “Can’t you see what she’s done for us? -Imagine the mud that two hundred girls have tracked through the Belden -House halls. Imagine the rage of the matron, and the things that some -of the faculty prigs will say about this whole business. I’ve been -worried to death all day, to tell you the truth. But now we don’t have -to care. We’re reformers. We’re disciples of the simple life, giving -demonstrations of the foolishness of over-organization. We’re sorry -about the mud and all that, of course. We’re--anyhow, I demand the -satisfaction of telling Christabel Porter the truth about us. I can’t -bear to have her explain us wrong, after all her trouble.” Georgia -splashed into a puddle and exclaimed angrily at the incident. “What in -Christendom can B. C. A. stand for?” she muttered wrathfully, stamping -off the mud. - -“Who cares?” cried Straight, splashing into a puddle herself for sheer -bravado. - -“Who indeed?” Fluffy took her up. “I’ve had a thought, Georgia. Let’s -keep on playing dolls. Then Christabel Porter can’t explain us at all. -She’ll be too mixed up to ever go to Zurich.” - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -MORE ARCHITECT’S PLANS, AND A MYSTERY - - -ONE lovely afternoon in late October, Jim Watson, arrayed in very -correct riding clothes, poked his head gingerly into Betty’s office, -and having thus made quite sure that she was alone, stepped briskly -inside and stood smiling quizzically down at her over the top of her -big desk. - -“What’s the joke to-day?” Betty inquired, smiling frankly back at him. - -“Same old joke,” said Jim, leaning his elbow comfortably on a pile of -pamphlets. “Small person with a generally frivolous appearance, sitting -at the biggest roller-top desk on the market, flanked on the right by -a filing cabinet and on the left by a typewriter. Vast correspondence -strewn over desk. Brow of small person puckered in deep thought. Dimple -of small----” - -“That’s quite enough,” interrupted Betty severely. “I am not a joke, -except to really frivolous persons like you, and I refuse to have my -time wasted listening to such nonsense. Where’s Eleanor?” - -Jim sighed deeply. “Where is Eleanor, indeed? Paying calls, known as -‘friendly visits,’ on the families of her Terrible Ten--her young -Italians. I thought she came up here to comfort and amuse my leisure -hours, but that’s certainly not what she’s staying on for. Is this your -day for office hours?” - -“No-o,” Betty admitted doubtfully, “but I thought I’d stay and----” - -“Please think again,” Jim coaxed in his most beguiling fashion. “It’s a -gorgeous afternoon. Please come for a ride.” - -“But----” - -“I’ve engaged Hartman’s best horses--the big bay for me and the little -black Queen, that you Harding girls are so crazy about, for you.” - -“I thought Virginia Day had Queen every afternoon.” - -“Not when I want her. I’m a privileged person at Hartman’s, because I -rode every day last summer.” - -“Well, but you see----” - -“If you come I’ll tell you a grand secret.” - -“About Morton Hall?” demanded Betty eagerly. - -“No fair guessing. Will you come?” - -Betty looked at him hard, and then out the window at the campus, -sparkling in the autumn sunshine. “Oh, Jim, yes! I can’t resist such a -very nice party. How soon can we start?” - -“How soon can you be ready?” - -In a flash Betty had snapped down the lid of the absurdly big desk, -closed the filing cabinet, adjusted the typewriter top, and picked up a -book and her keys. “In ten minutes,” she said, bundling Jim out ahead -of her and locking the door. “If you should have to wait, you can be -finding me a switch for a riding-crop. Mine’s broken. See you in ten -minutes.” And she was off down the hill to change her dress. - -Jim watched her lithe little figure out of sight, and then strode off -to get the horses, whistling loudly. It was a triumph, even with the -assistance of Queen and the promise of a secret, to have lured Betty -Wales from her official duties for a whole long, sunshiny afternoon. - -They galloped out of town at a pace to scandalize the sedate dwellers -on Elm Street. Where the road passed the Golf Club, under the -flickering shade of tall oaks, Betty drew up to a walk and leaned -forward to pat Queen’s glossy neck. - -“That was perfectly splendid, Jim,” she declared. “Doesn’t it make you -wish you were a bird?” - -“Makes me think I’m a bird when I go cross-country out in Colorado, -over a meadow of soft, springy turf, and then splash through a brook, -and out into the first real shade I’ve seen for a week, maybe. Makes me -wish I was a cow-puncher when I think of it now.” - -“Then you couldn’t be the distinguished architect of Morton Hall,” -Betty reminded him gaily. “Tell me the grand secret, Jim.” - -Jim looked disappointed. He had hoped she would forget about the -secret. “Oh, it’s not so much,” he said. “Only if your august Highness -wishes to eat her Thanksgiving dinner in Morton Hall, Morton Hall will -be ready for her.” - -“Jim! How splendid! Are you perfectly sure?” - -Jim nodded grimly. “I’ve slaved and I’ve made the men slave, and -we didn’t do it for the peppery Mr. Morton, either. We did it for -you, because you seemed to think a few days would make such a big -difference. Well, they do--in a way, of course.” - -“How do you mean?” asked Betty innocently. - -“I mean,” declared Jim earnestly, “that I’m a self-sacrificing person, -if ever there was one. I’ve deliberately cut myself out of days and -weeks of good times here in Harding----” - -“Oh, Jim!” Betty flashed him a merry smile. “Please don’t be silly. You -know you’re fond of your work and anxious to go where it takes you, and -just puffed up with pride to think that you’ve beaten the time limit -your firm had set. Why, Jim, Thanksgiving is only four weeks off!” - -“I know it,” gloomily. - -“And the list of Morton Hall girls isn’t half made out. The matron -will manage the moving-in, I suppose--arranging furniture and engaging -maids, and all. When can the moving-in begin, Jim?” - -“Saturday before Thanksgiving,” still gloomily. - -“We must have a grand housewarming,” Betty declared. “The B.C.A.’s -have decided on that already, but of course Madeline couldn’t have an -inspiration till she knew the date, so she could think of something -appropriate. A Thanksgiving housewarming will certainly be appropriate -for that house. You’ll stay for it, won’t you, Jim?” - -“Thanks,” darkly. - -Betty considered, frowning absently. “If it’s a costume party,--and -most of Madeline’s nicest ideas are--why, of course, you probably can’t -come. That will be a perfect shame, after the way you’ve worked. We’ll -have to have another special housewarming for you and Mr. Morton.” - -“Thanks awfully.” - -Jim’s horse seemed to be giving him a great deal of trouble. It had -edged to the extreme other side of the road and was curveting and -plunging nervously. Betty turned Queen to the other side after him. - -“What’s the matter with Ginger?” she asked. - -“Oh, nothing,” Jim assured her coldly. “He’s just wondering whether -this is a real ride or only a political procession.” - -Betty laughed and started Queen into a canter. “Why didn’t you say you -were tired of walking, silly?” she demanded. Then suddenly she had an -idea. “Of course you know I shall miss you, Jim,” she said. “We’re too -good friends to bother with saying things like that, when we both know -them.” - -“Just as you say about that,” said Jim with a sudden return of his -smile. “But candidly now, Betty, aren’t you too busy to miss people -much?” - -“When I’m too busy to have friends,” Betty told him earnestly, “I shall -just stop being busy. Life wouldn’t be worth living without friends.” - -“But you’ve got such a lot, haven’t you?” Jim asked, idly flicking at -the scarlet sumach leaves with his crop. They were walking again now. - -“Any college girl has a lot, and any college man. Haven’t you?” - -Jim nodded. “I was just thinking that one, more or less----” - -“Jim!” Betty’s tone was highly indignant. “You’re fishing! But you -act so blue to-day, and you’ve worked so hard for Morton Hall, that -I’ll just ask you a question. Which one of your good friends, ‘more or -less,’ doesn’t matter?” - -Jim laughed. “You’re right, of course. I do get blue--it runs in the -family, I guess. Eleanor’s that way, too.” - -“She’s not half as silly as you are,” laughed Betty. “But seriously, -Jim, I don’t know what I shall do when you go. You’re such a splendid -safety-valve. And then these glorious rides----” - -“We’ve had only two----” - -“There you go again,” sighed Betty. “Do you expect a busy person like -me to take whole afternoons off every single week? Oh, dear! Aren’t -those bittersweet berries on the vines growing over those little trees?” - -“I don’t know anything about the habits or appearance of bittersweet -berries, but I’ll bring you some.” - -He was back in a few minutes with a bunch of the pretty red berries. -Betty looked at them closely. “Oh, it is bittersweet!” she cried. -“Madeline and Emily want some most dreadfully for the copper jar at the -Tally-ho. Could we carry a few sprays back, do you think?” - -“Carry a bushel, if you like,” Jim declared. “But first--there’s a -trail up there that starts off through the woods. What do you say to -trying it?” - -They rode as far as they could under the red and yellow boughs, and -when the trail stopped Jim discovered a grove of walnut trees, and -Betty declared that proved they were almost up Walnut Mountain. So -they tied the horses and climbed the rest of the way, up a steep, -pebbly path, hearing a partridge whirr on the way and scattering a -whole family of lively little chipmunks who ran ahead of them, scolding -angrily at so unwarrantable an intrusion of their private playground. -They arrived panting at the top at last, and stayed so long looking at -the view that they felt obliged to run all the way down to the horses. -Then Jim showed Betty how to pack a “bushel” of bittersweet behind her -saddle for the Tally-ho, and tied another bunch on his for Morton Hall. -They cantered all the way home in the crisp, frosty dusk, and Jim, in -answer to Betty’s mocking inquiry about his blues, declared it had been -such a ripping afternoon that he believed they were lost forever in the -Bay of the Ploshkin. - -Betty dined at the Tally-ho, with Madeline, Straight Dutton, and -Georgia. - -“We’ve found a perfect Morton Hall-ite for you,” Georgia informed her -eagerly. “Just exactly the kind you want, and she hadn’t applied and -wasn’t going to.” - -“Who is she?” demanded Betty. “And will she come?” - -“Binks Ames didn’t ask her because she was afraid she’d muddle it,” -Georgia explained lucidly, putting the cart before the horse. “Binks -discovered her, and told us to tell you. She’s in the infirmary--Binks, -I mean, and the other girl, too. Got the mumps, Binks has, and -the other one had rheumatism or something. Binks is my freshman -cousin--the peculiar one from Boston. Her real name is Elizabeth B. -Browning Ames--after the poetess. Her mother goes in for Browning -classes and things, but Binks is the soul of prose.” - -“Tell her about the Morton Hall-ite,” advised Straight. “Binks hasn’t -anything to do much with it.” - -“That’s so,” agreed Georgia placidly, “but she’s rather an interesting -person, and Betty ought to meet her. She’s the kind that’s always -discovering things--just the way she discovered this girl.” - -“Georgia,” declared Madeline amiably, “I always knew you had a -weakness, of course--all mortal creatures have. Now I’ve discovered -that it’s a weakness for family history. In order to start you on the -right track let me ask you a leading question. What are the Morton -Hall-ite’s name, class, and qualifications for admission?” - -“Name unknown, class unknown, qualifications extreme general -forlornness, and a boarding place at the end of nowhere.” - -“Where is that?” asked Betty smilingly. - -“Oh, Binks didn’t dare ask,” explained Georgia. “You see Binks knows -she’s an awful blunderer at being nice to people.” - -“Then how----” began Betty. - -“Oh, that’s all arranged,” explained Georgia easily. “You can come with -me to-morrow when I go to see Binks, and if we explain a little to the -matron she’ll let you in to see the other one. Everybody is sorry for -her, because she seems so blue and forlorn, and never gets calls or -flowers or letters.” - -“She sounds rather formidable, some way,” Betty demurred. “I think it -would be better for one of the faculty members of the board to go and -see her and ask her.” - -“But I promised Binks I’d bring you. You can at least cheer up the -other one, and if you funk on asking her then you can send a faculty -later.” - -“That reminds me that there isn’t going to be any too much ‘later.’” -Betty told them the great news, ending with, “So please plan a -scrumptious housewarming right away, Madeline.” - -And Madeline promised, grumbling, however, about the constant -interruptions to which her aspiring genius was subject. - -“You want a housewarming,” she wailed. “Eleanor wants a masque for -the Terrible Ten. Mary wants an alumnæ stunt for Dramatic Club’s June -meeting. Dick Blake wants a pantomime for the Vagabonds’ ladies’ night. -So it goes! And the worst of it is that the editors sternly refuse to -want anything of me--except the Sunday Supplement people, and they -want nothing but Vapor for the Vacant-Minded. I’m losing my mind--what -little I have--trying to make the articles sound silly enough.” - -Betty went next day with Georgia to see Binks Ames, who proved to be a -thin, brown little freshman, with wonderful gray eyes and a friendly, -impulsive manner. - -“It’s queer about me,” she told them. “I seem to attract freaks. All -my friends at school were queer unfortunates that my brothers fussed -at having to take around when they came to visit me. And now the first -thing I’ve done at Harding is to have mumps at the same time with Miss -Ellison, who writes poems----” - -“Technically known as the C. P., or College Poet,” Georgia interrupted. - -“And a queer scientific person with a bulging forehead and a squint, -named Jones. We weren’t any of us very sick, and we sat and talked -by the hour, and hit it off beautifully. And now they’ve gone”--she -lowered her voice-- “there’s the Mystery. We named her that because she -spooked around and never came near us, except by mistake. But the last -two days, since we’ve been here alone, we’ve become quite dangerously -chummy, and she’s told me things to make your heart ache.” - -The sympathetic thrill in Binks’ voice explained sufficiently why -unfortunates always sought her out, and her next remark gave further -testimony to her real genius for friendship. “I never let them see -that I understand. It would scare them off. I act as if they were -like everybody else. Seeing that people know you’re a freak or an -unfortunate only makes you more of a one, don’t you think? But Georgia -has told me that you are the kind that can straighten things out--not -just let the poor things stick to you like burrs and try to make up to -them, the silly way I do. Now, Georgia, you’d better wait here. I’ll -take Miss Wales in to her myself, and then you’ll be an excuse for me -to get away and leave her there.” - -The Mystery was crouching by a west window, looking out at Paradise, -with the low sun tangled in the yellow elms on the hill beyond. She -was tall and slight and stooped, with a muddy complexion and a dull, -expressionless face. She flushed uncomfortably when she saw them, -and received Binks’ stammered explanation about wanting to share her -callers with stolid indifference. Left alone with her, Betty remembered -Anne Carter, the girl with the scar, and wished she had made Binks tell -her what in this girl’s life had left her so frightened and hopeless -and so bitterly reticent. She was a junior. She lived on Porter -Hill--about a mile from the campus. She didn’t mind the walk; you could -count it in your exercise hours. She was not particularly interested -in any study; she just took what seemed best. If you meant to teach it -wasn’t wise to specialize too much; you might have to take a position -for Latin or Algebra when you had applied for History. She would -prefer to teach English herself. Betty had brought Binks a new “Argus” -to read. She asked the Mystery--her name was Esther Bond--if she had -seen Helena Mason’s new story. - -“It’s awfully clever,” she said. “All her stories sound so knowing, -some way, as if she had seen and done lots of unusual story-book sort -of things. They have what Miss Raymond calls atmosphere and the note of -reality.” - -“Yes,” said Miss Bond. - -“She’s in your class, isn’t she?” Betty rattled on. “Do you know her?” - -“Yes, I know her.” - -“Is she really as unusual and fascinating as her stories seem?” Betty -pursued. - -“I consider her one of the most commonplace girls in Harding,” said -Miss Bond stolidly. - -“Well, at least you’ve at last said something besides yes and no,” -Betty reflected, and turned the talk to Binks, the infirmary régime, -and finally to campus life. - -When at last, having decided that nothing was to be gained by delay, -she made her suggestion about Miss Bond’s coming into Morton Hall, the -Mystery laughed a queer, rasping laugh. - -“I knew that’s what you were getting at,” she said. “You’re the new -secretary. I’m not so out of things that I don’t know that.” - -“And you’ll come?” Betty asked cordially. - -“I think not. I’d rather be out of the campus fun altogether than in it -on charity.” - -Betty explained as tactfully as possible the difference between what -she called Mr. Morton’s kindness and what was sometimes meant by -charity, and suggested a few of the advantages to be gained from living -on the campus for a while. - -The Mystery listened apathetically. - -“Well, it doesn’t matter much what I do. Perhaps I may as well come. -Only is there a room that I can have off by itself somewhere? I -couldn’t stand being tumbled in with a stranger, or having my door open -right against hers.” - -“Then,” said Betty eagerly, “you shall have the tower room. It’s -so much by itself that I told Mr. Watson--he’s the architect in -charge--that I was afraid no girl would dare to sleep alone there. -It’s like an island surrounded by linen closets, and then being in a -tower it juts out quite away from everything else. And it’s the very -prettiest room in the house,” she added enthusiastically. - -Miss Bond didn’t know that she cared much how it looked. - -“I’ll let you know in a day or two how I decide,” she said. “I should -have to see--there are some things to consider. Do you know if the -junior novel course has a written lesson to-morrow?” - -Betty didn’t know, and neither did Georgia, whom she applied to for the -information; but she promised to find out and let the Mystery know by -telephone. Miss Bond thanked her with the first touch of real feeling -she had shown that afternoon. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -MOVING IN - - -BETTY WALES, her sleeves rolled up to her elbows and her trim little -figure enveloped in one of her famous kitchen aprons, stood on a -chair in the china closet of Morton Hall, covering the top shelves -neatly with sheets of white paper. One of the three richest men in New -York, very damp and red in the face from his exertions, was screwing -in hooks for pots and pans in the pantry next door. A rising young -architect was helping the pretty wife of a distinguished psychology -professor wash dishes, ready to put on Betty’s carefully spread papers. -A would-be literary light was hanging pictures on the softly-tinted -walls of the house parlor. Up-stairs Georgia, Babbie, and Eugenia Ford -were superintending the efforts of the night-watchman and a janitor -to arrange a bed, a bureau, a wash-stand, a desk, and two chairs to -the best advantage in rooms guaranteed by the rising young architect -aforesaid to be perfectly capable of holding those articles,--or, in -the case of double rooms, twice the number. - -Betty Wales wasn’t very tall, and the shelves were high and very, -very long. Her arms ached from stretching; her back was tired from -spreading innumerable rugs; her brain reeled with dozens of petty but -important details. But she worked on doggedly, pushing back her curls -wearily when they got in her eyes, ordering, coaxing, or bullying her -distinguished assistants, her mind intent on one thing: Morton Hall -must be ready for the girls when they came to-morrow. - -It was all because the matron had sprained her wrist--this hurry and -scurry and confusion at the last minute. She had hoped every day to be -able to come on and take charge of the settling, and from day to day -they had waited, until finally Prexy, realizing that they had waited -much too long, had asked Betty to take charge in her place. The matron -was coming that afternoon at five, with her arm still in a sling. Betty -had promised to meet her. Jim Watson was keeping track of the time, -and Mr. Morton’s car would be ready to take her to the station. At -distractingly frequent intervals the door-bell rang, and Mary Brooks -Hinsdale had to stop wiping dishes to answer it. In the end Betty -always had to go, but Mary saved her time and anxiety about appearances -by finding out who each visitor was. - -“Never mind the smut on your left cheek,” she would say. “It’s only -another person come to apply for a job as waitress, and she’s much too -untidy herself to notice a small smut.” - -Or, “This time you must take off your apron, Betty. It’s Prexy--he says -he’ll only keep you a minute, but it’s important.” - -Or, “A strange looking freak of a girl, Betty. If she hadn’t acted so -completely scared, I’d have said you couldn’t be bothered. She looked -as if she might jump into the next county if I suggested taking you her -message.” - -And each time Betty smilingly hopped off her chair, greeted her visitor -as cordially as if she was not feeling--to quote Mary Brooks--exactly -like a cross between a reckless ritherum and a distracted centipede, -and got back to her shelves as soon as she could possibly manage it, -stopping on the way to encourage Mr. Morton, hurry Madeline, and warn -Jim to wipe the dishes dry. - -[Illustration: “YOU MUST TAKE OFF YOUR APRON”] - -“Everything must be spick and span,” she insisted, “to start us off -right.” - -At last Jim called “Four-forty-five, Betty,” and she jumped down -again and ran to her room--the only place in the house that hadn’t -been settled a bit--to dress. But she was so tired that she ended by -unceremoniously borrowing Eleanor’s fur coat to put on over her mussy -linen dress, and ordered Jonas to take her for a restful little spin up -Elm Street. And so she managed to be all smiles and sparkles and pretty -speeches of welcome for the matron, who was a nice motherly lady with -the loveliest snow-white hair, and a sense of humor that twinkled out -of her blue eyes and discovered everything comical about Betty--even to -the mussy linen under the borrowed elegance--before Jonas had seen to -the baggage and rushed his passengers up to Morton Hall. - -As Betty opened the door shrieks of mirth floated out to them from the -matron’s rooms. - -“Excuse me one minute, Mrs. Post,” she said hastily, “while I see if -everything is ready for you.” - -The whole company of “Settlers,” as Madeline called them, not excepting -the under-janitor and the night-watchman, were gathered in Mrs. Post’s -cozy sitting-room. - -“Where is she?” demanded Jim eagerly, when Betty appeared. - -“Didn’t she come after all?” asked Georgia disappointedly. - -“We’ve got ready the loveliest chorus of welcome,” explained Madeline, -with a complacent wave of the hand at her fellow workers. “A Settlers’ -Chorus, with solos by some of the most distinguished Settlers. -Now, Betty, don’t look so horrified. Any sensible matron will be -tremendously flattered by such a unique attention.” - -“It’s perfectly respectable, Betty,” Mary Brooks Hinsdale assured her, -“and Mr. Morton and Mr. Watson and the night-watchman will never have -another chance to be in a Harding show.” - -“What’s that?” demanded Mr. Morton, who had been so engrossed in -studying his part that he had not noticed Betty’s arrival. “I’ve heard -a great deal about Harding shows, but I certainly never expected to be -in a troupe. Bring on your audience, Miss B. A., or I shall forget my -lines.” - -There was no use arguing. “All right,” agreed Betty, “only please -remember that she’s a stranger to Harding ways, and don’t do anything -to shock her too much. While the entertainment is going on, I’ll make -us all some tea.” - -But nobody would listen to that proposition for a minute. Betty, being -herself chief Settler, must hear the Settlers’ Chorus. It ended by -Mr. Morton’s summoning Jonas to make the tea--each Settler having -unselfishly insisted upon being the one to do it. But Jonas was so -entranced by the sight of his master singing a doggerel stanza in -praise of the Admirable Architect, to a tune that he fondly supposed -to be “A Hot Time,” that he let the water boil over to begin with, and -then steeped the tea until it was bitter and had to be thrown away. - -After Mr. Morton’s performance had been duly applauded, the -night-watchman sang to the Beneficent Benefactor, and Madeline sang to -the Courageous Captain, meaning Mrs. Post herself. The Daring Defender -was of course the night-watchman, glorified by Babbie as worthy of a -gift of “salad and ice and all things nice”--in memory of the supper -the three B’s had spilled on his head when they were freshmen. Madeline -was the Esthetic Elevator because she hung pictures and planned -entertainments in a way to elevate the taste of the inmates, and Betty -was the Flossy Furbelow, who sat and watched other people work. The -alphabet ended with F, the chorus explained, - - “For Settlers must work - While others may rhyme. - We’d have gone farther - If there had been time.” - -But they had gone far enough to put Mrs. Post at her ease with -everybody. While fresh tea was being made by the contrite Jonas, the -Settlers escorted her triumphantly over her domain, and she praised -everything and thanked everybody and seemed to fit so beautifully into -the niche she had come to fill that Betty fairly danced with relief and -excitement. If only the girls caught the right spirit as easily! - -But of course some of them didn’t. There was the Thorn, who roomed on -the ground floor next to Betty, and who ran in twenty times during the -first week to make an absurd complaint or ask an impossible favor. -There was the Mystery up in her tower; she locked herself in so -ostentatiously that she offended her next door neighbor, who promptly -announced her intention of leaving such a “cliquey” house. There was -the Goop, whose table manners were only equaled by the fine disorder -of her apartment. She had been assigned to a double room, but she had -to be tactfully transferred to a single, on the tearful complaint of -her roommate; and more tactfully urged to pick up her possessions, and -not to eat with her knife. Then there were the Twin Digs, to whom the -ten o’clock rule was as if it had never been, and the Romantic Miss, -who professed bland and giggling innocence in regard to campus rules -about gentlemen callers. Jim named them all, except the Mystery, in the -last confidential chat that he and Betty had together, and he made her -promise solemnly to keep him informed of their escapades. - -“For I feel like a sort of Dutch uncle to all the Morton Hall-ites,” he -explained. “May I run up once in a while to see how you are getting on?” - -“May you? Will you?” was Betty’s enthusiastic response. - -“There might be some little changes,” went on Jim boldly. “The only -real test of a house is to live in it a while. If there is anything -that doesn’t suit, you’ll let me know?” - -Betty promised to do that also, and Jim departed, divided between -encouragement at Betty’s cordial invitation and her promise to write, -and a conviction that before he had shut the door she had forgotten -his very existence in rapt absorption in her official plans and -perplexities. - -The housewarming was a “Madelineish” success--that was foreordained--in -spite of the Mystery’s refusal to attend it, the Thorn’s loud -declaration that it was an absurd idea, and the Goop’s first -using part of her costume for a dusting cloth and then losing it -all in the unfathomable depths under her bed. Of course it was -absurd--deliciously absurd--the Thanksgiving of the Purple Indians. -The Purple Indians lived in blue tents in the depths of a pink forest. -Their clothes were travesties of the latest shades and modes. They -were thankful for the beautiful color-scheme of their world, for the -seclusion and leisure of their lives. Presently they were discovered by -a band of New Women, who converted them to suffrage, dress-reform, and -the pursuit of culture, and marched them off to a Female College where -they could live to learn--not to eat and to dress. There were sly local -hits at the doll fad, the faculty’s latest diversions, the department -societies, the frivolities of Harding life in general. - -With a few exceptions the Morton Hall girls entered into the affair -with spirit, making friends over the rehearsals and committee meetings, -displaying much executive ability, and encouraging Betty to feel that -in spite of some small disappointments in the character of a few of -those who had been chosen, most of the Morton Hall-ites were fine -girls, well worthy the help they were receiving in such generous -measure. - -The Mystery fully justified her title. She was a bundle of -contradictions. In spite of her curious craving for isolation, she -seemed hungry for friendship and sympathy. She was painfully anxious -for a part in the play and surprised Madeline by suggesting a clever -little scene to be added to it; but all of a sudden she declared -the scene would be too silly, refused to write it out, and was with -difficulty persuaded to keep her part in the performance. - -She seemed to have made no friends in her three years of college life, -and she assured Betty forlornly that there was no one she cared to ask -to the play. But when Betty told Binks Ames, and Binks humbly begged -for an invitation, the Mystery acted frightened and embarrassed, and -disappeared the minute the play was over, leaving Binks to spend the -rest of the evening as best she might. - -“I think she’s your kind,” Betty told Mrs. Post. “I’ll poke up the Goop -and console the Thorn, if you’ll try to clear up the Mystery--and cheer -her up too.” - -So Esther Bond found herself repeatedly invited into Mrs. Post’s -cheerful little sitting-room for tea and a good talk in the dusk of the -afternoon. Often just before ten Mrs. Post would tap on the tower room -door, and step in for a cheerful inquiry about “lessons” and a friendly -good-night. At first the Mystery resented these intrusions as spying on -her jealously guarded seclusion. She accepted Mrs. Post’s invitations -sulkily because she could not well refuse, and sat, glum and silent, in -the chair farthest from her hostess, as though intent on preventing all -intruders from scaling her wall of reserve. - -But gradually she melted. Mrs. Post was so friendly, so impervious to -sulks and melancholy. It was so evident that her interest had nothing -to do with curiosity--that she knew and cared nothing about the -Mystery’s place in the college world. Best of all, she never referred -to the Mystery’s habit of locking her door; she might never have -noticed it from her unconscious manner. - -One night the Mystery sat down quite close to Mrs. Post, and the -feeling of intimacy that comes from sitting close together in the -firelight unsealed her lips. She told Mrs. Post about her lonely -childhood spent on her grandfather’s farm. - -“He was awfully poor,” she explained. “The farm was mortgaged, and -everything was old and forlorn and coming to pieces. Once the Humane -Society officers arrested him for driving a lame horse to town. I was -with him. I remember how ashamed I was. I begged him to let me go back -and live with my mother. Then at last he told me that mother was dead, -and that my father had treated her cruelly and had refused to take care -of her ‘brats.’ I shall never forget the sting of that word. It drowned -out the shame of being arrested for cruelty to animals. Well, the next -year the mortgage was foreclosed and the farm sold. The shame of that -killed my grandfather. My grandmother went to the poorhouse, and I went -to work for a family in the village, where I could earn my board and -have a chance to go to school. I used to think I’d like to teach.” - -“Well, you can in a year more,” Mrs. Post told her cheerfully. “It’s a -noble calling.” - -“I shall hate it all the same,” declared the Mystery fiercely. - -“Oh, no, you won’t, child,” Mrs. Post told her, patting her shoulder -gently. “You mustn’t quarrel with your bread and butter. Who sends you -to Harding?” - -“A woman I worked for once at home pays part of my expenses. I shall -return it all as soon as I can. That’s all I shall have to work for -now,” she added bitterly, “except bread and butter. My grandmother died -when I was a freshman.” - -“Just let me read you the last letter I had from my daughter, who is a -nurse,” Mrs. Post would say at this stage of the Mystery’s confidences. -“Or no,” after a minute’s vain search for her reading glasses, “you -read it to me, dear.” - -The daughter who was a nurse was a cheerful, placid creature, with a -simple, optimistic belief in the joy of life and the nobility of her -profession. The Mystery enjoyed the letters in spite of herself, and -was divided between contempt and envy of the writer. - -One night the Mystery crept shamefacedly down from her lonely tower -just to kiss Mrs. Post good-night. She found that good lady in a state -of joyous excitement over the engagement of the daughter who was a -stenographer. - -“She is the oldest of the family,” she explained. “She’s helped me, and -helped keep the other girls in school, and given Bella nearly all the -money she needed for her nurse’s course. She’s worked hard, and she has -never complained. Now I hope she can have a nice easy time.” - -“So do I,” said the Mystery heartily. “And, Mrs. Post, I’m going to try -not to complain and not to hate so many people and things. Maybe I can -find a bright side to life if I try. I guess you think I’m a grumbler, -but I’ve had a lot to make me one.” - -“I know you have, dear,” Mrs. Post told her soothingly. - -But the Mystery shook her head. “No, you don’t know, dear lady. -Nobody knows. I’ve never told you the real big trouble--I couldn’t. -Good-night.” - -To Betty the Mystery continued cold and forbidding, and Betty wisely -decided to leave her to Mrs. Post. - -“There are people I don’t especially like,” she reflected, “and of -course there are people who don’t like me. The Mystery is evidently -one of them. I must write Jim and tell him what a hit his tower room -makes with her, even if I can’t get near her.” - - - - -CHAPTER X - -GHOSTS AND INSPIRATIONS - - -ONE snowy afternoon in December Dorothy, looking like a snowbird in her -gray coat powdered with big white flakes, flitted into Betty’s room and -without giving her sister a chance to say “How do you do?” burst out -with her great news. - -“There’s such an excitement at school. Miss Dick just laughs, but Kitty -Carson thinks it was burglars, and we girls all think it was a ghost.” - -“Goodness, what a beautiful excitement!” laughed Betty. “Tell me all -about it.” - -“Well, you see Shirley Ware heard it first,” explained Dorothy, “and -she was so scared that she tried to scream. And all that came out was -a kind of a choke. It woke me up and then I heard it too--the other -noise, I mean. It was a queer little scratching and knocking on the -wall.” - -“Mice, you silly child,” put in Betty wisely. - -But Dorothy scorned such a theory. “I guess I know how mice sound, -after all I heard this summer, scurrying and hurrying inside our -cottage walls. Besides, mice don’t groan, Betty Wales. The next thing -we heard was a groan--an awfully sad sound, you know, Betty. It scared -me so that I tried to scream too, and the other two girls woke up. -They said I only made a little squeak,” explained the Smallest Sister -proudly, “and of course if I had really screamed Kitty Carson would -have heard, for all she sleeps so sound.” - -“And what did the ghost do then?” asked Betty. - -“It just groaned once more louder than ever, and then it stopped, and -everything was just awfully still. So I got into bed with Sarah and -Helen, and I s’pose I went to sleep. But Shirley was so scared that she -couldn’t move, and she stayed awake and saw it.” - -“You mean she was so scared that she imagined that she saw it, dearie,” -Betty amended. “There aren’t any ghosts, you know, really and truly, -Dottie.” - -“Well, there are burglars,” Dorothy insisted, “and anyway, it wasn’t a -mouse. And what Shirley saw was a tall white ghost with its hands over -its face--so.” Dorothy illustrated graphically. “And in the morning -we told Miss Dick, and she laughed, but Kitty Carson’s window has a -fire-escape, and she sleeps so sound that anybody could go in and out -that way. We know she is just as scared as we are because there’s a man -come this very afternoon to put bars on her window.” - -“Well, then you’ll be quite safe to-night,” Betty assured her -comfortably. “Didn’t I ever tell you about our Scotch ghosts?” - -“Yes, but please do it again,” begged Dorothy, “because I’ve most -forgotten, and then I can tell the girls. We’re so interested in ghosts -just now.” - -So Betty told about the ghost that Madeline and Mr. Dwight had invented -to add the finishing touch to Babbie’s ancestral castle at Oban. -“Ghosts that little girls see are always like that,” she ended, “just -jokes that somebody has played for fun. If Shirley really saw anything -it was some big girl who’d dressed up on purpose to frighten you little -ones.” - -“It couldn’t be.” The Smallest Sister’s tone was very positive. -“There’s a chimney next to our wall on Shirley’s side where the noises -were. No girl could crawl up a chimney. Nothing could get there but a -ghost.” - -“Or a mouse,” interpolated Betty sceptically. - -“Mice don’t groan,” Dorothy reminded her. “If it was a girl--but it -couldn’t be, because how could a girl get in the chimney?--and Miss -Dick ever finds out who it was, why, I shouldn’t care to be in her -shoes, I just guess! Shirley got so scared it made her sick. She’s gone -to the infirmary to-day.” - -“When she comes back you’d better put your cot near to hers, so she can -reach out and wake you if she’s ever frightened again,” Betty advised. -“It was selfish of you three to get into one bed and leave her alone.” - -“She could have come if she’d wanted to,” the Smallest Sister defended -herself. “We s’posed she wasn’t a bit afraid when she stayed where she -was, instead of her being too afraid to move.” - -“Well, next time be more thoughtful,” Betty cautioned, and the -Smallest Sister promised, and prepared to hop-skip back to school. - -“Frisky and I walk together this week”--she explained her brief -visit--“so I don’t want to miss a single walk. I can go walking with -you next week. Yes, I do hate two-and-two school walks ’most as much as -ever I did, but it’s different when I can walk with Frisky. I’ll come -again soon and tell you what we’ve discovered about the ghost,” she -called over her shoulder, as she vanished. - -That evening the Thorn appeared in Betty’s room, wearing her most -provoking air--a combination of sympathy for Betty, offended dignity -for herself, and a grim pleasure in showing up the shortcomings and -inferiorities of her house mates. - -“How did Mr. J. J. Morton make all his money?” she inquired, after -a few moments’ acrid criticism of the Purple Indian play, which had -just been successfully repeated, by request, for the benefit of the -Student’s Aid treasury. - -“Why, I don’t know exactly,” Betty answered idly. “Railroads, I think, -and--and stocks and bonds. The same way other rich men have made their -money, I suppose.” - -“I guess it’s tainted millions, all right.” The Thorn’s thin lips shut -tight, and her sharp eyes fixed Betty’s belligerently. - -Betty only smiled at her good-humoredly. “Did you read Peggy Swift’s -article in the last ‘Argus’ on that subject? She makes you see how -all money is tainted, in a way. But Mr. Morton is as fair and upright -as he can be. He is splendid to the men who work for him, Mr. Thayer -says. And he spends most of his time nowadays in superintending his -charities.” - -“When he isn’t spending it squeezing some small competitor to the wall, -or whitewashing a corner,” added the Thorn sententiously. - -Betty considered this speech in bewildered silence. Her ideas of -political economy were very hazy. Was it always wrong to get rid of -competition, if you were smart enough to do it? she wondered. What in -the world did a “corner” have to do with tainted money, and why should -Mr. Morton be blamed for any interest he might have in a thing as -innocent and necessary as whitewash? - -“I didn’t think you’d have anything to say to that,” the Thorn -proceeded triumphantly, after a minute. “Besides, I’ve got proof of -every word I say. We aren’t going to be happy in this house. It’s -haunted--by the spirits of those he has wronged, I suppose.” - -“Matilda Thorn--I mean Jones,” began Betty, letting Jim’s name pop -out before she thought, in her annoyance, “don’t be so ridiculous. I -can’t argue about Mr. Morton’s business methods because I don’t know -enough about them, and neither do you. But President Wallace does, and -he accepted this house very gladly for Harding College. Furthermore, -you accepted a place in it very gladly--yours was the first name on -my list. So I think it is very inconsistent of you, as well as very -ungracious, to criticize Mr. Morton now. But when you talk about this -house being haunted you are simply making yourself ridiculous. Please -explain what you mean by saying such a thing.” - -The Thorn listened to Betty’s stern arraignment with growing amazement. -She had “sized up” the new secretary as “one of the pretty, easy-going -kind,” and had vastly enjoyed worrying her with ill-grounded -complaints, which had always been treated with a sweet seriousness that -the Thorn had found very diverting. Now she realized that she had gone -too far, and she rose to retreat, rallying her scattered forces into a -semblance of order. - -“I’m sorry I’ve offended you, Miss Wales,” she said humbly. “I didn’t -remember that Mr. Morton was a friend of yours. I haven’t any friends -of his sort--he seems to belong in another world from mine. I didn’t -mean to be rude--or ungrateful--or ridiculous.” - -Betty held out her hand impulsively. Being perfectly sincere and simple -herself, she could never have guessed at the strange complexity of -motives that actuated the Thorn. “Then if you didn’t mean it, it’s -all right,” she said. “So please sit down and tell me what you think -Mr. Morton has done that isn’t honest, and I’ll ask him about it--or -I’ll ask President Wallace to explain it to us. And then tell me what -makes you say that Morton Hall is haunted.” Betty’s sense of humor -nearly overcame her dignity at this point, and the last word ended in -a chuckle that she hastily converted into a cough. Ghosts seemed to be -dogging her path to-day. - -The Thorn sat down again majestically. “Well,” she began uncertainly, -“I’m not sure that I know anything in particular about Mr. Morton’s -methods. All great fortunes are founded on trickery, in my opinion. A -great many other people seem to think so too, according to all that you -read. And when the girls on the top floor began to hear ghosts walking -and talking and unlocking locked doors, why, I suppose I put two and -two together--that’s all. Some way you always associate ghosts with -wicked men. Of course it might be Miss Bond who was haunted, instead of -Mr. Morton’s money.” - -“But Miss Jones,” broke in Betty in amazement, “you don’t really -believe in ghosts, do you? My little sister has just been here with a -story of how some of Miss Dick’s girls were frightened last night by -mysterious noises. It’s bad enough for children as big as she is to -think they’ve seen ghosts, but for Harding girls----” - -The Thorn shrugged her shoulders dubiously. “That’s what I said myself -when I first heard about it, but yesterday in evening study-hour I -was up there, and we certainly heard the queerest whisperings and -mutterings coming from the tower room. We were sure Miss Bond was in -there alone, so we knocked to see if she was sick or wanted anything. -She didn’t answer, and we finally tried the door and it was locked, as -usual. So we banged and banged, and we were just going to call Mrs. -Post when Miss Bond finally came--and she was all alone and hadn’t been -studying elocution or reading her Lit. out loud. She said she hadn’t -heard anything either, except the racket we made, but I noticed she -didn’t act much as if she meant it. She’s so secretive she’d keep even -a ghost to herself, probably,” ended the Thorn vindictively. - -Betty advanced the mice-in-the-walls theory, only to have it scoffed -aside, with a variation of the Smallest Sister’s argument: “Mice do not -whisper and mutter; they scramble and squeak.” She suggested that the -sounds came from another study; that had been carefully investigated. -She hastily dismissed the suspicion that the Mystery had misled them -about being alone. In the first place she felt sure that the Mystery -was honest; in the second place the Thorn, as if reading her thoughts, -explained how they had hunted through the closet and even looked under -the bed. - -“Well, you will have to keep your ghosts, then,” Betty laughed finally. -“Only don’t throw the blame on poor Mr. Morton or on Miss Bond, who -didn’t hear anything. Why, maybe it’s you they’re haunting. The people -who hear things are the ones to worry about being responsible, I should -say.” - -The Thorn refused to turn the matter into a pleasantry. “They’ve all -heard the noises,” she explained, “the girls who room on the third -floor. They asked me to come up last night and see what I thought.” - -“And then speak to me?” asked Betty, annoyed that the Thorn should have -been honored with an official mission. - -“Well--if I thought best,” the Thorn admitted. - -“All right,” said Betty cheerfully. “You can tell them what I’ve -said--particularly what I think about the silliness of believing in -ghosts. If they are troubled by any more noises, they can let me or -Mrs. Post know, and we’ll look into it.” - -“People do get the queerest ideas into their heads,” she sighed, when -the Thorn had departed. “To-day it’s ghosts, ghosts everywhere, and -to-morrow it will be something else.” - -To-morrow’s trouble, as it proved when to-morrow came, was -inspirations. Babbie had one--quite unrelated of course to the fact -that she and Mr. Thayer could not agree about the prettiest furnishings -for a library--to the effect that her mother was lonely and needed the -society of her only child. And Madeline had one, which took the form of -a plot for a drama that was certain to make Broadway “sit up and take -notice.” - -“But, Madeline,” Betty begged, “you can write that later. It’s getting -very close to Christmas. You’ve got to take charge of the Tally-ho’s -gift-shop department again. The Morton Hall girls will help, but -they’re no good at planning. And neither am I.” - -“Make the things we planned last year,” suggested Madeline promptly. - -“You know that won’t do, Madeline,” Betty told her sternly. “All our -best customers have bought dozens of extra-special candle-shades and -Cupid cards and stenciled blotters. We can have some of those, for -freshmen or girls who didn’t get around to buy last year. But it will -all seem stale and left over and silly if we don’t have some grand new -specialties. Please, Madeline!” - -Madeline frowned darkly and shook her head. “Ever since that tea-shop -was started, I have sacrificed my Literary Career to its needs. Now -I revolt. I’m going to write my play while I’m in the mood. If I -should finish before Christmas, why, then I’ll help with the gift-shop -business, not otherwise.” - -“What shall I do?” sighed Betty. “The gift-shop pays splendidly. We -can’t let it go, because if we do we shall make less money than we did -last year, and then Mrs. Hildreth and Mrs. Bob would be disappointed. -Besides, I’ve been promising some of my girls a regular harvest from -it.” - -“Mary Brooks invented a pretty candle-shade last year,” Madeline -reminded her. “Tell her that she’s the Perfect Patron, and must dress -the part. Command her to come to the rescue of the gift-shop.” - -“I shall ask her to come and talk to you,” Betty murmured under her -breath. - -But even Mary’s lively arguments left Madeline unmoved. - -“If it was an order that you’d had for a play,” Mary told her calmly, -“I wouldn’t say a word. But you’re only wasting your time on a forlorn -hope, just when you might be doing something really useful. I shall -cross my thumbs at you and your old play.” - -“You may cross your thumbs all you want to,” Madeline defied her -smilingly. “Before the winter is over you’ll be sitting in a box at my -Broadway opening--that is, if I’m magnanimous enough to ask you, after -all the beautiful encouragement you’re giving me.” - -“But, Madeline”--Mary was nothing if not persistent--“what makes you -think you can write a play, when all your stories have come back, -except a few of those college ones? A play is any amount harder to -write than a short story.” - -Madeline smiled back at her confidently. “Maybe I agree with you, -little Mary. But in the first place every Tom, Dick and Harry is -writing good short stories nowadays, and nobody is writing extra good -plays. In the second place, I have discovered the secret of writing -natural but amusing dialogue.” - -“And I suppose you know all there is to be known about stage-craft,” -added Mary, in her most sarcastic tones. - -“I’ve seen every good thing in New York ever since I could talk,” -Madeline announced calmly. “Besides, I am going down to New York later -to look up the stage business. But first I’m going to get the play all -written. I’m afraid the original touch would tumble out if I carried it -to New York in my head. And then,” she added mysteriously, “I couldn’t -use my secret method about dialogue so well in New York.” - -“Madeline Ayres,” Mary told her solemnly, “you are the most provoking -person I know. You have mooned around here all the fall, doing footless -little stunts for anybody that asked you. Now, when Betty and the -Tally-ho need you, you are under the spell of the most untimely -inspiration that I’ve ever heard of your having.” - -“I guess the Vagabonds would like to hear you call the Pageant I wrote -for them footless,” declared Madeline in injured tones, “and if any -college play ever took better than the Purple Indians----” - -“Of course your stunts are all perfectly lovely,” Mary hastened to -assure her. “You’re the most provoking but also pretty nearly the most -interesting of all the B. C. A.’s. Isn’t she, Betty? I’ll cross my -thumbs for your play instead of against it, Madeline.” - -“Thanks,” said Madeline briefly. “I’m writing it for Agatha Dwight.” - -Betty and Mary exchanged glances of utter amazement. Agatha Dwight -was the idol of Harding and of two continents besides. The leading -playwrights of England and America wrote for her, and the greatest of -them felt highly honored when her capricious taste singled out a piece -of his for production. - -“And the moral of that is,” said Mary at last, “aim at a star, because -it’s no disgrace if you miss her. Pun not noticed until it was too late -to withdraw the epigram. Come on, Betty, and fix up the workroom. It’s -lucky that George Garrison Hinsdale is writing another of his horribly -learned papers this month, so I can be down here as much as I like. -This one is on the aberrations of Genius. I shall suggest untimely -inspirations as an important subhead, and invite Madeline up to discuss -it with him. Meanwhile our only hope is that she’ll get sick of her -play and come to our rescue, and do you know, Betty Wales, I shall be -most desperately disappointed if she does.” - -Betty laughed. “I suppose she oughtn’t to waste her time on fussy -little things like gift-shop specialties if she can really do big -things like plays for Agatha Dwight. But she is so splendid at -everything.” - -“And the moral of that is,” said Mary, “be splendid at everything and -you’ll be wanted, no matter how provoking you are at times. I should -like to have been a genius myself, only George Garrison Hinsdale says -he prefers near-geniuses as wives. Now, Betty Wales, what do you say to -a ploshkin candle-shade for this year’s extra-special feature?” - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -WHAT CHRISTMAS REALLY MEANS - - -THE Terrible Ten began it. Eleanor Watson had forgotten to bring either -peanuts or taffy to their class, and the Arithmetic lesson flagged in -consequence, until finally, in despair, she sent Rafael out to buy some -refreshments. - -“How’s your father to-night, Pietro?” she asked, while they waited. -Pietro Senior had slipped on the ice on his way home from work and -sprained his wrist badly. - -“Better, I tink,” Pietro reported stolidly, his thoughts all on peanuts -to come. - -“Dat’s nottings--lit’ wrist splain,” Giuseppi announced. “My fader, he -had a hand cut off--so.” - -“My fader go to de hospital. Hava big cutting.” Nicolo illustrated a -“big cutting” vividly with a dangerous swing of his villainous-looking -jack-knife. - -“My moder she hava two operations dis year.” - -“My sister she have tree.” - -Rafael had arrived during the debate, but not even the bag of peanuts -he set down before Eleanor could distract attention from the bitter -rivalry in misfortune. In a minute Rafael too had caught the trend of -it. - -“Waita lil minute,” he cried, glowering angrily round the circle. -“Looka my hand. Dat’s one. My lil sister she died dis year. My muvver -she go to hospital. And my big sister, she work to Cannon’s fer der -Christmas trade. She say she rather die, she so tired every night, an’ -it get worse an’ worse an’ worse every day till it be Christmas.” - -“Dat so,” agreed Pietro solemnly. “My sister she work dar too. Doan get -home till ten, leben o’clock.” - -Cannon’s was the big cheap department store down near the station. -Eleanor took mental note of the Ten’s opinion of its treatment of -employees, and resolved to ask Mr. Thayer if the girls who worked there -really had such a hard time as their small brothers thought. Meanwhile -she stopped the ridiculous operation contest with many peanuts. The -Ten, being very bright boys, though ignorant of books, had speedily -discovered that the bigger numbers you could add right, the faster you -could secure large quantities of peanuts. Also, they humbly worshipped -the Lovely Lady, whom Rafael had refused to let them call “de peach.” -They came regularly to their class, they listened spellbound to the -adventures of Robin Hood, they wrote the names of Robin and all his -band--also their own and the Lovely Lady’s--without a slip, and when -Eleanor declared that nothing would make her so happy as to hear them -read the tale of King Arthur and his knights to her out of a book, they -set themselves at learning “dose queer book letters” with a will. - -“First fellah dat bothers my Lovely Lada, I fixa him,” Rafael had -announced at the end of the third lesson. - -“Why she your lovely lada?” demanded Pietro mockingly, dodging behind a -telegraph pole for safety. - -“’Cause I lika her de most,” Rafael declared, “and she goan lika me de -most. You jus’ wait.” - -But after that one assertion of proprietorship, he changed “my” to -“the,” and impressed the revision upon his friends and followers with -terrible threats. Rafael’s eyes were brown and melting, his voice was -of a liquid softness, his smile as sunny as the skies of his native -land. But when he scowled all the fierceness of Sicilian feuds and -vendettas flashed out of his deep eyes and straightened his mouth into -a cruel, hard line. No wonder the Ten shivered and cowered before the -wrath of Rafael, supplemented by the flash of a sharp little dagger -that Eleanor, who had been entirely reassured by Mr. Thayer, little -suspected the dearest of her dear, curly-haired comical Ten to be -carrying inside his gray shirt. - -After the class that evening, Eleanor asked Mr. Thayer about Cannon’s. - -“Well, I suppose they are pretty hard on their girls,” he said. -“Standing up all day waiting on tired, irritable customers who have to -make every penny count, with fifteen minutes off for lunch in the busy -season, can’t be exactly fun. Then in the evening I suppose they have -to go back to straighten up their stock of goods, move things around -to show them off better, trim up the windows, and so on. Christmas -means something quite different from a gay holiday with a big dinner -and a lot of pretty presents to those girls and to lots of others, Miss -Watson. If the Christmas rush is bad at Cannon’s, it must be perfect -torture in the big city shops.” - -Next day Eleanor persuaded Madeline, who could always be detached from -her work to investigate a real novelty, to go with her to Cannon’s. - -“If we want to ask the clerks any questions, you can do it safely -in Italian, or any other language,” Eleanor urged. “They’re mostly -foreigners, I think.” - -Madeline nodded. “And I might find the type----” Her voice trailed off -into silence, and her face wore a far-away, inscrutable look. Writing -a play for Miss Dwight certainly made a person very absent-minded, and -one’s conversation very inconsecutive--also one’s actions. Madeline -suddenly decided to buy a hat, and dragged Eleanor from one shop to -another without finding anything to please her difficult taste, so that -it was almost dark when they reached Cannon’s. - -The big store was packed with shoppers. The air was clammy and stale; -the counters were a mass of soiled and dingy merchandise. Tiny -cash-girls ran wearily to and fro, elbowing a difficult way through the -jam in the narrow aisles. Behind the counters pale-faced clerks eyed -the customers savagely, and attended with languid insolence to their -wants. - -Eleanor sniffed the air daintily. “What an awful place, Madeline! Where -do all these shoppers come from? I don’t feel a bit as if I were in -Harding.” - -“From Factory Hill, I suppose, and from across the tracks where the -French settlement is. Let’s go to the toy department and buy Fluffy a -doll. I’m sure they’ll have something unique to add to her collection.” - -Eleanor stood near the door, hesitating. “It’s horribly smelly. You -don’t think we shall catch anything, do you?” - -Madeline laughed. “You’d never do to go really and truly slumming, -Eleanor. No, we shan’t catch anything, probably. Come along. I thought -you wanted to investigate this place.” - -So Eleanor bravely “came along.” They bought a penny doll for Fluffy, -from a sad-eyed little clerk who told them she was “tired most to death -working nights,” and then, when a floor-walker appeared suddenly from -around a corner, took it all back and declared loudly that business was -fine this year and she liked the rush of “somethin’ doin’.” - -On the way down-stairs--Eleanor had firmly refused to get into one of -Cannon’s elevators--they came upon a girl crying bitterly. - -“What’s the matter?” Madeline asked in the friendly, companionable way -that always got her answers. - -“I’ve been fined again,” the girl sobbed. “Ten cents ain’t so much, but -neither is four dollars. That’s what I get. I’ve been fined three times -this week. What for? Why, once for being late in the morning--it’s -awful easy to sleep over when you’ve been working late at night--and -once for sitting down on the ledge behind the counter. It’s against the -rules to sit down, you know. And this time it was for talking back to -an inspector who said my check was wrong. It wasn’t. If it had been, -I’d have been fined for that.” - -Eleanor had been hunting through her pocketbook. - -“Please take this,” she said, “and don’t cry any more. Can’t you get -off to-night and have a good rest?” - -The girl shook her head vigorously, smiling at Eleanor through her -tears. “I’d lose my job like that, ma’am. I ain’t any worse off than -the others; only it did make me sick to lose the money when I got so -many depending on me--my old grandmother and two kid brothers--and I -wanted to make a little Christmas for the kids. Thank you an awful lot, -ma’am.” - -The girls went on their way fairly bursting with indignation. - -“The idea of fining her for sitting down to rest!” sputtered Madeline. -“And for being late, when she’s worked half the night before, it’s -outrageous!” - -Eleanor had quite forgotten the odors and the risk of infection. “Let’s -buy some ribbon,” she suggested. “That counter seems to be the hub of -the shopping fray.” - -So they bought ribbon of a dark-eyed, dark-haired beauty who proved -to be Pietro’s sister. She beamed on Eleanor, and in the safe foreign -tongue confided to Madeline that Cannon’s was certainly a bad place -to work. She could look out for herself, she explained, flashing an -imperious glance at an inspector. She brought in lots of Italian trade, -and could interpret both in Italian and French for the women who hadn’t -learned English. So they treated her better. Oh, they fined her, of -course--that was the rule--and she worked most nights. But she was -pretty sure of keeping her place, whatever happened. That was a big -help. They should see the dirty hole of a lunch-room before they left, -she called gleefully after them, under the very eye of the fat little -man whom she had pointed out as Mr. Cannon. It was certainly “a big -help” to be able to utter wholesome truths like that with impunity. - -“Let’s go and reason with him,” suggested Madeline, looking angrily -after the fat little proprietor. “Let’s make him take us to see the -dirty hole of a rest-room. Let’s threaten to boycott him if he doesn’t -reform his ways.” - -Eleanor looked very much frightened. “We should only get the girls -we’ve talked to into trouble. The boycott wouldn’t work because we’ve -never bought anything anyway until to-day. I--I think I’m beginning to -feel faint, Madeline. Let’s go home and talk it over with Betty and Mr. -Thayer. They’ll think of just the right thing to do.” - -But Mr. Thayer had gone to Boston, via Babbie Hildreth’s, and it was -Eugenia Ford’s plan that, after much discussion, was settled upon, for -the reason, as Madeline put it, that it was “just wild enough to work.” - -So after chapel the next morning Eugenia, Georgia, and Fluffy--Straight -had tearfully decided not to cut Logic--chaperoned by Betty, appeared -at Cannon’s and asked to see the head of the firm. - -“Good-morning, Mr. Cannon,” said Georgia in businesslike tones, when -he appeared. “We’ve got a proposition to make to you. We three are -Harding girls, and this is Miss Wales, secretary of the Student’s Aid -Society,--also proprietor of the Tally-ho Tea-Shop.” - -“Indeed! Charmed to meet you, I’m sure.” The fat little man bowed low -and smiled a fatuous, oily smile. “Anything I can do in the way of -canned goods, crackers, sweets--to the sweet, ladies.” He bowed and -smiled again. - -“We want to ask a favor,” pursued Georgia, utterly ignoring his -courtesies. “We all have pretty good times generally, and very merry -Christmases. We want other girls to have the same. We have just lately -realized how hard it is for salespeople just at this time of year--how -Christmas means to them just terribly hard work for little or no extra -pay--and we want to help at least a few of them. So we’ve gotten up a -petition about shopping early in the day, and early in the season, for -the Harding girls to sign. Now we also want to arrange to come down and -help some of your girls out. We want to take the places of three of -them every day from twelve to one, so that they can get a good rest at -noon, and also from five to six, so they can, if possible, do any extra -work they have then and so avoid night work. If not, they can at least -start fresh for the evening.” - -Mr. Cannon stared at Georgia in utter amazement. Suddenly his fat face -grew red, and he shouted angrily, “Who’s been talkin’ to you? You know -an awful lot about my business, don’t you, now? You’d better clear out.” - -“Without the canned goods and crackers and sweets--for the sweet?” -asked Fluffy gaily, looking down at him with her fascinating, insolent -smile. - -“We’ve talked to no one, Mr. Cannon,” put in little Eugenia earnestly. - -“And we mean to help you too, as is only fair, if you are good enough -to give us the chance to help the girls,” added Betty, with quiet -dignity. - -Mr. Cannon glowered at the circle of pretty, serious, half-frightened -faces. - -“You don’t know nothing about clerking,” he sputtered at last. “Nice -mess you’d make of your hours! Nice kind of help you’d hand out to me!” - -“I was a waitress once,” Fluffy informed him calmly, winking at Betty. -“The young woman I worked for said I was very good at it. Besides, all -my little friends came and patronized me. If you’ll let me try, I’ll -ask them to patronize me here.” - -“We don’t expect pay,” Georgia explained, “and the first day we come -we’d just be extras, watching to see what our duties would be.” - -“Don’t be silly, Mr. Cannon,” urged Fluffy, who was never in the -least daunted by opposition. “We’ll accomplish more in an hour than -these poor dragged-out girls ever do--even if we don’t understand the -difficult art of clerking,” she added maliciously. “And they’ll do more -in their afternoons, after they’ve had a chance to rest. What you want -is your money’s worth, isn’t it? The best service for the smallest -wages. Don’t----” - -“See here,” Mr. Cannon cut her short, “let’s have a little talk. What -did you come here for to-day?” He pointed a pudgy finger at Fluffy, who -explained once more, in picturesque phrases, the idea they had had in -coming to interview him. - -“You say you’ve been a waitress?” - -Fluffy nodded, winking solemnly again at Betty. - -“You’re not a labor organizer?” - -With equal solemnity she denied the charge. - -“Far as I can see, you’re more or less luny. If you want to, you can -try. Come to-day at twelve. If you get along, maybe the others can -take hold. Some o’ my girls are fagged, for sure, and if your little -friends, as you call them, come in, that’ll help some. I’ve always -said,” added Mr. Cannon proudly, “that if I could once get the college -trade to swing my way, I could keep it. Honest values for cash is my -motto.” And with a curt little nod he started off. - -“Wait!” Fluffy arrested his progress. “You mean I’m to come and not the -others?” - -Mr. Cannon nodded. “As the most likely specimen. I don’t believe in -beginning any new experiment on too sumptoos a scale.” This time he was -irrevocably gone. - -Fluffy wore a comical air of dismay. “Gracious! Doing it all alone -isn’t at all my idea of a stunt. I shall be terribly scared and lonely. -Straight’s got to spend the entire hour buying things of me. Oh, dear! -She can’t, because it’s a cash store and we haven’t any money left. I -wonder, if I should tell him I had a twin, whether he wouldn’t let her -try to-day too.” - -“No time,” said Georgia firmly. “Psych. 6 beckons. But you shan’t be -deserted. We’ll take up a contribution for Straight to spend.” - -Fluffy’s experiment in social service was the sensation of the Harding -morning. Promptly at twelve she appeared, and was given the place of -a wan little girl behind the ribbon counter. Ten minutes later--she -had stipulated for that interval in which to learn how to “work” her -cash-book--the “college trade” appeared in the persons of a lively -delegation conducted by the triumphant Straight, all eagerness to -display her adored twin in this new and exciting rôle. They bought -ribbons recklessly, with much delicious professional encouragement -from Fluffy. They smiled cheerfully upon Mr. Cannon, who lurked in -the offing, watching the progress of his “new experiment” with amazed -interest. Piloted by Eleanor Watson, they ascended to the doll counter, -and provided themselves with souvenirs of the occasion in the shape of -dancing dolls which twirled fascinatingly about a central magnet on top -of a little tin box. There had been nothing so nice at the regular -toy store, they declared loudly, for Mr. Cannon’s benefit. At one they -escorted the weary Fluffy triumphantly to the Tally-ho for luncheon. - -“He tried to hire me for all the afternoons,” explained Fluffy proudly, -“and he says the rest of you may come, and Straight too, seeing she’s -my twin; but no more. He doesn’t believe in trying noo experiments on -too sumptoos a scale,” mimicked Fluffy joyously. - -A good many things besides the easing of the lots of a few tired -sales-girls came of the “noo experiment.” One was a queer friendship -that sprang up between Fluffy and Mr. Cannon, cemented by a compact, -on Fluffy’s part, hereafter to “trade for cash,” which Mr. Cannon -considered the only honest way of living, and, on Mr. Cannon’s, to -accept Mr. Thayer’s offer of rooms in the club-house where classes in -embroidery and music and some amusement clubs might be enjoyed by Mr. -Cannon’s girls. Then Madeline’s “Sunday Special” article on the Harding -girls’ practical way of helping those less fortunate was copied and -discussed through the whole country; and many women and men who had -never given the matter a thought before realized that shop-girls are -human and began treating them as if they were. - -Meanwhile Betty Wales, seeing another application of the same -principle, got together the committee on the Proper Excitement of the -Idle Rich and made them a proposition. - -“A store in New York wants two thousand ploshkin candle-shades before -Christmas. They won’t handle less than a thousand. Six Morton Hall -girls are working their heads off to get them ready in time--that means -that the last shipment must go by the fifteenth. Why can’t you help -them out by having some candle-shade bees?” - -“I haven’t had a chance to do one thing for Christmas myself,” objected -Georgia sadly. - -“Do you usually make all your presents?” demanded Mary Brooks -incisively. “You know you never touch one of them. As the presiding -genius of the gift-shop department and the one and only Perfect Patron -of the Tally-ho I am bound to help this Excitement along. It’s simply -absurd for you to rush down to Cannon’s every day, and then refuse to -help the girls in this very college who are just as tired and just as -much tied down by this horrible Christmas tradition of buying things -all in a heap, regardless of the people who have to make them then, or -starve. The first bee can be at my house,” ended Mary sweetly, “and -there will be perfectly good refreshments.” - -The bees accomplished wonders, but it was still a struggle to finish -the candle-shades in time; and when the Thorn cut her hand and the -wound got poisoned and wouldn’t heal, things seemed nearly hopeless. -But little Eugenia Ford came nobly to the rescue. “There’s no rule -against getting up at three in the morning,” she said, and for six -consecutive days she woke herself heroically at that hour, and cut, -pasted, and put together candle-shades until dawn, hardly taking time -for breakfast, but never neglecting her college work--she had learned -her lesson about that. - -At three o’clock on the afternoon of Sunday, the sixteenth, Eugenia -hung out a busy sign and curled up on her couch for a much needed nap. -When she woke again, it was almost dark. She had promised to go to -Vespers with Helena Mason. - -“I’m afraid I’m late, but she might have called for me,” reflected -Eugenia, getting rapidly into a trailing blue broadcloth dress, which, -with a big plumed hat, silver-fox furs, and a huge bunch of violets, -was calculated to make a very favorable impression upon the Vespers -audience. - -When she was ready, Eugenia consulted a diminutive watch. “Quarter to -seven!” Her expression of consternation gave way suddenly to relief. “I -remember now that it was two hours fast. No--I changed it. Well, it’s -surely all wrong.” Eugenia dashed down the hall to Helena Mason’s room. -Her hurried knock was answered by a rather grudging “Come in.” - -“I’m very sorry to be late,” Eugenia began apologetically. - -Miss Mason sat at her desk, writing busily. She turned her head at -last, and stared hard at Eugenia. - -“I should say you were early myself,” she observed, “but why the plumes -and the train?” - -Eugenia seized a tiny alarm clock that stood on the floor by the bed, -which, for some strange reason, was not made up--at Vespers time on -Sunday. - -“It is quarter to seven,” she cried aghast. “Why didn’t you call me, -and why isn’t it dark, and what do you mean by saying I’m early for -Vespers?” - -“Eugenia Ford, are you crazy?” inquired Miss Mason sternly. - -Poor Eugenia looked ready to cry. “I don’t think I am. Tell me what I’m -early for, please.” - -“Breakfast, of course,” explained Miss Mason. “I got up at six to copy -this theme. It’s now almost seven--there’s the rising bell this minute. -As for Vespers, now you speak of it I do remember that you promised to -call for me, but I went to the Westcott for dinner yesterday and to -Vespers right from there, without ever thinking of our engagement.” - -Eugenia sank down limply on the disheveled bed. “Then I’ve slept since -three o’clock yesterday,” she announced tragically, “in my kimono, on -top of my couch, you know. I never heard of such a thing, did you?” - -The Thorn certainly never had, and she was much impressed. - -“I always supposed that rich girls like Miss Ford just thought of -clothes and dances and traveling and a good time generally,” she -confided to Betty. “I never thought one of them would wear herself out -helping poor little me. You’ve got to be pretty tired to sleep like -that. I shall always feel differently about rich girls after this.” - -And she kept her word. The Thorn’s sharp point was dulled. Instead of -being a faultfinder and an agitator she threw her influence, which -for some obscure reason was considerable, on the side of harmony and -good-fellowship. - -“I’ve told the third floor to stop spying on Esther Bond,” she informed -Betty. “I’m convinced myself that she studies out loud, and for some -queer reason doesn’t want it known. She’s awfully secretive. That -Helena Mason goes up to see her quite a lot. You’d think she’d be proud -of knowing a prominent girl like Miss Mason, but she smuggles her in -and out as if she was a poor relation. All the same, I guess the way -she acts is her own affair. She hasn’t said much, but she must know -she’s being watched, and I’ve advised them all to stop it. She looks -as if she had troubles enough without that. I’ve been reading up about -ghosts, and they do seem to be pretty much made up, specially all those -seen by several people at one time. Did Miss Dick’s school ever find -out about theirs?” - -Betty shook her head. “The poor little girl who got the most frightened -by it has been terribly ill. They thought last week that she was going -to die, but she’s much better now.” - -“Some other girl must be feeling pretty bad, if it was done for a -joke,” said the Thorn. - -“Yes,” agreed Betty, “but Miss Dick thinks it was an accident--and -little Shirley’s strong imagination, of course. I hope she’s right. And -thank you for taking Miss Bond’s part. We don’t want our silly ghosts -to hurt any one’s feelings or make any girl sorry she came to Morton -Hall.” - - - - -CHAPTER XII - -RAFAEL PROPOSES - - -MADELINE worked on her play with the furious industry of the “digs” she -had always ridiculed. The floor of her room was littered with dusty -sheets of manuscript, which she mysteriously informed her landlady -must not be touched, or “the world and all would be lost.” She took -long, solitary walks, sat for hours at her desk or the Tally-ho’s, -alternately staring hopelessly into space, or frantically covering -reams of papers with her pretty illegible writing. Occasionally she -emerged from her closely-guarded solitude and gave a tea-drinking for -the B. C. A.’s, at which she adroitly turned the conversation to the -strangest topics; or she bundled some long-suffering friend off with -her on an endless shopping tour or trolley ride, during which she -listened in complete absorption to chance bits of dialogue, coming home -with a delicious new monologue for which she insisted on an immediate -audience, “to test the note of reality,” she explained vaguely. - -One day just before Christmas she was caught by Mary Brooks in a mellow -mood and dragged off to dinner, to give Dr. Hinsdale a practical -demonstration of some of the idiosyncrasies of genius. And after Dr. -Hinsdale had gone to his study, over the second round of coffee by the -open fire, she explained her newest literary device to the bewildered -Mary. - -“When I do stunty pageants for my friends to act and footless little -playlets that don’t matter,” she began, “I just dash them off without -thinking and they turn out beautifully. But somehow the idea of writing -seriously for publication stiffens me all up inside and muddles my -ideas. Heroine always turns into a freak or a prig on my hands. Hero -gets hysterical when I try to make him earnest. But now when things -begin to go wrong, I calmly tear up what I’ve written, and go out and -make my little pals talk off the next scene to me, or at least recall -to my mind how real conversation sounds. The awfully romantic, lover-y -parts I either have to overhear or extract from people who don’t know -me. The girl at Cannon’s who is the model for my heartless coquette -little guesses her proud mission in life.” - -“I should call that just cold-blooded cribbing,” declared Mary -indignantly. - -“Cold-blooded cribbing from life is the very top notch of art,” -Madeline assured her. “My play is a slice from life. I suppose it’s -because I’m young and inexperienced that I have to keep stopping to -refer to life so often as I go along.” - -“Am I in it anywhere?” demanded Mary eagerly. - -“You and the girl at Cannon’s and Fluffy Dutton and Betty are the -principal ingredients in the heroine,” explained Madeline. “But I defy -you to have discovered it for yourself, and I swear you to eternal -secrecy, because people would misunderstand. Life with a big ‘L’ is the -kind I’m cribbing; I should scorn, of course, to put my friends and -their petty affairs into a play.” - -Mary drew her smooth brows into a puzzled frown. “I suppose I shall -understand all that when I see the play,” she said with a sigh. -“George Garrison Hinsdale would better be saving up for a trip to New -York before long, including a box party to the first night of your -slice from life.” - -“You’ll have to wait till the second night if you want a box,” Madeline -told her calmly. “All the boxes are spoken for on the first night, and -there will be several parties in the seats, besides.” - -This calm assumption of success made Mary gasp and engage her husband, -later in the evening, in an intricate discussion of the distinction -between the serene self-assurance of genius and the ordinary man’s -unjustified conceit. - - * * * * * - -Eleanor Watson wanted to join Jim in New York. He was sure of being -there for several months, he wrote her, and equally sure of being sent -off to “some miserable hole” in the early spring. - -“Beating the firm’s time-limit on Morton Hall,” he wrote, “is about the -unluckiest thing I ever did. They’ve written me down for a hustler, and -slated me for all the forlorn hopes. Remind Betty that she owes me a -good long letter for that.” - -The thing that kept Eleanor at Harding was of course the devotion of -the Terrible Ten to her and to education under her auspices. In vain -she had introduced other story-tellers; the evenings that she stayed -away to give Mr. Thayer’s most promising candidates a trial were -tumultuous revolts, or, after she had patiently explained to the class -how unhappy their disorderly conduct made her, spiritless sessions, -endured because the smouldering fire in Rafael’s eyes commanded outward -submission from the Ten. - -“But if you really leave I’m afraid they’ll all backslide again,” said -Mr. Thayer, “and you see they’re on probation now to the very end of -their course. Did Rafael tell you that he’d had another raise? That -boy does the work of two men, in spite of his bad hand--runs the most -difficult machine in the factory, and makes repairs that we used to -have to get a man up from Boston to attend to.” - -“How old is he?” asked Eleanor idly. - -“Eighteen, he thinks. They’re all older than they look or act.” - -Eleanor sighed. “They won’t be able to meet the reading requirements -of the factory law for six weeks yet, and they ought to be induced to -keep on all winter--certainly the ones who are bright enough at their -work to have any future before them. But it does seem absurd for me to -stay on here just because ten young Italians listen to my stories and -eat my peanuts.” - -“And appreciate the tact and understanding that you bestow so -generously, mixed with the peanuts and the stories,” added Mr. Thayer -soberly. - -That night Eleanor went to Mr. Thayer’s office after the class to have -one more consultation with him about its future. When she came back for -her coat and hat a stealthy figure slipped past her in the hall. - -“Did you forget something, Rafael?” she asked, recognizing her favorite -pupil. - -Rafael muttered something unintelligible and hurried off, but his -return was explained when Eleanor found a neatly folded note tucked in -the sleeve of her coat. - - “Der Mis”--it began, “I luv yu. i haf nuther raz. I keep you good lik - lada. Wil yu haf me to mary, if not I die - - “Yur RAFAEL. - - “I tak 1 hor a day for wik to make thiz note rite.” - - * * * * * - -Eleanor read the pathetic little missive through with growing dismay. -He had misunderstood her kindness--the pictures she had given him to -brighten the dark little hovel where he and his family lived, the -Thanksgiving dinner she had sent them, the special smile she always had -ready when he appeared at the club. She started to show her note to Mr. -Thayer, then changed her mind. - -After all, Rafael was in earnest, and she would treat his proposal like -any other. It should be a secret between them. She would think out for -herself some kindly way of explaining that she could not “haf” him “to -mary,” and that he must not die of a broken heart. - -The next evening when the class met she smiled at him just as usual, -and catching his eye early in the evening slipped a note, folded as his -had been, under his cap. - -In it she had printed, in short easy words that Rafael could read, how -sorry she was to disappoint him, how she liked him for a friend, how -he must forget what he had written and work hard to make the Italian -girl whom he would love some day proud and happy and comfortable. - -“I can’t treat it as absurd,” she had decided, “and I can’t be cross to -him. He means it all, and he doesn’t dream how comical it is. I only -hope he won’t be too excited to read what I’ve written.” - -Evidently he was not, for just as Eleanor, having said good-night -to the Harding girls who had walked up the hill with her from their -classes, was turning in at her own door, Rafael glided out from the -shadow of the house and stood in her path. - -“Der is no hope?” he demanded tragically, standing bareheaded before -her. - -“Oh, Rafael,” Eleanor remonstrated, “I always speak the truth to you, -don’t I? I wrote you a note because you wrote me one; and now you -ask me if I mean it. Why, dear boy, I’m almost old enough to be your -mother.” - -“I love you,” Rafael told her stoutly. - -“Then please me by acting sensible. You’re much too young to think -about marrying and I----” - -“You luf anodder,” broke in Rafael accusingly. - -Eleanor flushed pink under cover of the darkness. Hardly to herself -even did she admit the part that Richard Blake played in her thoughts. -Indeed so skilfully had she concealed it that Dick Blake, working day -and night to push “The Quiver” to the top of the magazine world, was -wont to smile scornfully to himself when he thought how little he and -his valiant efforts meant to the girl who, in all his hopes and plans -and dreams, was to share his future. - -But in a swift moment’s consideration Eleanor decided that the best -way to cure this sentimental little Italian boy of his infatuation was -to let him know that he had indeed a successful rival. Telling Rafael -was different from admitting it to anyone else--because Rafael was -foolishly in love too. - -She stretched out her hand impulsively and patted his shoulder. “Yes, -Rafael,” she whispered softly, “I’m in love with somebody else. But he -doesn’t know it yet, and I’m not sure that he cares for me. Nobody -knows it but you, and I’m telling you because I----” - -“Good-bye, lovely lada, good-bye.” Rafael caught the hand that lay on -his shoulder, kissed it in his passionate, foreign fashion, and glided -away into the darkness. - -Eleanor stood looking after him with the curious sensation of being -the heroine of a pretty old-time romance that belonged in a fairy -world of magic and moonlight, and ought to be set to the tinkling -music of guitars. And just as she had put out her light and gone -to bed, still smiling at the whimsicality of the whole affair, and -particularly of her having confided to Rafael her carefully-secreted -feeling for Dick--who would do beautifully for the brave young prince -of the fairy-tale the music came. The Terrible Ten were grouped under -the window singing soft, crooning Italian songs to their Lovely Lada. -Giuseppi had traveled with his father one summer in a troupe of street -musicians; it was his fingers that picked a bit uncertainly at the -guitar’s strings, and little Nicolo’s wonderful voice, rising sweet and -true above the others, that led the chorus. But Rafael stood in the -centre of the half circle, his angelic face touched with light from -a down-stairs window, and the sob and the thrill in the music, that -brought a lump to Eleanor’s throat and a mist over her eyes, was all in -Rafael’s voice, singing out his love and longing to the cruel lady who -would not “haf” him “to mary.” - -Eleanor had a bunch of red roses on her table that the adoring Eugenia -Ford had sent her, and she tossed them down to the singers, who laughed -and cheered in most unromantic boy fashion, and finally departed, -leaving Eleanor to wonder how Rafael had explained the serenade to his -followers, and how he would treat her at the next club meeting. She -little guessed what would happen before then. - -For the next morning before she was dressed an apologetic parlor-maid -escorted a weeping Italian girl to Eleanor’s door. It was Pietro’s -flashing-eyed sister, her beauty tear-stained and her proud confidence -quite vanished. - -“Rafael’s hurt,” she sobbed. “Black Hand maybe, we think. He don’t know -nothing, but he moan your name with his eyes shut. Would you come?” - -Of course she would come. She hurried the maid off after the best -doctor in Harding, and she and the beautiful Maria went at once to -Rafael, who lay tossing in delirium on his blood-stained bed, a -terrible gash across his throat, which had been roughly bandaged by an -old Italian herb doctor. Nobody, it seemed, guessed what had really -happened, though when some one found a tiny dagger under the bed Pietro -and Nicolo interchanged curious glances. They had recognized it as the -one with which Rafael had struck terror to the hearts of the Ten and -compelled their rigid obedience. - -Eleanor installed a trained nurse, made the doctor promise to give the -case his best attention, and went off to find her unfailing stand-by in -troublous times, Betty Wales. For Rafael was beyond knowing anybody, -perhaps for all time, and she felt like a criminal when his mother -kissed her sleeve in gratitude for all she had done and Maria clung to -her, sobbing out her love for Rafael who never had “eyes for any girl” -and declaring that if he died she would enter a convent. She couldn’t -bring herself to tell them the dreadful truth. - -But, “If he dies I shall be a murderer,” she told Betty bitterly. -“I’ve always been so vain and frivolous. Now when I want to take life -seriously and do things for other people, as you do, I only make a mess -of it, and bring dreadful trouble where I wanted most to help. I shall -never, never try to do anything more. I wish I were----” - -“No, you don’t,” Betty assured her hastily. “Just because you did the -best you could for those boys and this silly one had his head full of -sentimental nonsense doesn’t make you responsible. It’s a dreadful -thing, of course, but I’m sure he’ll get well. Didn’t the doctor think -so?” - -The doctor hadn’t said. - -“Then I’ll leave word for him to telephone you here of any change -either way,” Betty decreed. “Mrs. Post is going to make German -Christmas cakes this morning for the girls. She wanted me to help -her, but I’ve got to go to the Tally-ho before chapel and then to the -office, so you simply must help instead. I suppose you haven’t had any -breakfast, have you now?” - -Eleanor didn’t want any. - -“Of course you do. I’ll send some up by a maid, and Mrs. Post will tell -you when she’s ready to begin on the cakes. Remember, the telephone -messages will come here, so you must stay till I get back.” - -Six times that morning Betty left an accommodating friend in charge -of her office, and in the short intervals between clients rushed over -to inquire for the cakes, Eleanor, and Rafael. At noon she snatched a -moment before luncheon to tell Mr. Thayer all about it--Eleanor had -declared she never could do that--so that he could explain what was -necessary to the authorities and avoid a futile search for non-existent -Black Hand plots and family feuds. Mr. Thayer had seen Rafael and the -doctor, and the doctor had been very encouraging. Betty flew back to -assure Eleanor that he had not been deceiving her--that he had said -the very same things to Mr. Thayer--and to beg her assistance that -afternoon at the Tally-ho workshop. For Madeline had come out of her -dramatic eclipse long enough to design some Christmas dinner-cards, -and there was a small fortune in them if only they could be put on sale -in time. Secretly Eleanor thought that Betty had grown just a little -bit selfish and very commercial since they had left college; but she -could not well refuse, after the dainty breakfast on a tray and all the -calls and the arranging with Mr. Thayer, to help with the Christmas -dinner-cards. - -Next day Rafael was worse. The doctor looked serious and suggested a -night-nurse and a consultation. At noon Eleanor declared that the air -of the little workshop stifled her, and Betty gave up office-hours--an -unheard-of proceeding--to go for a long tramp, during which she planned -all sorts of delightful things that Eleanor should do for Rafael when -he got well. - -The next day the boy was better, the day after that worse. But at the -end of a nerve-racking week of alternating hopes and fears the doctor -pronounced him out of danger. That very afternoon Jim telegraphed -that he was sick with a cold and needed Eleanor. Jim had always -hated coddling, Eleanor commented wonderingly, and failed to notice -Betty’s dimple flashing out in a tiny smile that was at once sternly -suppressed. For Jim had written her that he only hoped he could -preserve “the faded shadow of a suspicion of a snuffle” until Eleanor’s -arrival. “After that,” he concluded, “I count on my new bull pup, -suitors galore, and the diversions of little old New York to blow away -any remaining relics of melancholy. When the poor little chap is well -enough dad and I will see him through the best trade-school we can find -and give him every chance that’s coming to him. Adoring some girls is a -thing no fellow can or ought to help.” - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - -GENIUS ARRIVES - - -BETTY WALES was going home for Christmas--a “ploshkin” income puts life -on such a comfortable financial basis! And between Christmas and New -Year’s Babe was going to be married. That meant coming half-way back -to Harding for the wedding; and it made easier Betty’s sad decision -that since the stocking factory was willing to postpone its Christmas -party till New Year’s, and since most of the Morton Hall girls would -spend their vacations in town, and certainly be very forlorn indeed -unless somebody looked after them, it was the duty of Miss B. Wales, -Secretary, to come back early and lend a hand. - -Betty breathed a deep sigh of relief when she had seen Eleanor off to -New York, in the company of Madeline Ayres, who had finished her play -and now flatly refused to delay the putting on of the final touches in -New York for the interests of the Tally-ho’s gift-shop department. - -“Why, my dear girls,” she declared tragically, “I’m not half through -yet. I’ve got to see every success on Broadway now, to get into touch -with the season’s fads. Then I shall ‘supe’ a few times, to catch the -right feeling for one or two bare spots in my first act. Finally, I -shall probably hate my play so that I’ll tear it up and take the next -boat for Naples, to be consoled by my Bohemian family, who will laud me -to the skies for tearing up a play because I considered it bad art.” - -“Oh, Madeline!” came in horror-struck chorus at this point. - -“Well,” Madeline admitted blandly, “I’m willing to confide to friends -that at present my humble effort looks to me like the play of the -year--and I’m fairly stage-wise already. Dick Blake used to advise all -the aspiring dramatic critics he knew to take me along to their big -first nights, because I can always tell by instinct what the audience -is saying to itself. I’m a perfect mirror of public opinion. If I -still believe in my play after I’ve been ’round a little I shall see -Miss Dwight and her manager. After that----” Madeline shrugged her -shoulders, and confided irrelevantly to the resident B. C. A.’s, who -had come down to see the travelers off, that she wanted a black velvet -hat with a white feather. - -“And I’m going to have it, what’s more,” she ended. “I wrote dad, and -he just said, ‘It’s lucky you don’t want two white feathers, now isn’t -it?’ And he sent along a munificent check.” - -Which proved, Betty said, that genius is not incompatible with -frivolous-mindedness. - -Jim sniffled manfully on their arrival, and his carefully marshaled -“features” diverted Eleanor beautifully, especially after she had -been up to Harding once to see Rafael, who, after he began to mend, -progressed with amazing rapidity on the road to recovery. Because she -had dreaded seeing him, she was relieved to get the meeting over, and -much more relieved to find the boy so completely changed. As soon -as it could be managed he had been moved to a hospital, and the new -atmosphere, supplemented by good care and kindness, had done wonders -for him. Before he was well enough to leave, Mr. Thayer declared, -Rafael would be completely Americanized. - -He greeted Eleanor with a frank smile above his big bandages. - -“I awful silly boy,” he said, holding out a thin hand to her. “I guess -you want laugh at me. I guess you tink I know not how gran’ you live -in this country. Now I know. I know two, tree nurse-lady and many -visitor-lady, looka like you. I like to live here always. I hope I get -well awful slow.” - -But, when Eleanor had delivered Jim’s message about Rafael’s going, as -soon as he was strong enough, to a fine trade-school in Philadelphia, -he changed his mind. - -“Den I hope I get well awful fast. Before I get old, I know how all de -wheels in dis world go round, mebbe. I think you be mad at me, and now -you do me dis great big splendor.” - -“Oh, no, I wasn’t ever ‘mad’ at you,” Eleanor explained, “only sorry -you were so silly, and dreadfully frightened when you were so ill the -first week.” - -Rafael shrugged his shoulders. “Good ting for me. I come here. I learn -how to be ’Merican man in two, tree weeks. I come here silly lil -foreign boy. I look roun’. I listen hard. I see how you do here in -your gran’ country. And now,” Rafael snuggled into his pillows with -a beatific smile, “I find why all dose wheel go roun’. I maka fine -machine, mebbe. I swear off carry a dagger. And I tank you alla my -life.” - -So Eleanor could return to Jim, the bull pup, the suitors, and the -diversions of New York, with the happy assurance that in the end -Rafael’s devotion to her might be the making of him, and at the least -its untoward climax would do him more good than harm. Having nothing -now to worry about, she devoted the journey back to New York to -planning a ravishing new gown for Babe’s wedding. It was to be yellow, -because Dick Blake (who would not be at the wedding) liked yellow gowns -on her best; and very plain, because Dick liked simple lines and no -furbelows. Details might safely be left to Madame Celeste. It would -perhaps be more accurate to say that Eleanor devoted the journey back -to New York to thinking about Dick Blake. - -Babe’s wedding was to be a grand society function. - -“To please John’s father and my mother,” Babe wrote to her friends -of 19--; “John and I are resigned, because a wedding only lasts for -one evening, and after that we can shut ourselves up in our regular -castle of a house, with only the people we want, and everything you can -think of in your wildest dreams to amuse ourselves with. So one little -evening isn’t much to sacrifice. Mother says we owe it to our social -position. She doesn’t know that we have decided not to have any social -position. We’re just going to have a good time and try to make some -good times for other people. An impromptu wedding would have been lots -more fun, but you must all come, just the same.” - -Babe’s sister was to be maid of honor, Bob and Babbie, Betty and -Roberta Lewis were to be bridesmaids, and the other “Merry Hearts” -would sit together in a front pew, and be considered just as much in -the wedding party as if they were bridesmaids also. Jasper J. Morton -was coming up the night of the wedding in his private car. He had -meant to come the day before “to help you entertain Miss B. A. and her -friends,” he wrote Babe, but there were important directors’ meetings -to keep him at the last minute. He wrote Babe not to worry about him. -“I shall charter a special train if necessary--and don’t I always -arrive on time as a matter of principle?” - -But when Babe left the house for the church he had not appeared, and -after they had kept people waiting and wondering half an hour, and Babe -was so nervous that she declared she should cry in one more minute it -was decided to go on without him. - -The reception was half over when he appeared, looking very meek and -sheepish. He kissed Babe on both cheeks, shook John’s hand till it -ached, and despatched Babbie to “find those reporter fellows and tell -’em I’m not smashed up anywhere between here and New York, and I don’t -withhold my blessing from the happy couple. Tell ’em I was accidentally -detained, and if they want to know how say it was on a private matter -that is none of their business.” - -“And add some characteristic remarks about the ridiculous apes who try -to run our railroads,” put in John with a chuckle. - -“No, sir,” said Jasper J. Morton, with emphasis, “not this trip. Pretty -nearly every mile was a record, and I’ve recommended that engineer to -run the road’s Lightning Limited at a big increase over his present -pay. The reason I didn’t get here was personal--purely personal.” - -Later in the evening he got Babe and John and Betty into a corner, and -told them all about it. “Miss B. A.’s to blame, as usual,” he began. -“You see my train went out just ten minutes behind the Lightning -Limited, with no stop till Albany and the track clear all the way west. -I was hurrying through the station to get on, when I nearly ran down a -pretty little woman who was crying so hard she didn’t see me coming. -She’d lost the Lightning Limited, and her husband was dying in a little -place just beyond Albany where he’d gone on business and been taken -suddenly sick. There was a slow train in an hour, but that would be too -late, she said. - -“Naturally I told her to come with me to Albany. And then of course I -couldn’t leave her there to hunt up her connection alone, and have to -waste time waiting, maybe. So I arranged for a stop at the town she -was going to, and then,” Jasper J. Morton flushed shamefacedly, “when -nobody met her, we side-tracked our outfit and I drove up to the hotel -with her. She was barely in time, the doctor said. They’d been married -just a year to-day, she told me. I guess if ever you two are in a tight -place you’ll be thankful to anybody who misses his boy’s wedding to -help you out. But I wouldn’t have those reporters out there know what -a soft-hearted old auntie I’m getting to be, not for anything. Miss B. -A., you’ll be the ruin of me yet, with all your theories about looking -out for the other fellow.” - -“We’ll be married all over again if you’d like us to, Father Morton,” -Babe offered gallantly, although she had assured John after the -ceremony that she wouldn’t ever have promised to marry him if she bad -realized the queer feelings you have while you are doing it. - -But Mr. Morton refused her generous offer. “I’m satisfied,” he said, -“as long as John’s got you for a wife and I’ve got you for a daughter. -My seeing it done wouldn’t have made any big difference to you----” - -“Oh, yes, it would,” broke in Babe kindly. - -“Not the difference it made to that poor little crying lady to see -her husband,” pursued Mr. Morton. Then he chuckled merrily as Babbie -appeared, looking very angry and quite absurdly pretty in consequence. -“Were those reporters inquisitive?” he demanded. - -“They did think you stayed away on purpose,” declared Babbie -indignantly. “As if any one could possibly disapprove of Babe! I -told them you were just as fond of her as John is. And now they’re -discussing what effect your being late will have on Wall Street. They -said to tell you that, and to ask you please to come out and talk -to them, if you didn’t want the market to collapse to-morrow like a -pricked balloon. They laughed right in my face when I said it was a -‘private affair’ that kept you.” - -“I’ll settle them,” said Jasper J. Morton, and went off muttering -something about “those chimpanzees that run the newspapers.” - -Whereat John looked relieved. “First time he’s acted natural -to-night,” he said. “If he hadn’t gone up in the air pretty soon, I -should have telegraphed his doctor. But now we can start on our wedding -trip feeling perfectly safe about him.” - -Madeline couldn’t come to the wedding. She had sent her play to Miss -Dwight’s manager, and now she was exerting all her ingenuity to get a -personal interview with Miss Dwight herself. - -“Her present play isn’t going well, and she’s as cross as a bear,” -Madeline wrote Babe. “Dick Blake knows her--had dinner with her just -before I came down. She said that night that she believed in her play, -and if it failed she should lose all faith in American audiences, buy a -lake in Maine and a river in Florida, and retire from the stage. Dick -says she will never do that, but he thinks it’s no use talking my play -to her in her present mood. He got the manager of the Lyric Repertoire -Theatre to say he’d read the manuscript, and now he’s perfectly furious -with me because I persist with Miss Dwight. ‘Agatha or nobody’ is my -war-cry! If she’d only read my play or talk to me, one or the other, -I know there wouldn’t be any more trouble. That play fits her like a -glove, and it will take--oh, how it will take!” - -When college opened again Madeline was still on Miss Dwight’s trail, -but almost ready to give up and let the Lyric manager, or anybody -else who wanted it, take her play. Miss Dwight’s manager had made no -sign. Miss Dwight herself, piqued by her first failure, had entrenched -herself behind unassailable barriers. - -“I’ve tried everything,” wrote Madeline despairingly. “I got ‘The -Sentinel’ to send me to interview her, and she wouldn’t let me in. The -Enderbys gave a dinner for her; she accepted and then sent word she -was ill. Dick Blake relented and tried to introduce the subject of his -talented young friend, and she would hear none of me. - -“To-night I’m playing my last card. If it doesn’t take the trick, why, -I’ve lost, that’s all. Rumor says that her manager has had six hundred -plays sent him this last week--of course he won’t find mine under that -pile.” - -[Illustration: JUST AS THEY HAD GIVEN HER UP] - -For two weeks thereafter the pen of the aspiring playwright was silent. -Betty and Mary Brooks decided that she was busy getting her play out -from under the pile of other manuscripts, in order to send it to the -despised manager of the Lyric. So they were surprised and delighted -when Betty received a rapturous, incoherent scrawl, announcing complete -success. - - “She took it. She’s rehearsing it now. The part does fit her, just as - I said it would. She’s coming up with me soon to see Harding. - - “With love from the happiest girl in New York, - - MAD. - - “P. S.--Plan a B. C. A. tea-party for to-morrow. I can’t wait any - longer to tell you all about it.” - -The B. C. A.’s assembled joyously, and just as they had given her up -Madeline appeared, trying hard to act offhand and unconcerned, and -managing it about as badly as might have been expected of a young -person whose first play was being rehearsed with much enthusiasm by -Agatha Dwight, and advertised far and wide by her manager as the play -of the year. - -The B. C. A.’s plied her with tea, muffins, and jam, which she -despatched promptly, and with questions, which she totally ignored, -giving them all sorts of irrelevant information about Eleanor’s -music, Jim’s dog, and Dick’s splendid serial, by a “dark horse” in -fiction-writing, which was doing wonders for the subscription list and -the standing of “The Quiver.” When she had finished three cups of tea -and uncounted muffins, she settled back in a corner of the Tally-ho -stall with a sigh of complete satisfaction. - -“Now,” she said, “I’ll tell you all about it. It’s much too good a -story to mix up with crumpets and tea, like ordinary conversation. And -don’t interrupt, or I shall be sorry I came.” - -Awestruck silence met this dire announcement, and Madeline began. - -“I wrote you about the interview I couldn’t get, the dinner Miss Dwight -wouldn’t come to, the time she snapped Dick off so short, and all that. -There were other things of the same kind--a reception the Woman’s -College Club gave for her, when she swept in looking like a princess, -made a funny, fascinating little speech, and swept out again. Well, I -was to have introduced her to people that afternoon, and I’d counted -on making her notice me and so getting my chance. I didn’t get it that -way, but I made a discovery. - -“I found that a girl who had a walking part in the first act of her -play and another in the last, and who was down on the bills as Annette -Weeks for one and Felicia Trench for the other, was a Harding girl -named plain Mary Smith. That is, she didn’t graduate, but was here a -year or two just before our time. Well, I went to that ridiculous play -every night for a week, until I knew every bit of the Weeks-Trench -business as well as Mary Smith herself. Then I waited for her at the -stage door after a matinée, took her for tea somewhere, told her what I -wanted, and begged her to play sick and let me do her part for a week -or two. - -“At first she laughed at me--said she might play sick all she could, -but I wouldn’t get the place. Besides, I was taller than she. What -would I do for clothes? Before I could get the dresses made the play -would be done for. For a minute I was stumped by that--I hadn’t thought -of clothes. Then I remembered Eleanor’s super-elegant wardrobe, and -I knew she’d lend me some things under the circumstances. And I saw -that Mary Smith was in the same mood as Miss Dwight,--discouraged over -the play and worried at being left in mid-season without a part. So -I talked hard, all about my play and the honor of Harding, and the -college girl’s elevating the stage by writing as well as by acting. -And then I put it to her: ‘You’ve got nothing much to lose, and I’ve -got everything to gain. Can you act?’ She shook her head. ‘Miss Dwight -took me on because she wants to encourage nice girls to go on the -stage. There’s a walking part in nearly every play, so she’s kept me.’ -‘There’s a walking part in my play,’ I told her, ‘and if this one isn’t -good for over two weeks you can rest and go to the theatre and save -your dresses for another part.’ ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Of course you -get the salary,’ I said. ‘Give me a pencil,’ she said, ‘and I’ll write -you the reference.’ That’s how I landed in Agatha Dwight’s company, -exactly two weeks ago to-night.” - -Madeline paused dramatically. Mary Brooks opened her mouth to ask a -question, and closed it again hastily, gasping like a fish. Helen -Chase Adams got as far as the initial “burble” of “but,” and stopped -spasmodically. Madeline had impressed them all with the importance of -obeying the rules of the occasion. - -“That,” she said, looking around the circle with a pleased smile, “is -chapter one. The next thing was to get Her Highness to notice me. The -first night, as she swept by me on her way to her car, she inquired for -the girl I’d ousted, and said it was refreshing to find an understudy -who didn’t need breaking in. After that she never looked at me for four -days except in the scenes, and then with a vacant sort of a stare and -a stage smile. But the next night she turned giddy in the first act, -and I managed to improvise a parlor story that fitted well enough into -the scene while she snuffed smelling-salts and pulled herself together, -so that the audience never guessed that anything was wrong. She looked -awfully angry--at herself or me, I couldn’t tell which. But the manager -patted me on the back, and perhaps because he told her to she sent for -me to come to her in the long intermission. And I went, of course, and -she asked me all about myself, and she liked my answers. So I plunged -right in. The manager spent the night finding my play for her, and she -spent the morning reading it and the afternoon talking to me about it, -and the next day they began rehearsals--with the walking lady back -in her part. I explained about her, and Miss Dwight thought it was a -lovely story. She’s got a real Harding sense of humor; and she’s coming -up here before long to see the place. That’s all.” Madeline leaned -forward to reach for the muffin plate, and perceiving it to be empty -hastily leaned back again. - -Mary summoned Nora. “More muffins, please,” she ordered, “and don’t -look so reproachful, Nora, please, over our appetites. Miss Madeline -has been too busy lately proving that she’s a genius to take time to -eat. Now she’s making up for it.” - -“Oh, and is that what’s to pay?” said Nora, smiling comprehensively at -the B. C. A.’s. “Provin’ anything is hard worrk. I could never prove -me sums at school. That’s because they was generally wrong. It’s awful -hard to prove what ain’t so, ain’t it now, Miss Madeline?” And Nora -departed amiably for more muffins, ignoring the bursts of laughter that -followed her. Nora had long since ceased to attach any significance to -the laughter of the Harding girls. They laughed just as other people -breathed. It was as unaccountable as the enormous number of muffins -they consumed. - -They were still laughing when Nora came back with Mary’s order. They -sent her off again for hot tea, and they drank Madeline’s health in -it, and Miss Dwight’s, and the health of the Walking Lady who had -helped Madeline to play out her trump card. They congratulated Madeline -riotously, they made wonderful plans for Miss Dwight’s visit to -Harding, and others for seeing the first night of the play. - -“We are at last justified in the eyes of the wide, wide world,” -declaimed Mary pompously. “We’ve been called the cleverest crowd in -college, and now we’ve shown ’em. A well-kept husband like mine and a -well-kept tea-room like Betty’s are nice little features, but a play -for Agatha Dwight is the real thing. And the moral of that is: Look -out for a genius, and the grand-stand play will look out for itself.” - -“And the moral of that,” said little Helen Chase Adams primly, “is that -it’s time for faculty wives to dress for dinner.” - -“Also campus faculty,” added Rachel hastily, and the most exciting B. -C. A. tea-drinking of the season reluctantly dispersed. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - -AS A BULL PUP ORDAINS - - -HARDING COLLEGE was almost as excited over Madeline’s play as the B. C. -A.’s had been. - -“Why, she wrote it in this very town,” wide-eyed freshmen told each -other. - -“In this very room, maybe,” diners at the Tally-ho added wonderingly. - -“And she’s only been out of college a year and a half.” - -“I guess our little Catherine will be heard from some day. Miss Ayres -was the leading literary light of her class, just like Cath. I can tell -you these college reputations mean something!” - -“Did you hear how she got Miss Dwight to read her play?” - -“What’s it about, anyway?” - -“Nobody knows--it’s a dead secret. But college girls come into it, I -guess, because Miss Dwight is going to visit Miss Ayres up here--to -study the atmosphere, I suppose.” - -“I’m going in for elocution this next semester. If I get a good part in -the senior play, I shall seriously consider going on the stage. Miss -Dwight encourages college girls to do that. She thinks it offers a -splendid field for educated women.” - -So was Harding College once more stage-struck, and Miss Dick’s school -as well. The Smallest Sister carried the great news there, and Frisky -Fenton and her crowd bought Miss Dwight’s pictures to adorn their -dressers, and bribed the Smallest Sister, by the subtlest arts known to -the big girl for beguiling the little one, to arrange a dinner-party -for them at the Tally-ho on the night when Miss Dwight was to be there. - -“You promised me a spread down there long ago,” the Smallest Sister -urged Betty. - -“But I shall be so very busy that night,” Betty objected. “Couldn’t you -come by yourself then, and have the party later?” - -“But the others want to see her just as much as I do,” Dorothy urged. -“Frisky said she would about die of joy if she could see her, and so -will all of them. And they’ve been awfully nice to me.” - -“All right,” said Betty resignedly, “only I can’t sit with you and -you’ll probably have a very poor dinner, because the tea-shop will be -so crowded.” - -After all, one table more or less wouldn’t matter, she reflected, on a -night when practically every Harding girl would try to get her dinner -at the Tally-ho. - -Miss Dwight off the stage was a demure little lady with wonderful eyes, -a smile that made people who saw it smile back in spite of themselves, -and a voice that thrilled one no matter what its owner said. Her hair -was gray, and so were her clothes, when they weren’t black. She hated -attention, shrank forlornly behind Madeline when the girls stared or -sang to her, and only came to dinner at the Tally-ho because Madeline -had assured her that it was, at the dinner-hour, the very soul and -centre of the college world. - -Having come, she exclaimed rapturously at all the “features,” and -then, perceiving that she was the chief of them, she hid in the -remotest corner of Jack o’ Hearts’ stall, with Madeline on one side -for protection and Mary and Betty to talk to across the way. Her -big hat drooped so far over her face that girls who rudely looked -in as they went by the stall saw nothing but the soft curve of her -cheek and her chin cleft by a big dimple--unless it happened to be a -moment when she had boldly resolved to look out upon these “wonderful, -frightful collegians.” Then she lifted the brim of the absurd hat with -a fascinating gesture, and smiled her clear, childlike smile at the -curious passers-by. - -Dorothy’s table was the one nearest to Jack o’ Hearts’ stall, so that -she and her friends came in for a generous share of Miss Dwight’s -smiling inspection of her surroundings. But that wasn’t enough for -Frisky Fenton. - -“I’ve just got to speak to her,” she declared. “If she’s as retiring as -you say, Dot, I’m afraid we shan’t get any chance later. I think I’ll -go over there now.” - -“But I’m afraid Betty wouldn’t like it,” objected the Smallest Sister -anxiously. - -“Well, if she doesn’t, she won’t blame you,” retorted Frisky, “and I -shan’t mind being in hot water with her, as long as I get a chance -to talk to Miss Dwight. I can make it all right with your sister -afterward, I’m sure.” - -“Please don’t go, Frisky,” begged Dorothy, sending imploring glances -across at Betty, who was perfectly oblivious of the Smallest Sister’s -efforts. “It’s not polite to go where you’re not invited. Betty said -she’d have us meet Miss Dwight later if she could.” - -Frisky gave an irritating little laugh. “You don’t understand about -such things, dear. I’m not a child, to be sent for with dessert.” -And with that she jumped up and crossed quickly to Jack o’ Hearts’ -stall, where she appeared, a very pretty, demure, totally inexplicable -vision, before the astonished party of diners. She nodded to Betty and -Madeline, smiled at Mary, and curtseyed, with dropped eyes, before Miss -Dwight. - -“Excuse me, Miss Dwight,” she said sweetly, “but do you think I’d be a -success on the stage? I’m crazy about it.” - -Miss Dwight laughed heartily at the absurd question. “Sit down, my -dear,” she said, not seeming to mind the unwarranted invasion of her -privacy. “Are you one of these astonishing Harding girls?” - -“No, I’m only at school,” explained Frisky calmly, “but I’m as old as -some college girls. And anyway, isn’t it better to begin acting when -you’re very young?” - -Miss Dwight stared at her, a sombre shadow in her great dark eyes. -“You’re far too pretty to begin young,” she said. “Some day, if you -really want it, and your mother is willing----” - -“I’ve only a stepmother,” put in Frisky airily, “so I needn’t consider -that.” - -Miss Dwight looked at her again. “It’s a hard life, my dear--a long -pull, and very little besides more hard work for you if you win, and if -you never do make good--and most of us don’t----” - -“Oh, please don’t discourage me,” Frisky broke in impulsively. “It’s -the one thing in life for me.” - -“Wait till you have some idea about life before you say that,” Miss -Dwight advised her rather sharply. “Make friends with your stepmother, -to begin with. If you can do that now, perhaps some day you can make -friends with an audience. Go back to school and study hard. Read the -great plays and the great poems. And in five years, if you’re still -stage-struck, come to me--and I’ll give you some more good advice. -Good-bye, my dear.” She held out her hand with a definite gesture of -dismissal that even Frisky could not ignore. - -“Good-bye, and thank you,” said the girl, “but five years is an awfully -long time to wait, Miss Dwight. You may see me sooner.” - -With which parting shot, Frisky returned to her horrified friends more -stage-struck than ever, and more confident of her ability to manage any -situation to her liking. Her vanity would have received a severe shock -if she had heard Miss Dwight call her a silly child, Madeline emphasize -the fact that Frisky wasn’t a college girl, or a type of even the -shallowest variety, and Betty confide to Mary Brooks Hinsdale that she -was thoroughly ashamed of the Smallest Sister’s new chum. - -The next morning Frisky sent Miss Dwight a bunch of violets and -a gushing note, which her divinity refused to read because “the -handwriting made her nervous.” But there was also a note from Helena -Mason, enclosing a little verse which she asked permission to print -in the next “Argus.” Miss Dwight laughed and cried over it, declared -it was the best thing that had ever been written about her, and -made Madeline take her at once to see the author, who gushed, in -conversation, as badly as Frisky had on paper, and seemed to have -the vaguest possible ideas about Miss Dwight’s genius, which she had -described so aptly in her poetical mood. - -“All literary people are bores but you, my dear,” Miss Dwight declared, -hurrying Madeline away. “I discovered that years ago, but I’m always -forgetting it again. If anybody else sends me a poem, please remind me -to shun her. Time in Harding is too precious to be wasted.” - -Miss Dwight could stay away from New York only two days--“two sweet, -stolen days,” she called them. Then she hurried back to the rehearsals, -leaving Madeline in Betty’s charge. - -“She’s done all that she can for her play now,” she explained, “and -she’d far better stay here. She might make us nervous, and she’d -certainly make herself miserable. Rehearsals are such contrary things. -They’ve gone so abominably up to now that I’m absolutely sure the play -will be a hit.” - -The nature of the hit was still a mystery. Madeline, Miss Dwight, and -her manager were all stubbornly dumb. The title wasn’t even put on the -bill-boards until a week before the opening night, and then it might -mean anything--“Her Choice.” - -Nearly all the B. C. A.’s were going down to see the first performance, -but the one who was most excited at the prospect, next to Madeline, -was undoubtedly Eleanor Watson. Her gowns had figured in Madeline’s -“walking part,” but that wasn’t the chief reason for her interest in -the play. The great thing was that Richard Blake was giving a box party -and a supper, and he had asked her and Jim to come. Dick had almost -never taken her anywhere, and this winter he had been too busy even to -come often to call. Yet Madeline seemed to see a good deal of him. - -“He doesn’t care for me. Why should he?” Eleanor had reflected sadly. -“He likes Madeline because she’s clever about the same sort of things -that he is interested in. And yet when he does come to see me, he looks -and acts as if----” - -And then Dick had telephoned about the box party. “It’s almost never -that I can ask you to anything you really care about,” he had said, “so -do say you’ll come this time.” - -And when Eleanor had accepted, declaring that she always enjoyed doing -things with him, he had taken her challenge. “Then I shall ask a pretty -girl for your brother and two dull pairs of devoted people who won’t -bother us. Remember it’s to be our very own party--only I can’t come -for you because ‘The Quiver’ goes to press that night, and I shall have -a form to ‘O. K.’ between seven and eight.” - -Eleanor decided to wear her new yellow dress. At noon a huge bunch of -violets arrived with Dick’s card. At three Jim sent a messenger for his -evening clothes. He wouldn’t be able to get home to dinner. He might -come for Eleanor at quarter to eight; if not, he would send a cab. -Eleanor went across the street very early to the hotel where they took -their dinners, and afterward slipped out of her street clothes and into -a kimono, and curled up on the couch by the sitting-room fire to rest -until it was time to dress for the evening. By and by she stretched -luxuriously, sat up, and without turning on a light went down the -hall to her room. As she felt for the electric switch a low angry -growl sounded from within. It was Peter Pan, Jim’s new bulldog. He was -feeling neglected, probably. Jim took him for a walk or romped with him -indoors nearly every evening. - -“Why, Peter!” Eleanor called persuasively. “Poor old Peter Pan! Were -you lonely and bored and very cross?” - -Another growl, and the noise of Peter’s claws digging into the matting, -as he scrambled to his feet. Eleanor turned on the light hastily, but -Peter, unpropitiated and growling angrily, came forward a step or two -and stood defiantly, ready to resist any encroachment on his domain. - -“Why, Peter, you silly dog,” coaxed Eleanor. “Don’t you know me? Did -you think I was a burglar coming in the dark to rob your dear master? -Well, I’m not. Come here, Peter, good dog!” - -Generally Peter would have come pattering across the floor, eager to -lick Eleanor’s hand. To-night he only growled again and showed his -teeth. Eleanor had had very little experience with dogs, and she was -horribly frightened at Peter’s extraordinary behavior. She remembered -that when she came down to New York and was introduced to the apartment -and to the room that Jim had moved out of because it was the largest -and pleasantest he had to offer her, Jim had warned her to “go slow” -with Peter Pan. - -“He seems to have a little prejudice against strangers, especially -ladies,” Jim had said. “He snapped pretty hard at the janitor’s wife -one day when she was making my bed. She won’t come in now unless he’s -out or chained. Don’t try to pet him if he acts cross. He may resent -your moving into my special quarters.” - -But Peter Pan had never acted cross or regarded Eleanor as an -interloper, and Eleanor had petted him, taken him walking in the park, -and quite forgotten Jim’s warning until now. - -“Peter,” began Eleanor desperately again, “please stop growling. I’ve -got to dress, and to do that I’ve got to come in where you are and go -right past you to my dressing-room. Now be a good dog and cheer up.” -Peter Pan paid no attention to this pathetic appeal. He growled again -in a low but menacing key, and yawned, showing all his teeth once more -in the process. - -Eleanor shivered and retreated a step or two so that she could see the -clock in the sitting-room. Twenty minutes past seven; if Jim came for -her, she could dress and arrive late, but if not---- On a chair near -the door of her room were the walking skirt and blouse she had taken -off. Near by were her black pumps. She had changed her stockings to a -pair of pale yellow silk ones, leaving those she had taken off in the -dressing-room, with her yellow dress and evening cape. Unless Jim came, -she must appear at Dick’s party in yellow stockings, black shoes, a -mussy linen blouse, and a blue serge street-suit, or she must pass that -growling dog twice in order to get her evening things. She wouldn’t be -downed! There was a dog-whip in the hall; she would get that and armed -with it make the fatal dash. Then she remembered Jim’s warning. “He’s -a dandy dog, but a puppy’s temper is always uncertain. So go slow and -don’t get near him when he’s low in his mind.” - -Visions of herself pinioned helplessly in Peter Pan’s vise-like grip -until Jim, frightened at her failure to appear at the theatre, should -appear, perhaps after she had endured hours of agony, to rescue her, -kept Eleanor from going after the dog-whip. Bulldogs did maim and even -kill people. Even a yellow dress, chosen especially to suit Dick’s -fastidious taste, wasn’t worth that risk. But if she went in her street -suit they would all laugh at her and say that there wasn’t any risk. -Two big tears dropped from Eleanor’s eyes and rolled down her cheeks. -She brushed them away scornfully, and crooning soft speeches to Peter -Pan reached for the black pumps, the mussy blouse, and the walking -skirt. Having secured them, she slammed the door upon the hateful dog, -locked it, and dressed before the tiny mirror over the mantelpiece. Her -tricorn hat and her coat were in the hall, but Dick’s violets were in -the dressing-room. Eleanor almost wept again as she thought of them. If -only Jim came for her! But he didn’t--he sent a puffing taxi, whose -driver stared curiously at her yellow stockings as he held open the -door for her. - -Everybody in the theatre lobby seemed to be staring. Eleanor’s face -flushed as she hurried to Dick’s box. As she pulled back the curtain -Dick jumped to meet her--and he stared at her stockings. The dull -devoted ladies and the pretty girl for Jim were in very elaborate -evening gowns--and they stared at her stockings, then at her mussy -shirt-waist, and her plain little hat. - -“Introduce me quick,” pleaded Eleanor softly to Dick, who was trying to -take her coat, “and then I can explain my clothes. No, I can’t take off -my coat. It’s all the fault of that horrid, hateful Peter Pan.” - -Dick smiled at her blandly. “You look just as lovely as usual. In fact -I like you best of all in plain dark things. Didn’t some violets come?” - -“They were in the dressing-room too, behind that miserable dog. If Jim -ever comes--I must sit somewhere back in a corner.” - -“You must sit there with me beside you.” Dick pointed to a chair in the -front of the box. - -“Don’t you really mind?” demanded Eleanor. “Of course the stockings are -the worst, and they won’t show----” - -“I asked _you_ to come to our very own party,” Dick told her, “not your -clothes. I’ve got plenty of clothes here already. Come and meet them, -and tell them about the horrid Peter Pan. Did he chew up your entire -wardrobe while you were out?” - -It was a very funny story when once you were free to see it that way. -The dull devoted couples got quite hysterical over it. Jim, when he -came, was almost as bad, though he assured his sister soberly that she -had done very well to “play safe” when Peter Pan was low in his mind. - -“Most girls think all a man cares for is clothes,” said Dick, as the -orchestra played with lowered lights waiting for the first curtain. - -“And most men think a girl cares only for flowers and candy and -suppers.” - -“Before the wedding--and clothes and servants and all the luxuries -she’s used to afterward,” added Dick a little bitterly. - -“Whereas,” Eleanor took him up, “if a girl loves a man, she is willing -to do without all but the plainest, simplest necessities. What she -wants is a chance to help him, to be with him through thick and thin, -to watch him make good, and to feel that she has a little bit of a -share in the fine things he’s doing and going to do.” - -She never could have said it if the lights had been on. She even -flushed in the dark as she saw Dick lean forward to look into her eyes. - -“Do you mean,” he asked eagerly, “that you’d feel that way yourself?” - -“I mean that any and every nice girl feels that way.” - -Just then the curtain went up, but for all Dick’s interest in -Madeline’s play, his hand was crushing one of Eleanor’s, and his heart -was pounding so hard that the first act was half over before he had -gathered his wits to know what it was all about. - -The minute the curtain rang down, Dick turned to Eleanor. “In that -case,” he said under cover of the applause, “you’ve got to promise to -marry me now. I can give you a good deal besides love and a chance to -help, but I’ve waited almost two years without daring to say a word, -and I’ve been frightened to death for fear I should lose you to some -fellow who could speak sooner.” - -“You needn’t have worried,” Eleanor told him, “because I was waiting -too. But I consider that you’ve wasted two whole years for me out of my -life. You’ll have that to make up for, monsieur. Can you do it?” - -“I can only try,” said Dick very soberly. - -The play was a triumph for Miss Dwight and for the author. That young -person was sitting alone in the last row of the peanut gallery. -Occasionally she pinched herself to make sure that she was awake, and -just before the final curtain fell she crept softly out and went home -by herself in a jolting, jangling Broadway car. There Dick and Eleanor -found her rocking by the fire, the inevitable black kitten in her lap. - -“Come to supper,” Dick said. “You promised, and the taxi waits.” - -Madeline smiled dreamily up at them and patted the kitten. “Yes, Dick, -I’ll come to supper as long as I needn’t dress up for it. What’s the -matter, Eleanor?” - -“I want to know how you knew,” demanded Eleanor eagerly. “How you -guessed exactly how I’ve felt all these years about--about everything -and--and Dick.” - -Madeline smiled. “If every woman in the audience wants to know that,” -she said, “the play goes. The shop-girl next me in the gallery wants to -know, and Miss Dwight, and now you---- Excuse me, Eleanor, but where -did you get those stockings?” - - - - -CHAPTER XV - -A GAME OF HIDE-AND-SEEK--WITH “FEATURES” - - -BABE seized upon Eleanor’s engagement as the best possible excuse for a -week-end party. - -“Living in a castle is rather a fright,” she confided to Betty. “John -doesn’t mind it, because he’s always lived in a near-castle. I get -lost. I’m afraid of the butler. The English housekeeper drops her -aitches so fast that I can’t tell what she wants to ask me. I forget -the names of my horses. And when John is in town I haven’t anybody to -play with.” - -“Seems to me you’re not a very enthusiastic newly-wed,” Betty told her -laughingly. - -“Oh, yes, I am,” Babe declared very earnestly. “I love John, and I love -Father Morton, and I love my house. Only I rattle around in it like a -pea in a band-box. While I’m growing up to fit my surroundings I’ve got -to have the assistance of all my friends. Will you come to my party, -Betty? I’m going to ask Father Morton, because he knows Mr. Blake, and -besides he missed all the fun of the wedding.” - -So Betty, resolving to “’tend up” to business strictly for the rest of -the year, took another week-end off to celebrate the engagement, see -Babe’s gorgeous mansion, and help make up to Mr. Morton for losing the -wedding--all on her account, as he persisted in saying. - -Babe’s house, which had been Mr. Morton’s wedding gift to her, was up -on the Hudson, in a suburb so discreetly removed from the noise and -dust of the railroad that nobody lived there except “carriage people.” -The wide roads wound in sweeping curves along the river, between -lilac hedges, now capped with snow. In front, Babe’s territory sloped -through great gardens to the water; behind she had a real wood of her -own. Inside the house the stately rooms were crowded with expensive -furniture and beautiful bric-à-brac. Mr. Morton had taken Babe shopping -and bought everything she had as much as stopped to look at. A famous -decorator had been sent up to arrange the house and fill in the -gaps. There was a fireplace taken bodily from a Florentine palace, -a Rembrandt that had once graced a royal gallery, a rug that men had -spent their whole lives in weaving. - -“I shall never know what we’ve got,” sighed Babe, as she led the way -through her domain. “Father Morton loves to surprise people. He says I -haven’t discovered half the special features that he’s put in just to -amuse me.” - -“If I were you I should feel like a princess in a fairy tale,” sighed -little Helen Adams, who had never in her life imagined anything half so -splendid. - -“I don’t,” said Babe stoutly. “Princesses have to wear long velvet -dresses and look sweet all the time. Just as soon as I dare, I’m going -to get rid of at least half the servants, so I can roll up my sleeves -and go down to the kitchen. I learned to make bread at cooking-school -before I was married, and it was a picnic.” Babe paused and gazed -joyously at her guests. “I’ve thought what would be a picnic to do -right on this very afternoon, before you’ve even seen the rest of the -house. To play hide-and-go-seek.” - -“Babe,” began Mary Brooks sternly, “you’re still the Perfect Infant. -Do you think it befits married ladies like you and me to indulge in -children’s games?” - -Babe answered by running down the long hall, pulling the reluctant Mary -after her. - -“John,” she cried when they reached the little library that John had -seized upon for his den and in which he was now entertaining the -masculine portion of the house party, “John, we’re going to play -hide-and-seek all over the house. Isn’t that a grand idea?” - -“Great,” agreed the devoted John. - -“Then come along, everybody,” ordered Babe. “Will you play too, Father -Morton?” - -“Of course I will,” said Jasper J. Morton testily. “One of the things -this house is intended for is a good game of hide-and-seek. I didn’t -forget that you were a little tomboy, child. I didn’t expect you to -grow up all at once just because you’d promised to love and obey my boy -John.” Jasper J. Morton paused to chuckle. “Some of the best features -of this house are still undiscovered. Maybe they’ll come out in the -course of this game.” - -Babe hugged him rapturously. “We discovered the hidden bowling-alley -last week,” she said. “You were a duck to put in so many surprises -right under my very nose, when I thought I was picking out everything -and doing all the planning myself.” - -Mr. Morton laughed gleefully. “You like my surprises, do you? -Independently of their being surprises, I mean. When young people build -a house they never think of the most important things. For instance, -there’s no reason, just because you’re going to have a new house, why -you shouldn’t keep to some of the good old ways. Most new houses are no -earthly good for little tomboys to play in. Do you hear that, Watson? -Too bad I got this place started before I met you. You’d have learned a -lot of things about your business if you’d built this house for me.” - -“I don’t doubt that, sir,” said Jim dutifully. - -“Keep your eyes open this afternoon,” Mr. Morton advised him -mysteriously. “There are features in this house that the head of your -firm wouldn’t be capable of inventing. Architects are like sheep--they -follow the last fashions. Now when I’ve been abroad, I’ve studied -buildings over there. When I see a good thing in some old house in -a little moss-grown town like Harding, I remember it. I also study -character. Just as Morton Hall is adapted to Miss B. A. and her -protégées, so this place is adapted to John and this little tomboy. -I exercise prevision when I build. Why, I foresaw this very game of -hide-and-seek, so to speak. Just give a little study to the habits and -tastes of your clients, my boy, and you’ll make a name for yourself. -That’s the way to build; study character and exercise foresight.” - -“Thank you, sir,” said Jim respectfully. - -“Eny, meeny, miny, mo,” began Babe hastily, having had quite enough of -architectural theories. The lot of being “it” first fell upon her, and -John’s den was chosen as goal. - -“Remember,” Babe told them, “you can go anywhere except to the kitchen. -I shouldn’t dare to chase you there. Open any door that you see----” - -“Particularly any door you don’t quite see,” put in Jasper J. Morton -mysteriously. - -“It’s too early for skeletons,” laughed John, “so you needn’t be -afraid of the closets.” - -“I shall count my hundred awfully fast,” announced Babe, suiting the -action to the words with a promptness that sent her guests scuttling -for hiding-places. - -The first person to be caught was Helen Adams, who confessed that she -hadn’t dared to go into any rooms but the down-stairs ones that were -obviously meant for guests; and nobody had gone far or had happened -upon any very difficult hiding-places. But the next time, led by Babe, -the party ranged far afield, and it took so long to find them all that -a ten-minute limit was arranged; after ten minutes’ hunting those who -were not found could “come in free.” Nobody was surprised that Dick -and Eleanor should forget this privilege at the end of a round, but -when Betty had twice failed to appear Babe declared that she must have -found one of Father Morton’s real hiding-places, and the whole party -started off in search of her. Up-stairs and down again they went, -opening closets, hunting in chests, under beds, behind portières. Babe -declared that she was at last learning the way around her domain, and -discovering any number of extra cupboards and closets; but neither she -nor anybody else discovered Betty. - -At four the butler caught his flyaway little mistress long enough to -announce to her that tea was served in the yellow drawing-room. - -“We shall have to go,” she said sadly, rounding up her guests. “I -shouldn’t dare to tell him that we were too busy playing hide-and-seek. -Besides, I’m hungry, for one. Betty will hear us all in there together, -and know we’ve given her up and come out. Let’s all shout together ‘We -give up’!” - -So the big house echoed to their chanted “We give up,” and then they -repaired to the yellow drawing-room, where Babe sat on a carved oak -throne and poured tea, from a wonderful silver pot wreathed with -dragons, into cups so fragile that you could have crushed them as you -would a flower. There were muffins and crackers and sweet sandwiches -and nuts and ginger, all of which tasted very good to the hungry -“hiders.” And in the midst of tea there was an excitement, in the shape -of a telegram summoning Mr. Morton, Senior, to a conference on board a -train that would reach this station in less than ten minutes. - -“Have to miss dinner, I suppose, but I’ll be back to-night sure,” he -grumbled as Babe pulled on his coat, John found his gloves and hat, a -valet packed his bag, in case of emergency, and the butler rang for -the chauffeur to bring around a limousine. “Where’s Miss B. A.?” he -demanded as the car appeared. “Hasn’t she come out yet? Well, if the -rest of you have any gumption, you’ll take her dare and find her. I -say, Watson, you know how a house is built, and you know that Miss B. -A. is worth finding----” - -“Train’s whistling, dad,” broke in John. - -“Then the automobile speed limit has got to go smash again,” said -Jasper J. Morton resignedly, jumping into the car. “Find her, Watson. -She’s worth it,” he called back, waving his hand spasmodically as the -car shot round a curve and out of sight. - -Most of the young people had gathered in the hall to see Mr. Morton -off, but little Helen Adams, feeling rather shy and out-of-place, had -crept back into the drawing-room, which, lighted only by the fire and -the candles on the tea-table, seemed so rich and dim and lovely that to -be alone in it made her give a long deep sigh of joy and satisfaction -and wonder at the idea of plain little Helen Chase Adams spending the -week-end with a gay house party in such a splendid place. - -She had just seated herself in a great cushioned chair by the fire to -enjoy it all--Helen was one of the people who must be alone to drink -their pleasures to the full--when she heard a little tap on the wall so -close to her that it made her jump. But in a minute she settled back -again comfortably. “Mice or a bit of loose plaster,” she decided. But -an instant later there came a little low moan--an eery sort of muffled -cry--and this time she screamed and jumped quite out of her chair. The -door had just been shut after Mr. Morton, and Babe came running in, -followed by all the others, and at a respectful distance by the stately -butler, to ask what the matter was. - -“Why, I don’t know,” said Helen anxiously. “Something or somebody cried -out in another room, and it sounded so near me and so queer, some way, -that I screamed. I’m sorry I frightened all the rest of you too.” - -“Mamie the parlor-maid always gives a heartrending shriek when she -breaks one of my favorite wedding presents,” suggested Babe mournfully. -“It was probably Mamie--only why should she be dusting and breaking -things at this time of day?” - -“Why indeed?” demanded Madeline scornfully. “Did it sound like a -pathetic parlor-maid, Helen?” - -“It didn’t sound like any real person,” Helen explained slowly. “It was -muffled and far away and choked--like a--why, like a ghost!” - -“Exactly,” cried Madeline triumphantly. “Babe, don’t you see what’s -happened? One of the highly advertised features of your domicile has -come to light. Your respected father-in-law, realizing that no castle -is complete without a ghost--he remembered Babbie’s, probably--built in -one, warranted to appear to persons sitting alone in the firelight. And -you try to pretend it’s only a parlor-maid in distress.” - -“I hope it wasn’t Betty in distress,” put in Eleanor Watson. - -“I’m really afraid she’s locked in somewhere,” said Babe anxiously. -“Didn’t a girl in an old story once hide in a chest in a game like -this, and get faint and finally smother? Did the noise sound as if it -could have been Betty, Helen?” - -Helen confessed that it might have been almost anything. - -“Thomas,” Babe turned to the butler, “will you please take two of the -servants and hunt in the cellar for Miss Wales? I’ll take the up-stairs -rooms, and John, you and the men hunt down here, and then go up to the -attic. Open all the chests and cupboards. Oh, dear, I wish this house -wasn’t so big!” - -Search “up-stairs, down-stairs, and in my lady’s chamber” revealed no -Betty. Eleanor, passing the door of the yellow drawing-room, thought -she heard another cry, but when, reinforced by Dick and John, she went -in to listen for its repetition, all was still. Nobody was under the -furniture or in the next room, and the open fires in both rooms made -the chimney an impossible retreat. But it was from near the chimney -that Eleanor thought the cry had come, and Helen had been sitting near -the fire when it sounded in her ear. - -“She must be in one of the secret chambers that Mr. Morton broadly -hinted at,” said Madeline finally. “But why, if she went in, doesn’t -she come out?” - -Jim Watson had been frenziedly active in searching chests and -cupboards. Now he was knocking on the wall near the fireplace and -running back and forth between the two adjoining rooms, taking note of -the position and thickness of the partitions. - -“There’s a passage between these rooms,” he announced at last, “and -a shaft or a staircase or something running up in this corner. -See--there’s a square taken out. But how you get in, I can’t see.” - -“Oh, do try to see,” begged Babe eagerly. “You know Father Morton said -you could learn a lot from this house. I wish we knew for sure that she -was in there and”--Babe choked a little--“all right.” - -“Knock hard on the wall,” suggested Mr. Blake. “Maybe she’ll hear that -better than our talking, and answer it.” - -Regardless of priceless wall-hangings Babe seized a pair of brass tongs -and pounded on the wall as if she meant to break it down. - -“Go easy, Babe,” advised Madeline, but Babe only pounded harder. - -“If she’s in there we want to know that she’s all right,” declared Babe -hotly. “And then we’ve got to get her out if we have to batter down -this wall to do it.” - -“How will you know Betty’s knock from a ghost’s?” demanded Madeline -flippantly, but no one paid any attention to her because just at that -moment a faint knock did sound on the other side of the wall. - -Babe gave a little cry of relief. “Then she isn’t suffocated! That -story has just been haunting me. Now, Mr. Watson, you know how a house -is built, to quote Father Morton. You must find how to get to her.” - -Jim looked as if he wanted to use the tongs as a battering-ram, but he -refrained. “I’ll try up-stairs,” he said. “Maybe the entrance is there.” - -“I’ll show you which rooms are over these,” volunteered John. - -But there was no opening up-stairs. - -It was Helen Adams who made the next suggestion. “If a stairway goes -up, mightn’t it go down too? Perhaps you can enter from the cellar.” - -And sure enough half-way down the cellar stairs Jim discovered a little -door. - -“May be a snap lock that’s kept her in,” he muttered irritably. “Hold -it open, Eleanor. Here, Thomas, let’s have your electric bug. Hello, -Betty! Betty, I say!” - -“Here I am,” called a faint, frightened little voice from up above. -“Here I am, but where I am I don’t know, and I think I’ve sprained my -ankle.” - -Ensconced on the couch in John’s den Betty had her belated tea, while -Babe rubbed the turned ankle vigorously, and the others stood around -listening to the tale of ghostly adventures. - -“I got in up-stairs,” Betty explained, “through a sliding panel sort of -thing that opens out of that curved part of the hall.” - -“Of course,” Jim put in. “We looked on the other side.” - -[Illustration: THE OTHERS STOOD AROUND LISTENING] - -“I shut the door so no one else would find it,” explained Betty, “and -of course it was pretty dark, though there is a little high window -opening into the hall to light the first part of the passage.” - -“I know--looks like a ventilator,” interrupted Jim again. - -“But when I came to the flight of stairs, I didn’t see them,” Betty -took up her story, “and I wasn’t expecting stairs, so I fell most of -the way down and landed with one foot under me. I was frightened and -the pain made me faint. I called once, but nobody answered. I felt as -if I was in an old dungeon, like those we saw in France, and if I moved -or called rats would come and bite me, or I should drop into a well and -drown. Besides, I hadn’t the least idea how to get back. Of course it -was perfectly silly. I called once more after a long while, and once -I thought I heard some one scream. And then, ages after, there were -knocks and I knocked back. That’s all. Did some one really scream or -did I imagine that?” - -“I did. I thought it was a ghost,” explained Helen. - -Betty laughed. “I’m pursued by ghosts these days. The Morton Hall girls -hear them, and Dorothy and poor little Shirley Ware--why, I wonder -if there could be a secret passageway at Miss Dick’s! It’s an old, -rambling sort of house. I must ask about it when I go back.” - -But by the time Betty had spent a week on a couch at Babe’s, recovering -from her sprained ankle, her mind was so full of more important things -which must be attended to “at once if not sooner,” to quote Emily’s -delightful formula, that she quite forgot to inquire of Miss Dick about -the secret passage. It was better, too, perhaps, to let sleeping dogs -lie. Shirley was back at school again, and her wan little face must be -a sad reminder to any big girl who had played a practical joke on her. -Miss Dick still felt sure that there had been no joke--that Shirley had -conjured up a ghost out of her own imagination. It would be a bad plan, -possibly, to stir the matter up again. - - - - -CHAPTER XVI - -THE MYSTERY DEEPENS - - -AT least once every week Betty dropped into Mrs. Post’s room to talk -over the progress of their charges and the state of the house in -general. - -“The Goop is as bad as ever,” Betty complained one windy afternoon -in March. “I’ve just been up in her room--she’s begun again throwing -whatever she doesn’t need at the moment under her bed, and whenever -she’s in a hurry or especially happy at meal times she shovels things -in with her knife. Do you think she ought to be allowed to stay here -another year?” - -“Maybe she’ll decide to stop studying and teach for a while,” suggested -the optimistic Mrs. Post. “She’s thinking of it. But if it’s important -for her to learn tidiness and table manners--which it certainly is--she -certainly is more likely to do it here than anywhere else, with me -nagging at her and you looking sweet and sorry. Now I’ll warrant she’s -down on her knees this very minute clearing up her floor, because -you saw it looking disorderly. She thinks a lot of pleasing you. And -the other girls don’t mind her habits much; she’s good for them as a -horrible example.” - -“The Twin Digs have been reported again for lights after ten,” said -Betty, who was in a downhearted mood. - -“Only once since--since--well, I’m afraid I can’t truthfully say since -Christmas,” laughed Mrs. Post. “I guess what those two need is a show -of firmness. I’ll see them to-night and tell them that the very next -time means a report to President Wallace.” - -“Miss Romance has had three callers again this week, hasn’t she?” - -“Three calls, but only one caller. She’s settled down to one now, and I -guess he’s all right--he seems to be a real nice country boy. He lives -in the little place where she does, and he walks six miles and back -each time he comes to call. Seems to me that shows he’s fond enough of -her to mean business. As for her, college is all nonsense for a girl -like that. She hasn’t sense enough to take it in. She’d better be at -work or helping her mother, or making a home of her own. She’ll always -be silly and rattle-pated and provoking to sensible people, as long as -she lives. I’ve told her so--I mean I’ve advised her not to struggle -along here through the whole course.” - -Betty sighed. “I suppose you’re right. Not every girl is capable of -getting much out of college. Well, anyway, there’s always the Thorn -to congratulate ourselves on. She’s really turning out to be a very -pleasant, helpful person to have in the house.” - -Mrs. Post nodded. “She’s your triumph, and Esther Bond is mine. She -says she’s been happier down in this room talking to me about my three -girls and the weather and the price of eggs and the way the laundry -tears our linen than she’s been before in her whole life. I wish I -could make her see that if she enjoys being friends with a stupid old -lady like me, she’d enjoy ten times more being intimate with girls of -her own age. She doesn’t dispute me. She just smiles that terribly -tragic smile of hers, shakes her head, and changes the subject.” - -“Do you suppose some one has hurt her feelings?” asked Betty. “Or is -she just naturally secretive and reserved?” - -“She’s naturally very confiding,” declared Mrs. Post. “Seems as if she -was friends with everybody in the village where she lived when she was -little. Something’s happened, and it’s happened since she came here, I -think. But whatever it is she’s bound nobody shall ever know about it. -And when she makes up her mind she makes it up hard and to stay.” - -“I wonder if the ghost noises have stopped, or if the Thorn has just -suppressed the reports?” Betty queried. “I never quite understood why -the Mystery didn’t complain the day they nearly battered down her door.” - -“She’s never even mentioned it to me,” Mrs. Post declared. “She seems -to hate to talk about anything connected with her college life. She -acts smart enough. She doesn’t have any trouble keeping up with her -classes, does she?” - -Betty shook her head. “She’s very good in most things--I asked Miss -Ferris about her--only she never answers except when she’s asked -directly, and then she says just as little as she can. Miss Raymond -had her over one day this winter to tell her that her themes were very -promising, only they stopped just when the reader was beginning to -be interested. But Miss Bond said she always wrote down all that she -thought of on each subject, and she acted so frightened and unhappy -that Miss Raymond let her go home and hasn’t tried to encourage her -since. It must be dreadful to be so shy that every one thinks you’re -offish, and even the faculty don’t dare to pursue their efforts to -help you along. Just think, Mrs. Post! She might be one of the leading -writers in her class, if she’d only let Miss Raymond take an interest -in her work. Couldn’t you talk to her about it? I’m sure she’d enjoy -the recognition, and perhaps when she felt that she had a position of -her own in the college she’d be willing to come out of her shell and -make friends.” - -“I’ll try to lead up to it some way,” Mrs. Post promised warily. “She -never wants to talk about college affairs, you see.” - -A night or two later Betty was awakened out of a sound sleep by one -of the Twin Digs, who stood over her with a candle, explaining in a -sepulchral whisper, “There’s a girl in a fire-escape dangling outside -my window.” - -Betty rubbed her eyes, sat up, and, having thus assured herself that -she was not dreaming nonsense, asked the Dig what she meant. - -“Why, there’s a girl in a fire-escape dangling outside my window,” -repeated the Dig hopelessly. “You know the new rope fire-escapes that -are in all our rooms? Well, she evidently got into one up on the fourth -floor, and started to slide to the ground, and somehow it’s stuck -with her half-way down. I mean the part you put over your shoulders, -that’s on a pulley to slide down the rope, has stuck and won’t slide. I -couldn’t possibly pull her in alone, and I thought I’d better call you.” - -“Yes, of course.” Betty jumped out of bed, and followed her incoherent -informant up-stairs to a third floor single. The window was wide open -and, sure enough, just out of reach, a girl, clearly visible in the -moonlight, hung in mid-air, clinging to a dangling rope. When she saw -the two figures appear in the lighted window, instead of calling to -them or asking help or advice, she threw her whole weight on the rope -and gave one furious jerk. The pulley suddenly began to work again and, -caught unprepared, she lost her hold on the rope. It slipped swiftly -through her fingers and she was carried downward at a terrific rate, -landing with a thud on the rose bed under the window. - -Betty and the Dig had watched her descent in helpless horror. Now Betty -seized the candle and raced down-stairs and out into the cold night, -the Dig automatically following. Round to the back of the house they -went, both expecting to find a senseless body, bruised and bleeding, on -the ground. Instead a girl was walking rather stiffly out from among -the burlap-swathed rose-bushes. - -“I’m not hurt,” she called softly. “You’ll catch cold. Run back to your -beds, please, and don’t mind me.” - -Betty paused in amazement, and suddenly realizing that it was indeed -bitterly cold for kimonos and Turkish slippers over bare feet she -thrust the candle, which the moonlight rendered useless, into the Dig’s -hands, and ordered her back into the house. - -“I’ll come and see you later,” she explained. “Take the catch off the -door for me. I want to be sure she really isn’t hurt, and----” - -Betty hurried off. It wasn’t necessary to explain to the Dig how -college discipline demanded that she discover the identity of the -girl, and her reasons for making an exit from Morton Hall in so -unconventional a fashion. - -The girl was limping down the road toward the Belden House. “Wait!” -Betty called, running after her. “It’s Miss Wales. I must speak to you -a minute.” - -The girl paused, glanced around as if counting the chances of escape, -and waited. - -“Aren’t you hurt?” Betty demanded as she came closer. “We thought the -fall would surely stun you. Your hands must be terribly cut.” - -“Oh, not much,” the girl answered, putting them resolutely behind -her. “I had on gloves. And there was a little snow on the ground -close to the house, to break the fall. You want to know who I am, -Miss Wales, and what I was doing in the Morton so late. Well, it’s -all very simple. I’m Helena Mason. I was up talking to Esther Bond -and we got interested and didn’t hear either of the bells. I hated -to bother any one to let me out, so I told Esther I’d slide down the -fire-escape--it’s good practice for a fire. And because it stuck for a -minute some silly girl imagined I needed help and called you. I’m sorry -you were disturbed. The night-watchman will be along soon--if I can’t -make some girl hear me right away and let me in. Won’t you please go -back now?” - -Betty was shivering with cold. “Yes, and you must come with me,” she -said. “You limp dreadfully. Waiting out in the cold after a fall like -that would be positively dangerous. The girl who rooms next to me is -away, and you can go to bed there.” - -“But I’d much rather go home,” Helena demurred. “I won’t have to wait -but a minute, and I’m not at all cold.” - -“You’re shivering this minute,” Betty told her, “and your hands are cut -so that they’re bleeding on to the ground. You must come and let me fix -them for you.” And putting her arm through Helena’s she hurried her -back to Morton Hall. - -Helena submitted in silence while Betty bathed and bandaged the torn -hands, and helped her to undress. - -“Now shall I tell Esther to come and say good-night?” she asked. “I’m -going to tell the girl who discovered you that you’re really all -right--we couldn’t believe our eyes when you got up and walked off--and -I’ll go on up and tell Esther too. She must have seen you fall and -she’ll be worrying.” - -“Oh, no, she didn’t,” Helena assured her. “Please don’t disturb her, -Miss Wales. I’m sure she’s sound asleep. And Miss Wales--will you have -to tell the other girl--the one who saw me--who I am? I’d so much -rather not. People will laugh at me so.” - -“You ought to be thankful they haven’t got to mourn for you,” laughed -Betty. “I can’t see how you escaped being badly hurt. Well, I won’t -mention any name then, Miss Mason; only in return you must promise me -never to go out of our house by such a dangerous route again.” - -“I won’t,” agreed the girl. “You see I didn’t know you or Mrs. Post, -and I thought you might be awfully cross at my having stayed after -ten.” - -“But Esther knew us,” Betty protested. “She oughtn’t to have let you -try such a thing in the dark and cold unless there was a real necessity -for it.” - -“She had nothing to say about it, Miss Wales,” explained Helena coldly. -“I’ve often--I’m not a bit afraid of a fire-escape, and I just said so -and went ahead. She had nothing to do with it at all.” - -The Dig was awake and waiting for Betty. She listened eagerly to the -scant news that was vouchsafed her, and pointedly did not inquire -Helena’s name. - -“She knows who it was,” Betty guessed shrewdly. - -“Let’s not say anything about it,” she suggested aloud. “It might -frighten the girls about trying the new fire-escapes, and it will make -this particular girl seem very absurd.” - -“All right,” agreed the Dig briskly. “But such things always do get -out, Miss Wales. Other people must have seen her hanging there or heard -her fall and then the talking afterward.” - -Betty crept up to the fourth floor, and knocked very softly on Esther -Bond’s door. Instantly the door was unlocked, and Esther demanded -nervously what the matter was. - -“Nothing at all,” Betty quieted her, “but I thought you might know that -Helena got carried down too fast on her fire-escape, so I came to tell -you that she’s all right, only bruised a little and her hands are cut.” - -“No, I didn’t know she fell,” said Esther apathetically, “but I heard -you talking to her, and wondered why you had gone out after her. I’m -glad she’s not hurt.” - -“Next time you mustn’t let her try such a thing,” Betty told her -gravely. “Call me and I’ll let out anybody who has stayed too late by -mistake.” - -“It wasn’t a mistake, Miss Wales,” Esther explained calmly. “Helena -wasn’t ready to go at ten, so she stayed; that’s all. She comes here -when she likes and goes when she likes, and as she likes. If you’re -blaming me for this you don’t know Helena Mason.” - -Helena insisted upon leaving before breakfast the next morning. Her -hands were sore, and she was stiff and bruised all over, but she -managed to dress without help, and insisted that she was well enough -to get her books and go to her classes. At noon she was back again, -nervously inquiring for Betty. - -“I lost a paper last night, Miss Wales,” she explained. “I had tucked -it into my ulster pocket. Did you pick it up, or has anybody in this -house found it and brought it to you or Mrs. Post?” - -Betty had not seen the paper, but she promised to inquire. The Thorn, -it developed, had found it that morning and given it to Esther Bond. - -“It was in her writing,” she explained. “It was a Lit. paper, and a -dandy one too. I read it. Wish I’d seen it before I handed mine in.” -She grinned cheerfully. “I can say that to you, Miss Wales, because you -can tell a joke when you see one. Helena Mason can’t. Rather than be -laughed at for her fire-escape escapade she’s given the impression that -she burned her hands with her student lamp. And the people who know -what really happened are smiling a little and wondering a lot.” - -A week later the Thorn came to Betty again, her eyes round with -amazement. “I’m not a gossip, Miss Wales,” she began, “but that -paper--the one in Esther Bond’s writing that Miss Mason lost and I -found--was read to-day in Lit. 6, as the best one handed in. And it -was signed by Helena Mason. I wish now that I hadn’t read it. I never -thought there was any harm in reading a theme that you happened to pick -up.” - -“There’s a lot of harm in jumping to conclusions,” Betty warned her -hastily. “Helena’s writing may be so like Esther’s that it deceived -you, or Esther may have copied Helena’s paper for her. That’s the right -explanation, I’m sure. A good many girls hire their papers copied, you -know.” - -The Thorn sighed and stared at Betty admiringly. “And I never saw any -possibility except that Helena Mason had hired her theme written. I -must have a horrid, suspicious mind, I suppose, Miss Wales. I’m glad -I came right to you first, and I shan’t mention the matter to any one -else.” - - - - -CHAPTER XVII - -THE MYSTERY SOLVED - - -MRS. POST had the grippe. “Why couldn’t I have waited until the spring -vacation?” she sighed forlornly. “Then this house would be empty, and -my daughter--the one who’s a nurse--was coming up anyway to visit me. -And now I’m bothering everybody and making lots of extra trouble.” - -Betty reassured her tactfully. “It’s not the busy season for Student’s -Aid secretaries,” she said. “Whatever of your work I specially don’t -like, I shall saddle on some girl. They’re all crazy to do things for -you. It’s worth being ill once in a while to see how much people think -of you.” - -Late that afternoon Betty remembered that she had forgotten to -distribute towels on the fourth floor, and went up to see about it. The -Mystery’s door was open, she noticed, and a group of fourth floor girls -were inside, eagerly admiring a dress that had just come to the Thorn -from home. - -Betty threw them a merry word of greeting and went on to the linen -closet. It was a cloudy afternoon and the tiny high window let in -very little light. “I must write to Jim to complain of his dark -linen-presses,” she thought, with a smile. And then, reaching out her -hand to draw the curtain away from some shelves, she jumped back with -a scream of terror. Her hand had hit the head of somebody who was -crouched in a heap behind the curtains. Betty’s cry brought half a -dozen girls on the run to the linen-closet door. - -“It’s nothing,” Betty told them, clinging to the door-post to steady -herself, for she was trembling with fright. “That is--now, girls, -don’t scream or faint or do anything foolish. Some one had hidden in -there--some girl in the house, perhaps, for fun. Whoever it is won’t -hurt us here all together in broad daylight. Now come out, please,” -called Betty, raising her voice and looking hard at the curtains. - -There was a moment of awful stillness and then a tall girl straightened -to her full height behind the quivering curtains and came forward, -flushing hotly, to the door. It was Helena Mason. She paid no -attention to Betty and the girls about her but, looking over their -heads, faced Esther Bond, who stood watching the scene with a curious -air of detachment from the door of her room. And the look that Helena -Mason gave her said as plainly as words could have done, “I hate you. I -hate you. I hate you.” - -But the look the Mystery sent back said, “I am beyond hating you or any -one else.” - -There was a long silence. Betty and the girls with her were too amazed -to speak, and Helena Mason stood quietly defiant, as if daring any one -to question her. At last the Thorn, gay in her new dress, broke the -tension. - -“Come on down to my room, girls, and finish your inspection of me -there,” she suggested. “Miss Wales doesn’t need any more protection. -We’re just in the way here now.” - -They caught her point instantly, and trooped after her down-stairs, -leaving Betty, Helena, and the Mystery to settle the matter as best -they might. When they had gone Helena laughed a strained little laugh -and began to explain herself. - -“You’re always catching me in absurd situations, Miss Wales. But this -can be explained as easily as the fire-escape affair. I’m sure you know -I wasn’t trying to steal your sheets and towels. I had a reason for not -wanting the girls in the house to know I was in Esther’s room to-day, -so when I came up-stairs and found some of them with her, I slipped in -here to wait till they’d gone; and you came and found me. That’s all.” - -Betty had been thinking fast. “But the door was locked, Miss Mason--it -is kept locked. How did you manage to get in and then lock it again?” - -Helena flushed. “The key to any of these doors will unlock any other, -Miss Wales.” - -“But where did you get such a key?” Betty persisted. “How did you -happen to have one ready to-day?” - -“I took it out of one of the doors over there.” Helena pointed vaguely -toward a cluster of empty rooms. - -“Where is it now?” Betty demanded. - -Helena flushed redder than ever. “I’m sure I don’t know--on the floor -in there, probably.” - -Betty got a match and began groping around on the floor of the linen -room. But after a minute Esther Bond, who had said nothing so far, came -forward and confronted Helena. - -“Why don’t you tell the truth at once?” she asked. “You’ll have to in -the end. Don’t hunt there, Miss Wales. She’s wearing the key on her -watch-chain.” - -“Give it to me, please,” Betty said, coming out into the light. She -noticed that Helena took her watch off the chain first, and then -slipped out the key. “So you didn’t take it to-day,” she said. - -“I never said when I took it,” Helena flashed back angrily. “I’ve had -it several weeks, if you want to know. The girls in this house are -bores and frightfully curious. Whenever I don’t want to see them and -have them fussing around, why, I come in here and wait till Esther is -alone. There’s no great harm in that, as far as I can see. I’ve done it -all winter.” - -Betty was frankly puzzled what to answer. “Why, no--except that you -gave me a dreadful fright just now,” she said slowly. “And--yes, Miss -Mason, there is harm in it. It’s a sly and sneaking way of acting. No -girl would hide in here as you say you have done without a good reason, -and the reason can’t but be discreditable. I don’t ask you to tell me -what it is, but I do ask you and Esther to talk it over and think what -you ought to do about it. And if you want any advice from me or Mrs. -Post, when she’s better, or want to tell us anything in justice to -yourselves or the house, why, we shall be only too glad to help.” - -Betty gathered up her towels and departed, hoping she had said the -right thing and devoutly wishing, as she caught a glimpse of herself -in a mirror, that she looked older and more impressive, the better to -emphasize her good advice. Half-way down the stairs she halted. “Why, -she’s the ghost!” she said to herself. “I’ve caught our ghost! How -queer that I never thought of that till now. And I’m afraid that in -this case the Thorn is right about the connection between ghosts and -somebody’s wrong-doing. Either Helena Mason is crazy, or she’s hiding -something that she’s ashamed of. I wish Esther would tell Mrs. Post -all about it. It’s so queer that it worries me.” - -A few minutes later there was a knock on Betty’s door. The Mystery, a -strained, frightened look in her big eyes, stood outside. - -“I’ve come to explain myself,” she said. “You’ve been very kind, and -Mrs. Post--I couldn’t bear to have her know this, Miss Wales. But I owe -it to you that you should understand, and then I want you to advise me. -Helena wouldn’t come. She has decided what to do, she says--she will -leave college at the spring recess. I am as bad as she in a way, and -perhaps I ought to leave too. Indeed, I may have to.” - -“Begin at the beginning and tell me about it,” urged Betty. - -The Mystery nodded. “It began when we were little girls. She and her -mother used to spend the summers in our village. Her mother took a -fancy to me. She used to tell us that if Helena had my brains or I -Helena’s face she should have an ideal daughter. She’s very ambitious. -She was always pushing Helena along in her schools--bringing down -tutors in the summer to teach her languages and coach her in her -theme-work. She let me study with them, too, because she thought my -work would inspire Helena. Helena hates to study, and hasn’t much head -for it. Her mother had set her heart on her coming to Harding and -making a name for herself here. When she heard that I wanted dreadfully -to come, she sent for me and offered to pay my expenses if I would help -Helena, especially in theme-work. - -“I never thought how it would be--it sounded all right--like tutoring. -So I promised. Helena insisted that I should live off at the end of -nowhere, so she could come to me without any one’s finding it out. I -soon saw what she wanted of me--not tutoring, but help. I was to write -all her papers, take all her notes and read them to her,--do all her -work and see that she got the credit. At the end of last year I got -tired of it, and I thought I could pay my own way. But when I spoke to -Helena she said she would tell the whole story, and that it would look -as black for me as for her. ‘Only I shall go home where no one knows -or cares,’ she said, ‘except mother, who can’t defend her plan, and -you will stay here--or you’ll stop and teach and never get a decent -position, because they won’t recommend a cheat.’ So I’ve kept on. When -you asked me to come and live here Helena was furious. She said she -couldn’t come to see me here without being seen--of course things have -leaked out, and she’s been suspected of getting help, but nothing has -ever been proved. I wouldn’t give in--I wanted so to come. - -“But I did arrange to have a room away from the others, and I’ve kept -the door locked so they wouldn’t come in suddenly and find her here -or see a paper I’d written for her to hand in. She gets stupider and -lazier all the time, I think. She can’t do the simplest thing for -herself now. She had an absurd story ready to explain all this. I -told her I wouldn’t help her with it. I’m sick of being the brains of -Helena Mason. I want to be myself--to have the use of my own ideas and -abilities. I’m tired of selling my brains and my self-respect for a -college education that other girls earn easily with their hands. It -wasn’t a fair bargain. Of course I shall pay back the money as soon -as I can. But whether I go or stay, I shall be free from now on to -be myself--not a nonentity sucked dry to help a rich girl get into -Dramatic Club and Philosophical and the Cercle Français, and to make a -reputation for the brains her mother admires. Now you understand me, -Miss Wales. Tell me what to do.” - -Betty hesitated. “I’m not sure that I do understand. You mean that -you’ve actually written all Helena Mason’s papers?” - -Esther nodded. “Ready for her to copy. At first I only corrected -hers, but for nearly two years I’ve written them outright. And I’ve -studied nearly every lesson for her--taken all the notes for us both, -and recited as little as possible myself, so the resemblances in our -work shouldn’t be noticed. Now I shall come forward and take part in -things. Oh, it will be splendid, Miss Wales!” She paused uncertainly. -“But perhaps you think I’ve been too dishonest to deserve a loan from -the Student’s Aid, or any chance of earning money. If I’d only known, -before I came, that there were plenty of chances! I didn’t realize -it even after I came, when Helena first proposed my doing the things -that seemed to me unfair. I did them because I hated to quarrel with -her--and after I’d done them she held them over me. She’s not as mean -as she seems, Miss Wales. Her mother has brought her up to feel that -appearances are the only thing that count.” - -The cloak of diffidence and reserve had fallen away from the girl. She -could speak for herself and for her friend in eloquent defense. Betty -watched and listened, amazed at the sudden change in her. She was free -at last to be herself. - -“No,” Betty said at last, “I don’t think you have forfeited your -chance. Mrs. Mason was most to blame, in suggesting the plan and not -then seeing that her daughter did her own work. Helena shall have -another chance too, if I can arrange it for her and she will take it; -but it will probably mean explaining to her teachers how her work has -been done so far. With you”--Betty considered--“I don’t see why you -shouldn’t let them explain the change in you to suit themselves. You’ll -be a great mystery to them”--Betty smiled at her. “We’ve called you -that--the Mystery--Mrs. Post and I, when we’ve talked about you. I’m -glad our Mystery is solved at last. You haven’t seemed quite real to me -up in your lonely tower room.” - -“Haunted by ghosts,” added Esther, with a sad smile. “I know what the -girls have thought, you see. I couldn’t say anything. Now I suppose -there’ll be more stories, especially if Helena leaves college.” - -But the Thorn had arranged that. “I’ve told the girls that loyalty to -you means silence, Miss Wales,” she explained to Betty. “I proved to -them how dangerous it is to guess about queer things like that, and -they’ve all promised not to say a word about anything they saw. Of -course”--the Thorn couldn’t resist so fine a chance to plume herself on -her superiority--“finding that paper and the fire-escape business and -Miss Mason’s story about it can’t help giving me some very interesting -suspicions, but they shall never pass my lips.” - -Next Betty went to see Helena, prepared to offer to help her through -her crisis; but Helena had made her plans and was determined to abide -by them. - -“I couldn’t stay on, Miss Wales,” she said, “and I certainly don’t -want to. I’ve had a good time here, laughing in my sleeve at the people -I’ve taken in with my clever stories, and pretty verses--why, the one -to Agatha Dwight actually made a splash that rippled away down to New -York. The funny thing about it is that the stories and all are like me. -Mother attracts fascinating, out-of-the-way people, and we’ve always -lived among them in an atmosphere of unusual, fascinating happenings. -How in the world that little country girl gets hold of it is a mystery -to me. She’s never seen such people, or been to their dinners or behind -the scenes at their plays. I’ve never even told her much.” - -“That’s the mystery of genius,” said Betty, who had thought a great -deal about Esther Bond. “You never can explain it.” - -“And if you haven’t got it,” said Helena hopelessly, “you can’t get -it. I’m not unusual. I shall never shine except in mother’s reflected -glory. I’m sorry for mother; she’s wasted so much time and money trying -to make me seem clever. Now she’s got to get used to having a perfectly -commonplace daughter. I shall do my best to make her like the real me, -but at any rate she’ll have to endure me as I am. I shan’t permit any -more efforts at veneering me. They’re too demoralizing.” - -So Helena departed at Easter, amid the laments of her class. She would -have been editor-in-chief of the “Argus” and Ivy Orator if she had -stayed, they told her. - -“I’ve willed my honors to the undiscovered geniuses,” she retorted -daringly. “I’m tired of being called the cleverest girl in the class. -I’m going home to give the rest of you a chance. College never exactly -suited my style.” - -Heartless, mocking, careless of what she had stolen, even unconscious -of what she was restoring to the girl in the tower room, Helena left -Harding, and no more ghosts disturbed the peace of Morton Hall. - -One day just before the winter term closed, Eugenia stopped in to see -Betty on her way home from Miss Dick’s. - -“Something’s the matter with Dorothy,” she said. “I came back early, -so you would have time to run over and see her before she goes to bed. -She seems to be dreadfully disturbed about something and homesick and -unhappy. She kept saying that nothing was the matter, but the tears -would come creeping out. I don’t think she’s sick--just unhappy.” - -“I’ll ask Miss Dick to let her come and stay with me to-night,” Betty -suggested, slipping on an ulster. - -Dorothy flew into her big sister’s arms, and fairly danced for joy when -she was told that Betty had come to take her home. - -“Have things been going criss-cross with you lately?” Betty asked her, -as they ran back, hand in hand, to Morton Hall. - -“Yes,” whispered Dorothy solemnly, “they have. Do you happen to feel -like a reckless ritherum to-night, Betty dear?” - -“Not especially to-night,” laughed Betty. “Do you?” - -The Smallest Sister sighed profoundly. “Yes. I guess I shan’t ever stop -feeling so as long as I live.” - -“Not even if we should make hot chocolate in a chafing-dish?” - -“That would be splendid,” Dorothy admitted eagerly, “but, Betty dear, -it wouldn’t make you feel the same about a person who’d pretended to -be very fond of you and all the same she did a mean hateful thing, -would it now?” - -Betty admitted that hot chocolate might not be able to wipe out all -the sting of false friendship. “But maybe the person didn’t mean to be -mean,” she suggested hopefully. - -Dorothy’s little face was very sober. “I’m sure she didn’t know how sad -it would seem to me,” she explained. “Betty, let’s play I was mistaken, -and enjoy our hot chocolate as much as ever we can.” - -But when it came time to put out the light, Dorothy pleaded that it -should be left burning “just a teeny, weeny speck, like a night-lamp.” - -“What’s the matter, Dottie?” objected Betty. “Have you been seeing -ghosts again?” - -“Whatever made you think of that?” asked Dorothy anxiously. “I never -said a single word about ghosts. Besides, I couldn’t see her again, -because I didn’t see her before--I only heard her.” - -“Well, you won’t see or hear any ghosts here,” Betty assured her, -turning out the light. “When I’m around they all vanish, and real -people come in their places. So you can go to sleep this minute, and -sleep as sound as ever you can.” - -An hour or two later Betty, who had given her bed to Dorothy, and -was curled up on the box-couch, was awakened by the shrill sound of -a little voice pleading piteously. It was Dorothy, fast asleep but -sitting bolt upright in bed and talking in a strained, perfectly -intelligible monotone. - -“Oh, please don’t, Frisky, please don’t!” she moaned. “I want to scream -so, and I know I mustn’t. You look terrible in that white dress. Take -down your hands, please, Frisky, please! I know it’s you, so why do -you go on pretending? I never meant to tell Betty about your having -the candle-shade. You said you’d forgive me. But you said you forgave -Shirley, and then you frightened her so that she’ll never get over it. -Oh, I mustn’t scream or they’ll find you out! Please, please go away, -Frisky, and don’t try to frighten me any more.” - -The tears were streaming down the Smallest Sister’s face, and she -seemed to be in mortal terror. Betty went to her and shook her softly -awake, soothing her with pet names and caresses. And then, between -sobs, the whole story came out. - -“Oh, Betty, you must never, never tell, but Frisky was the ghost! -I made her mad at me because I said she oughtn’t to have taken a -candle-shade from the Tally-ho the night you asked us two to dinner. -I saw it in her drawer the other day, and I said she ought to give it -right back. And then she told me I was a meddlesome little thing. But -when I most cried she said she’d make up and forgive me. But last night -when my two roommates were away, there was a knocking near the chimney -and a moan, and a ghost came right out of the wall, just as Shirley -said, with its hands up to its face, and it was Frisky in a white -sheet.” - -“Well, then you needn’t have been scared any more,” said Betty -soothingly. - -“A person in a white sheet is rather scaring,” declared Dorothy, -“especially if you’re awfully scared to begin with. She glided around -and around, and she wouldn’t speak to me when I whispered to her that -I knew her. So then I shivered and shook till morning. She might have -scared me just as she did Shirley--she couldn’t tell. Shirley will -stutter and her eyes will twitch always, the doctor says. But Frisky -called me her funny little chum to-day, and just laughed when I accused -her of being the ghost. And I can’t quarrel without telling why, and if -I tell, something perfectly dreadful will happen to Frisky.” - -“She well deserves it for frightening and tyrannizing over you little -girls,” said Betty severely. - -“Oh, Betty, you mustn’t tell! You promised not to. Only always let me -come and stay with you when my roommates are away.” - -“You certainly shall,” Betty promised, “and do hurry and get ready for -college, Dottie. Boarding-school girls are such complete sillies!” - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII - -FRISKY FENTON’S FOLLY - - -MR. THAYER’S May party was to be a Doll Festival. Georgia had thought -of it, and she and Fluffy Dutton had made sure that the college was -“properly excited” over its “features.” - -“No use taking the darling dolls home,” Georgia declared. “The new -climate wouldn’t agree with them. No use packing them away in messy -boxes, with books and pillows and pictures. By next fall the doll fever -will be over. - -“There can be doll dances in costume, and a doll play, if Madeline -isn’t too famous to write one. The May-pole dancers can be dressed like -dolls too.” - -Fluffy sighed and interrupted: “Shan’t you mind at all parting with -Wooden?” - -“Not a bit,” returned Georgia, the matter-of-fact. “Let’s get a paper -ready for the girls to sign, with the number of dolls they can furnish -opposite their names.” - -Straight signed for one doll without a murmur of protest, but it was -not Rosa Marie that she put on the pile in Georgia’s borrowed express -cart on the day of the May party. Not even to her beloved Fluffy did -she confide her intention of never, never parting from her dear Rosa -Marie. - -The party was on the factory lawn, and the college part of it -overflowed hungrily into the Tally-ho’s territory, or climbed up to -view the animated scene comfortably from the Peter Pan’s upper stories. -The doll dances and May dances came first, and then everybody gathered -around the pile of dolls that rose like a haystack on the slope of the -hill, while Babbie led the little girls one by one, beginning with -the smallest and most forlorn and ragged, up to the pile to choose a -doll. Georgia strutted like a peacock because Wooden was the very first -one selected, and Fluffy refused to be comforted when the fat little -Polander who had chosen her Esquimaux promptly sat down on it and -cracked its skull. - -“Never mind, dearie,” Straight consoled her. “Having dolls to smash -is part of the fun of having them at all. Mr. Thayer will glue it -together, and that child will never think about the crack.” - -“It’s queer,” gulped Fluffy, “how fond you get of everything you have -up here at college--your friends and your room, and even your footless -little toys.” - -“Because they’re the very last toys we’ll ever, ever have,” said -Straight soberly. “Why didn’t you keep the Esquimaux, if you cared so -much?” - -“Because I kept the Baby and its nurse,” explained Fluffy shamefacedly. -Whereupon Straight confessed to having bought a substitute for Rosa -Marie, and the twins departed to the Tally-ho to celebrate their -perfect harmony of spirit in cooling glasses of lemonade. - -Betty was catering for the party, acting as special reception committee -for all the shy and friendless factory hands, and finding time between -to consult flitting members of the “Proper Excitement” and “Proper -Encouragement” committees. Money-making summers must be arranged for -some of the Morton Hall girls, and positions assured for many needy -seniors. Betty had started a Harding teacher’s agency, and already the -demands upon it were almost greater than the supply. - -“But I don’t intend they shall teach unless they really want to,” Betty -decreed, “and not unless they’re at least a little fitted to. Teaching -isn’t the only way for earning money--look at the Tally-ho. Mr. Morton -wants a private secretary if I can honestly recommend one. He’s been -telling his friends about my ideas of fitting people to positions, -and I got the funniest letter from one of them--a very distinguished -author. She said the woman question would soon be settled if I kept -on insisting that a woman’s work should be her true vocation. Best of -all, she wants a manager for a lace shop she is interested in, and -a chaperon for her two daughters who are to study art in Paris next -winter. Those are two splendid openings.” - -“There are a lot of dolls left,” Babbie announced, having finished -her distribution. “I think Bob would like them sent to New York for -her floating hospitals and playgrounds. Where shall we put them? I’m -afraid it’s going to rain.” - -“In the Tally-ho workroom,” Betty decided rapidly. “It does look like -rain. Then we’d better have the ice-cream and cakes in the club-house. -Where’s Nora? Babbie, could you ask Mr. Thayer to tell them all to go -to the club-house? Why will it always pour on garden parties?” - -She had just found Nora, sent her to give new orders to the men who -were carrying the ice-cream, made sure that Bridget had taken all -the cakes over, and started across the lawn herself, when the storm -broke--a pelting spring shower that sent her scurrying back to the -deserted Tally-ho in search of an umbrella and rubbers. Before she had -found them, a forlorn, dripping little figure fell upon her. - -“Oh, Betty dear,” cried the Smallest Sister, “I went to the party to -find you--Mr. Thayer asked me to come, but I only went to find you. -And I didn’t like to climb the fence, as long as it was a party, so I -came all the way around, and I’m soaked. Betty, something awful has -happened. Frisky has run away.” - -Betty stared in dismay. “Dorothy, I haven’t a minute to spare now. Take -Emily’s umbrella and hurry home and get off those wet things. I’ll come -to see you to-night, but I can’t possibly stop now--nothing will go -right if I’m not there.” - -“About the ice-cream, you mean?” demanded Dorothy. “To-night will be -too late to do anything about Frisky.” - -“But, dearie,” Betty told her, “I can’t do anything about Frisky. If -she’s run away from Miss Dick’s school, why, Miss Dick is the one to -attend to it.” - -“Miss Dick doesn’t know.” - -“Then why not tell her instead of me?” - -“Because,” said Dorothy simply, “you always know what to do. Miss Dick -and Kittie Carson wouldn’t know. They’d never find her and never get -her to come back. Isn’t it very awful indeed to run away and be an -actress, Betty?” - -Betty laid down her umbrella, wrapped her coat around Dorothy, -and with one anxious glance in the direction of the supper that -she was relentlessly abandoning bent her energies to settling her -responsibilities toward Frisky Fenton. - -“Does any one else know where Frisky has gone?” she asked. - -“I think maybe her roommates do. She came and told me this morning, -and gave me a blue ribbon for a keepsake. She said she couldn’t bear to -go without any good-byes to her chums. She said, ‘Don’t tell any one,’ -but of course she didn’t mean you. She knows I tell you everything -since----” - -“And where has she gone?” - -“To the Junction, to join that company that was acting here all last -week. They’re going ’way out west after to-night. That’s why you must -hurry.” - -“Why on earth did she do that, Dottie?” - -“’Cause her stepmother was so unsympathetic,” explained Dorothy, “at -Easter vacation, you know, about a new hat, and a party, and going -to see Miss Dwight in Miss Madeline’s play. And yesterday Miss Dick -scolded her and kept her in to write French verbs. So she just decided -to go off and be an actress.” - -“And why do you think I can get her to come back?” - -“’Cause she said once she’d love to have a sympathetic sister like you. -You understand exactly how girls feel.” - -Betty sighed. - -“Besides,” Dorothy went on, “you know an actress. Frisky knows -three--Miss Dwight and the ones that are the hero and heroine in this -company. She went to a play they acted here one afternoon called ‘East -Lynne,’ and she waited outside by the back door and met them, and they -encouraged her.” - -“But, Dorothy, I thought you weren’t intimate with Frisky any more -since you found out she was the ghost.” - -“We never stopped being chums,” said Dorothy, bursting into a sudden -flood of tears. “I’m sure she’ll be sick of being by herself by -to-night, and scared, and I almost think she’d expect me to send you -after her.” - -Betty looked at her watch. It was nearly six. The next train to the -Junction would be the theatre express. “All right, little sister, I’ll -go,” she said cheerfully. “Only I can’t take the whole responsibility. -You must let me send a note to Miss Dick.” - -So Betty wrote Miss Dick that Francisca Fenton had gone to the Junction -alone on a foolish errand, that she was going after her on the theatre -train, and that if Miss Dick wished to come too they could go together. -“But I’m quite sure I can manage alone,” she added, “and perhaps she -would feel less humiliated at having me find her.” - -And as Miss Dick didn’t appear at the train, it was to be presumed that -she shared the general faith in Betty Wales. - -As she sped to the station Betty noted the name of the company--“Pratt -Players”--on a dilapidated bill-board, and on the train she planned out -her campaign. She would drive to the place where they were playing, -and if Frisky was there or they knew where she was, all would be plain -sailing. If not, the police and private detectives must be put to work, -under pledges of secrecy. She couldn’t see that Miss Dick would be -needed, no matter which way things went. - -But she had no sooner arrived at the Junction than her plans were -suddenly thrown all awry. None of the station officials, none of the -cabmen at the corner, knew anything about the Pratt Players. - -“‘The Pink Moon’ at the Lyric, Shakespeare at the Grand, and I’m not -sure about the Paxton,” the man at the information bureau told her -glibly. - -[Illustration: “WE’LL FIND ’EM, MISS,” HE ASSURED HER] - -A cabman remembered that the Paxton was closed. “But ‘The Pink Moon’ -is a great show, ma’am,” he assured Betty. “Drive you there for fifty -cents.” - -Betty sped back to the information bureau. “Pratt Players?” repeated -the man inside. “Pratt Players? Some ten-twenty-thirty outfit, I -s’pose, doing a week at some little nickel theatre or music hall. -City’s full of them, miss.--Next train to Boston leaves in twenty -minutes.--Lunch-room down-stairs, ma’am.--Where in South Dakota did you -say you want to go?” - -Betty turned away sick at heart. She had a vision of herself being -driven aimlessly from one nickel theatre to another, in a vain search -for the Pratt Players, while Frisky----If only Miss Dick were here! She -might telegraph for her. But first she pocketed pride and discretion -and consulted the friendly cabman again. He had never heard of the -Pratt Players. “But we’ll find ’em, miss,” he assured her, “if it takes -all night. Got a friend in the company, miss?” - -Betty turned away with much dignity toward the telegraph office. On the -way she tried to think what 19-- girls had lived at the Junction. If -only she could remember one she knew well enough to take with her on -her quixotic search! There was a sudden press of people coming in from -a newly arrived train. Betty stood aside forlornly to let them pass, -when she felt her hand caught in a strong clasp and looked up to find -Jim Watson towering over her. - -“By all the luck!” he cried. “You here and alone! Come on to the -theatre with me, Betty. Faculty don’t have to be chaperoned, even if -accompanied by a dimple, do they? I was hoping to get up to Harding in -time to call on you--got to be in Albany to-morrow on business for the -firm. I say, Betty, how long is it since I’ve seen you?” - -Betty didn’t wait to answer. “Come,” she ordered desperately, “and find -a cab and help me hunt for the Pratt Players. I’ll explain after we’re -started. I don’t know when I’ve been so glad to see somebody I know, -Jim.” - -“Look sharp now,” Jim told the cabman. “Extra fare if you hit the right -place early in the game, understand.” Owing to which inducement cabby -wasted but two guesses and halted with a flourish in front of the -dingy theatre occupied by the Pratt Players before the first curtain -had risen on the faded splendors of “East Lynne.” - -Jim ordered the cab to wait, tipped a ticket-seller and a messenger boy -to ascertain the name and whereabouts of the heroine, who presumably -had Frisky in charge, escorted Betty down a dark alley to the -stage-door, cautioned her to call if anything went wrong, and leaned -comfortably against a post to await her return from the inner regions. - -They had agreed that it would be better for Betty to go in alone; but -she wished, as she opened the door and groped her way up a steep, -narrow flight of stairs, that she had still the protection of Jim’s -unruffled, confident presence. She met two men on the stairs. One -took no notice of her, the other tossed a “Late again, eh? You’ll be -docked,” over his shoulder, and hurried on. At the top of the flight -Betty halted aimlessly. Stage hands were busy moving battered scenery. -A woman’s querulous voice clamored impatiently for “Daisy!” Then above -everything rose a man’s angry remonstrance. - -“Promised you nothing! You said you could dance, and you can’t. If you -could, you’re good for a front row job, with that face. Oh, well,” in -answer to a low-voiced reminder, “I never thought you meant it. That -was my little jolly. Don’t you know jolly when you see it, little girl? -Where’ll you stay to-night? Lost all your money? Well, I’m losing -more’n I ever had over this old show. It ain’t my fault that you got -lost this afternoon along with your pocketbook, and didn’t get here -till it was show-time. Anyway I haven’t a thing for you at any hour -of the day. If I was you I’d go right home to my mamma. Here’s two -plunks--that’s all I can spare. So long, little girl.” - -Betty stepped forward toward the voice just in time to be run down by a -frightened, tear-stained Frisky, clutching two silver dollars tight in -her hand. - -“Miss Wales!” she gasped. “Where did you come from?” - -“I’ve got a carriage outside to take you home in,” Betty told her -quietly. “So you won’t need that money. Let’s give it back and then -go.” - -At that the manager appeared, looking a little frightened, and -protesting stoutly that he “hadn’t never promised the kid a part.” And -when Betty didn’t offer to dispute him, he seemed much relieved and -grew obsequious and effusive, so that Betty was glad to remember that -Jim was outside. When they finally got out to him, past the bowing, -mincing manager, Jim tactfully fell into the rear of the procession, -and rode back on the box with the driver, so that Frisky, who was -hysterical with humiliation and relief, might have Betty all to herself. - -Her story was just as Dorothy had told it. After getting to the -Junction she had experienced the same difficulty that Betty had in -finding the elusive Pratt Players; but not having thought of a cab, -and being without Jim’s effective methods of memory-jogging, she had -walked all the afternoon, losing her pocketbook in the course of -her wanderings, only to be told by one of her “encouraging” actor -friends that he had only suggested her joining the company as a bit of -harmless, pleasant “jolly.” - -“I’d saved three months’ allowance, and sold my turquoise ring to -Josephine Briggs for three dollars,” sighed Frisky. “What will Miss -Dick say, Miss Wales, and what will she write home to my father?” - -At the station Jim appeared with tickets and the cheering information -that the next train wouldn’t go for half an hour. So Frisky, who had -had a banana for lunch and no dinner, was persuaded to gulp down a -sandwich and a glass of milk, while Betty thanked Jim so fervently that -he took heart and boldly inquired when he might come to Harding to make -the call he had missed in the pursuit of Frisky. - -On the train Frisky considered her future and dissolved in floods of -woe. - -“I couldn’t stay without my money,” she wailed, “but I simply cannot -go back and face the awful scoldings I shall get. Miss Dick won’t let -me out of the school yard for the rest of the term, and I shouldn’t -wonder if she’d tell the whole story right out in chapel. If I hadn’t -been made to stay by myself so much and think, I shouldn’t have thought -of so many wrong things to do. I discovered the secret passage one day -when I was sent to my room to meditate. Who could resist trying to be -a ghost, Miss Wales, with that secret passage all fixed up as if on -purpose? I’ve felt awfully about Shirley----” - -“And yet you did it again,” said Betty sternly, “to Dorothy, who might -have been just as badly frightened.” - -Frisky wept afresh. “I know it. She made me cross, and I didn’t care. -Sometimes I don’t care what happens, Miss Wales, and other days I love -everybody, even Miss Dick and my stepmother. The worst thing is that -nobody trusts me. I meant to show them that I could be trusted to get -along all right alone. And then I--I--I--lost my purse,” sobbed Frisky -wildly. - -Betty patted her shoulder comfortingly. “That plan was all wrong,” -she said. “Suppose you were to come and consult me about things the -way Dorothy does? I believe we could get to be good friends. I know a -good many stage people,” she added craftily, “the real kind, not the -make-believes like those dreadful ones in the Pratt Company.” - -“But if ever I wanted to go on the stage you’d say no, Miss Wales,” -demurred Frisky. - -“I should say that Miss Dwight knows more about it than either of us,” -amended Betty. “We are almost at Harding, Frisky. Shall I tell Miss -Dick to-morrow that I’m to be your special consultation committee from -now on, and that I’m willing to be responsible for your good behavior?” - -“Responsible for my good behavior?” Frisky giggled, with a touch of her -old irresponsible gaiety. “But I’m always in hot water, Miss Wales. I -try sometimes, and sometimes I don’t, but it always ends the same way.” - -“So you’re not to be trusted, then,” began Betty. “I thought you -said----” - -“Oh!” Frisky considered it. “If I said I’d try all the time, and Miss -Dick promised to overlook some little mistakes, and I should talk -things over with you instead of with the other girls--I think sometimes -they stir me up on purpose to see the rumpus there will be. Well, then -you’d beg me off with Miss Dick. Is that it?” - -“I’d explain to Miss Dick. I’d ask her to treat you as she does the -oldest and most responsible girls--to trust you.” - -“She treats them all a good deal like infants,” murmured Frisky. She -turned to Betty. “Thank you, Miss Wales. I don’t know why you should -do so much for me. If you are looking out for my good behavior, I’ll -certainly try not to make you sorry or to get you in a fix with Miss -Dick.” Frisky laughed again. - -Betty took the sleepy Francisca home with her, and risked routing -somebody up at Miss Dick’s to make her report. Miss Dick herself -answered her. “I found your note on my return,” she explained. “One -of Miss Fenton’s roommates had grown worried and spoken to me earlier -in the day. Miss Carson and I went down in the afternoon. No, we were -not provided with the company’s name, and we could not place them. -Miss Carson is staying all night--the detective reports to her hourly. -I shall wire her at once, of course. Miss Wales, you have done me an -inestimable service in helping me to fulfil my trust to the child’s -parents. In the morning you will come over? Certainly, Miss Wales. -Anything, anything! I am very deeply in your debt.” - -Betty smiled, a little later, over the picture of the dignified Miss -Dick, the subdued Kitty Carson, and a perturbed detective pursuing a -phantom theatrical troupe and a pretty girl through the devious ways of -the Junction. - -“But I didn’t find them,” she reflected modestly. “It was Jim. I’m -never the one that does things. It’s just my good luck and my good -friends.” - - - - -CHAPTER XIX - -ARCHITECT’S FINAL PLANS--CONSIDERED - - -BETTY WALES danced merrily across the campus to her office. It was -commencement Monday. Betty hadn’t meant to stay over at first, but the -affairs of the teachers’ agency were not quite settled, and they had -kept her. Besides, Lucile Merrifield graduated, Georgia was a junior -usher, Helen was to take her Master’s degree, and 19-- was coming -back “in bunches,” as Bob elegantly phrased it, for an “informal -between-years” reunion. And finally Jim Watson was coming to make his -much-heralded call on this very Monday evening. Betty had taken him -to 19--’s own Glee Club concert, and he had suggested celebrating the -anniversary, much to the disgust of the B. C. A.’s and the rest of the -old 19-- crowd, who found no occasion quite complete unless they could -have Betty Wales in their midst. - -Half-way to her office she was hailed by President Wallace. “You’ll be -back next year, of course?” he asked. “The Morton couldn’t do without -you.” - -Betty blushed and laughed. “I hoped I could escape without being asked -that, because I don’t know. Mother and father say they are all right, -but I must look them over and be quite sure before I decide to leave -them again.” - -“Very well, only be quite sure also that we need you here,” the -President told her, and Betty hurried on, thinking hard about the -next year at Morton Hall. It would certainly be very nice, with the -Mystery explained and happy, Miss Romance departed to make a home for -her devoted suitor, the Digs beginning to appreciate the inherent -reasonableness of obeying rules, the Thorn no longer prickly, and the -Goop boarding with a married sister who had providentially come to live -in Harding. - -“I don’t believe her manners are worth the ruin of your disposition and -mine,” Betty had told Mrs. Post, when, in June, the Goop had horrified -the house by appearing at breakfast collarless and with unbuttoned -shoes. - -Besides these improvements six seniors were leaving--rather dull, -colorless girls, whose departure would make room for livelier, more -promising material. Betty resolved that Morton Hall should be the -gayest, jolliest house on the campus--if she came back. - -Frisky Fenton was at the door of her office to meet her. She had been -sitting on the stairs waiting. - -“I’m going home this afternoon, Miss Wales,” she said. “I’ve taken all -my prelims for Harding, and I hope I’ve passed most of them. Since -I’ve been over here so much with you, I simply can’t wait to get into -college. Miss Wales, I’ve come to consult you for one last time. How -shall I make my stepmother love me?” - -Betty smiled into Frisky’s melting brown eyes that were fixed upon -her so earnestly. “Didn’t Miss Dwight advise you to puzzle that out -for yourself, if you wanted to learn how to win over crowds of people -later? But I know how I should begin. Call her mother. It almost makes -you love a person to call her that. And if you love her and try to -please her----” - -“I’ve thought of another thing to do,” Frisky took her up. “I shall -pretend she’s like you. I’ve noticed that when people expect a great -deal of me--as you do, Miss Wales--I manage to come up to it. Perhaps -if I expect my--mother to be like you--to understand and sympathize----” - -“And scold hard too, sometimes,” laughed Betty. “Don’t forget that part -of me.” - -The girl whom Betty had picked out as a possible secretary to Jasper J. -Morton opened the door, and Frisky held up her flower-like face to be -kissed and went off, a mist in her eyes at the parting. The prospective -secretary didn’t stay long; if she hadn’t been a born “rusher,” capable -of getting through intricate discussions and momentous decisions in -double-quick time, Betty would never have thought of recommending her. -And then, with not time enough before her next appointment to begin on -anything important, Betty drew out a sheet of paper and began drawing -up rules, à la Madeline. - -“If I come back next year,” she headed the page: - - “_Rule One_--All ghosts whatsoever are tabooed. - - _Rule Two_--Boarding-schools need not apply for assistance. - - _Rule Three_--Matrons shall arrive on time and never be ill. - - _Rule Four_--In short, bothers, fusses, complications, mysteries, - worries, and everything else that makes life----” - -Betty paused for an adjective, finally decided upon “interesting,” -and threw down her pen with a little laugh. “That’s exactly it,” she -thought. “Work and bothering and planning are what make life worth -living and bring the big things around your way. Some day Morton Hall -will run itself, as the Tally-ho does. Until then---- Come in, Miss -Smith. Yes, I have heard from that school. Can you get a reference -for Latin? There is one first year class that this teacher may have -to take. You failed in Livy? Oh, I am sorry, Miss Smith! Yes, I -understand; it was when you were a freshman and never dreamed of having -to teach. But the Latin department could hardly recommend you, could -it? Let me see what other places are vacant.” - -It was a long, busy morning--a thoroughly grown-up, responsible morning -for the Small Person behind the Big Desk. Once she rushed to her window -to see the Ivy procession wind its snowy, green-garlanded way past, -and again she deserted her post to hear the Ivy Song and to watch the -pretty picture the seniors made as they sang. But neither Babbie’s gay -pleading, Mary Brooks’s mockery, nor Helen’s mournful sympathy could -shake her purpose. She was going to “tend up” to the business in hand, -until it was done. It might be deliciously cool and as gay and amusing -as possible down under the swaying elms. 19-- might be holding an -“experience meeting illustrated with tableaux, blue prints, and babies” -under the Hilton House birch tree. - -“I can stand it to miss all that,” Betty confided to Mary Brooks, “but -if the afternoon people don’t come on time and don’t hurry through, -so I can go on our own special picnic, I shall fairly weep on their -shoulders.” - -So the last of the “afternoon people”--a leisurely freshman who had -taken ten minutes to decide between two rooms in Morton Hall--was -surprised to see the patient, dignified secretary of the Student’s -Aid dart past her down the stairs, sprint, hatless, her curls flying, -across the campus, and shriek wildly at a passing flat-car, which -slowed up for a minute while a dozen willing hands caught the panting -little secretary and pulled her up and on. - -It was a flat-car picnic, in memory of old days. There were -ginger-cookies for Roberta, who ate an unbelievable number of them, -and chocolate éclairs for everybody, because on the sorrowful senior -picnic there had been almost nothing else. This time there was bacon, -sliced very thin, to toast on pointed sticks, rolls, some of Bridget’s -delicious coffee keeping hot in thermos bottles, a huge chocolate cake, -and dozens of little raisin pies--the Tally-ho’s very latest specialty. - -“Where is Madeline?” asked Betty, helping to start the fire. She had -spent the trip out in catching her breath, cooling off, and borrowing -hairpins to replace those lost in her flight. - -“In the gym basement,” explained Christy, “with Nita and Jean Eastman. -They’re the costume committee for the aftermath parade, you know. They -boasted that they had done themselves proud before they came up here, -but this morning Madeline had a great thought and they’ve been hard at -it all day. They may come out later for supper.” - -“We promised to hang out a sign,” Rachel remembered, and borrowed -Helen’s red sweater, which, tied by the sleeves to a sapling down near -the fence, pointed unerringly to the presence of picnickers on the hill. - -“If you don’t send Mr. James Watson packing the minute the concert -is out, you’ll miss the sensation of this commencement,” Madeline -warned Betty solemnly when she arrived. There was a smudge of brown -paint across her white linen skirt, and Nita declared feelingly that -she would never make another pair of wings, no, not for any aftermath -parade that ever was. These were the only clues to the extra-special -features that they had planned for the evening. - -At seven the returning flat-car halted by the fence, and the revelers -went singing home to dress for the concert. - -“Come to the gym basement for your costume,” Nita whispered to Betty -and K. “Find me or Jean. Madeline is as likely as not to forget all -about being there.” - -When Jim and Betty reached the campus it was gay with lanterns, and -girls in evening dress and their escorts were everywhere. - -“How about a hammock in a quiet spot?” suggested Jim. “The music is -prettiest from a distance, don’t you think?” - -Of course, all the hammocks were full long since, but the obliging -Georgia Ames and three other footsore junior ushers politely vacated -theirs, insisting that they were only resting for a minute, and Jim sat -on the ground at Betty’s feet and inquired for her stage-struck friend, -the cheery Mrs. Post, and the Morton Hall-ites, and then for Betty’s -summer schedule. - -“I might be in Cleveland,” Jim announced tentatively. “The firm is -working on plans for two houses out there.” - -“Then you could come out to the cottage for Sundays,” Betty said -cheerily. “Will would love to take you sailing. I hate to go in those -bobbing little boats, so I stay on shore.” - -“I’m not so very keen about sailing, either,” Jim said. - -“Then I’m afraid you’d better not come,” Betty told him sweetly. -“Sailing and swimming are positively the only amusements out there.” - -“Except talking to you.” - -“Oh, I’m the family cook,” Betty explained. “If you think I’m busy -here, you should see me bustle around in summer.” - -“I see.” Jim changed the subject. “Is Morton Hall to the queen’s taste -since we fixed the linen rooms?” - -“Oh, yes, Jim,” Betty assured him. “It’s a model--any amount nicer than -the other campus houses.” - -“Thanks for the firm,” Jim said, and then was quiet so long that Betty -inquired laughingly if he had been to the Bay of the Ploshkin after his -blues. - -“Not yet,” he told her. “I’ve felt like it sometimes, but I was afraid -I’d worn out your sympathy. I say, Betty, you’ll write to a fellow once -in a while, won’t you? And if I should come to Cleveland--doesn’t the -family cook get her evenings off?” - -“Some of them.” - -“Betty, Betty, Betty Wales!” chanted an unseen chorus. “Time to dress -for the aftermath parade!” - -So Jim said a hasty good-bye and waited under the group of elms that -Betty had pointed out, to see 19-- march by. Somebody had suggested -having a costumed procession this year, and the seniors and half a -dozen recently graduated classes had vied with one another in planning -queer and effective uniforms. There were masked classes, classes with -red parasols, classes with purple sunbonnets and purple fans, classes -with yellow caps and gowns. But 19--’s close-fitting green robes were -lighted up by weird green torches, and in the middle of the ranks -marched all the 19-- animals--the Jabberwock, the Green Dragon, the -Mock Turtle and the Gryphon from an Alice in Wonderland show, ploshkins -in assorted sizes with pink shoe-strings waving in their paws, and -finally a little reckless ritherum hopping along in the rear. It jumped -at the waving pink shoe-strings, it snatched a green lantern from -the hands of a green-robed figure and charged with it blithely into -the laughing crowd, and when it came to the elm trees where Jim was -standing it darted straight at him and whispered, “Good-bye again, Jim. -Do manage to come to Cleveland sometimes and talk to the cook,” and was -off again after a pink shoe-string before Jim had discovered what was -happening to him. - -An hour later Betty shed her ritherum costume--it was rather warm, -being composed of Georgia’s gym suit, the burlap that Lucille had -bought to pack around her Morris chair, a peacock feather fan, and a -pair of snowshoes for wings--and she and Madeline, Roberta, Rachel, K., -Nita, Helen, the B’s, and Christy went out on the fire-escape to cool -off and watch the other classes coming home. - -“Must be jolly to stay up here all the time,” said Nita hungrily. -“There’s always something going on, and it’s all queer and different -and fun.” - -“It’s a pretty good world, wherever you are, I think,” announced K. -briskly. - -“It’s whatever kind you make it,” Madeline amended K.’s sentiment. - -“And we’re all making it something rather nice that it wouldn’t be, -perhaps, without us,” Roberta added. - -“We’ve never decided what it takes to make a B. C. A.,” said Madeline. -“If we had we could tell Nita, and she could cultivate the combination.” - -“We shall have that left for conversation at the first tea-drinking -next fall,” laughed Christy. “There are always such dreadful pauses.” - -“It’s always well to have something left for next fall just the same,” -said little Helen primly. - -“Yes,” agreed Rachel, who was secretly considering a year’s study in -New York. “There may be more of us B. C. A.’s and there may be less, -but there’ll surely be a topic of conversation.” - -“And an Object,” added Madeline, hugging Betty, “with curls and a -dimple, and a finger in everybody’s pie, and a few over.” - -“Why, that’s just what Jim Watson said about me,” laughed Betty, “only -he didn’t call it pie.” - -“Jim Watson,” said Madeline severely, “is politely requested to keep -his distance. We can’t spare you to him--not for years and years and -years to come.” - -“I should think not,” echoed Christy, Rachel, and Helen in an indignant -chorus. - -“Girls, please stop talking such perfect nonsense,” said Betty calmly. -“Let’s climb down the fire-escape and go to bed.” - - -The Stories in this Series are: - - BETTY WALES, FRESHMAN - BETTY WALES, SOPHOMORE - BETTY WALES, JUNIOR - BETTY WALES, SENIOR - BETTY WALES, B. A. - BETTY WALES & CO. - BETTY WALES DECIDES - - - - -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES - -On page 20, pow-pow has been changed to pow-wow. - -On page 169, tower-room has been changed to tower room. - -On page 186, gift shop has been changed to gift-shop. - -On page 252, child-like has been changed to childlike. - -On page 298, started has been changed to stared. - -All other spelling, variants and dialect have been retained as typeset. - -Some illustrations have been moved to avoid interrupting the flow of a -paragraph. - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BETTY WALES ON THE CAMPUS *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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