JANET stood at her window thoughtfully tapping her lips with her forefinger. The window looked out upon the bay, but Janet was not observant of the white sails melting into the horizon, nor of the line of misty shore opposite. She was not unperceptive; in fact she rather prided herself upon her love of the beautiful, but just now she was absorbed in a problem which was one of the many that had confronted her during the past few weeks. The day before, she had successfully settled the question of a portiere and a couch cover by suddenly remembering the two home-made spreads woven by her great-grandmother, which, in their unfaded glory of blue and red, lay for years packed away in a chest in the attic. Janet would never in the world have considered them if she had not sat behind Martha Summers the last time she went up to the city. Martha was never chary of her information, and had discoursed at length, in such tones as must be overheard, upon the beauties of an apartment just furnished by a newly-married friend of undoubted position and wealth.

"The sweetest thing you ever saw, my dear, so artistic and so unique. The dearest cozy corner, and the loveliest little library, and what do you suppose she has put up as a portiere? The quaintest old spread of her grandmother's, one of those worsted things, you know, all red and blue. She has two of them as heirlooms. Yes, really. One can't buy an heirloom, you see, and she has one between her sitting room and bedroom and another on a divan. I declare they look too sweet for anything. I am wild for some."

Having listened to all this, Janet could triumphantly drag forth the heavy spreads, and, after airing them, could have them packed away with the other belongings which were to go with her to her rooms at college.

"Even if I should rip open every pillow in the house, and take a handful of feathers out of each, it wouldn't be enough," she told herself. "Dear me, I never foresaw so many expenses." She opened a letter which she held, and scanned its contents.

"We'll simply have to have a lot of pillows for our divan, and some sort of cover, and we must have a portiere to hang between the two rooms. You can furnish those, Janet, and I will promise a chafing-dish and a samovar, a lamp, and a lot of pictures and ornaments," so the letter ran. Janet folded it with an air of finality.

"There is no use," she said. "I will simply have to do it when Ted takes all those expensive things, though, for that matter, feathers are expensive. Dear me, I'll have to bother mother again, and I told myself I wouldn't. She has all she can do to get my clothes ready. I will just put the case before her and see what she says. She is such a dear, and was so pleased about those spreads, though they were hers and not mine."

She ran from the room and went singing along the hall. "What is home without a mother?" she carolled in her clear young voice as she opened the door of the room where her mother and a seamstress were hard at work.

"Momsey, dear," she began, "there is one more thing, just one more I promise you. Ted says we've got to have sofa pillows. I suppose we could have a few made of excelsior, but it would be too cheap and common to have them all stuffed with that, but I don't know where in the world we are to get feathers unless we have goose for dinner every day till it's time for me to go."

"And what good would that do?" asked her mother. "As if you could use green feathers."

"Oh, dear, I never thought of that; they would have to be cured first, wouldn't they?" Janet sat down on a low chair and gazed absently at the pile of gingham breadths upon the floor beside her.

The seamstress, a thin flat-faced person with wisps of dun-colored hair sticking out from the careless twist at the back of her head, stopped to bite off her basting thread before she said: "The sleeves are all ready for the machine, Miss Janet. Will you take them?"

"Oh, I suppose so, Miss Rosy, though pillows are on my mind at present, and I may not stitch these evenly. If any one were to ask me just now which weighed the most, a pound of feathers or a pound of lead, I should say feathers; they weigh me down heavily enough."

Miss Roxy paused in her swift movements, needle in mid-air. "Your Aunt Minerva Gilpin has two or three feather beds," she said.

"But I don't want feather beds, you see," said Janet, turning half-way around and stopping the busy wheel of the machine. "It is pillows I want."

"There'd be enough in one of her beds to make all the pillows you'd want for a month of Sundays," returned Miss Roxy. "It's a job to be sure, but everybody except the old-fashioned folks like Miss Minerva is using up their feather beds that way. I've made over at least a dozen this last year."

"Then you could make over one for me, couldn't you? Good! I'll descend upon Aunt Minerva this very afternoon. It's the least she can do for the credit of the family to present me with a feather bed. I'll have to skirmish around for covers though. Here, Miss Roxy, take these; my interest in gingham frocks has completely vanished, and I am going to hunt through the piece bags for possible pillow covers."

She dropped the sleeves into Miss Roxy's lap and went gaily from the room to pull over the bags in the attic and to come down half an hour later with pieces bright and dull which might be converted into covers for her sofa pillows.

"There," she cried, throwing them down on the floor in a heap, "I think these will be enough. However will I get them all packed, mother?"

"The easiest way will be to put them in a barrel."

"And they'll think I am going to set up a grocery shop. Oh, me!" She clasped her knees, and looked off dreamily.

"Come, come, child," chided her mother, when five minutes had passed, "you'll never get ready if you sit there dreaming the time away. If you expect this sewing to get done you will have to lend a hand."

"Yes, and there are those pillows," put in Miss Roxy. "That will be no small job, I tell you. I got so sick of the last that I made up my mind I'd do no more for anybody, and I wouldn't do it for another soul, for it certainly does make a mess about, and you feel as if you were breathing feathers for a week afterward."

"Dear me," said Janet, jumping up and attacking the breadths of gingham, "I am afraid I am a lot of bother, but one goes to college only once in a lifetime and it is really more important than getting married, for one can marry more than once, and one doesn't go to college so often. How do these gores go, Miss Roxy? I'll be good, mother, and work hard, for it is a shame to keep you cooped up here. I hope I haven't made a mistake in taking Edna for a roommate, for it seems to me my very modest array of necessities are mounting up into a tremendous list of requirements. The sofa pillows are the last straw."

"Are you going to make them of straw?" inquired Janet's small brother, Dicky, putting his head into the room. "I know where to get some."

"Of course not, silly," said Janet. "What are you doing here, anyhow? I told you to keep out of the way and not bother mother."

"I don't have to," replied Dicky. "I've as much right to my mother as you have. Say, momsey, I've torn a hole in my trousers, and I can't go to town till they are mended unless I put on my best ones."

"Oh dear, Dicky, you are such a destructive child," Janet remarked. "It is a shame when mother is so busy to give her anything extra to do."

"Well, I'd like to know who it is that is keeping her busy. She's been sewing for you all week. If you're so particular, I'll bring them to you and you can mend them yourself."

Janet looked decidedly put out. "I'll do no such thing. When I am so up to my eyes in work I think it is very inconsiderate in you to say such things. Why you have to go to town anyhow, I don't see. Hooker can get the mail and do any errands that are necessary."

Dicky made a face at her and began to joggle the back of his mother's chair so that its occupant in self-defense said: "Oh, Janet, do let him go. I'd rather mend the trousers ten times over than have him around here bothering everybody. Go get them, Dicky, and put on your old ones till these are mended."

Dicky scrambled from the room in tumultuous boy fashion, returning in a moment with the unlucky trousers which were speedily mended and he was sent off forthwith.

"I wish I had gone, too," said Janet after watching the light wagon disappear down the lane. "I might have stopped at Aunt Minerva's and have had them pick me up on the way back. Never mind, I'll get this done and go there this afternoon."

She worked away with a will, saying little for the next hour. Her thoughts were busy with the future, for these were exciting times for Janet Ferguson. She had been prepared for college at a small boarding-school where life had not offered many sensations. One of her fellow students, who had been graduated at the same time as herself, was to enter college with her and would be her roommate. Edna Waite's circle of friends included a number who were college girls and these she had considered her authority in all matters. In consequence, every few days she dashed off a letter to Janet with some new item of information, and with some necessity added to the list which at first had seemed a sufficiently long one.

So now Janet was beginning to feel that the burden of her preparations would soon threaten to swallow up not only her every moment, but every penny which the resources of the family could furnish. Janet was also beginning to have misgivings. If difficulties arose thus early in her career what would happen later when all sorts of unexpected expenses might drain her pocketbook to the last penny of her allowance, for Edna discoursed at length upon the various directions in which, as college girls, they would be expected to make a showing.

She looked so serious, as she pulled out the basting threads from the hem of one of her frocks, that her mother said, in the absence of Miss Roxy in the kitchen: "Not homesick already, Janet?"

The girl smiled. "No, momsey, not that; I was only wondering if I should find it hard to get through on my allowance."

"You thought it ample when your father suggested it."

"Yes, I know, but Edna keeps adding some new expense to the list till I get fairly swamped in trying to figure it all out."

"Well, my dear, perhaps you will find that you will do better to establish your own standard rather than to accept Edna's. You will not have to do as any special girl prefers to do, but as you find all the girls must do. If you find there is really no need of every expenditure which Edna thinks necessary, simply lop that off, and go without it."

Janet did not reply, for experience at boarding-school had taught her that this was an easier proceeding in theory than in practice. However, her spirits were of an elastic quality, and she did not allow forebodings to trouble her long, and when she came back that afternoon from her Aunt Minerva's, a feather bed stuffed in behind her in the buggy, she was in such a state of hilarity that she could hardly manage her new possession.

"Dicky," she called. "Dick, come help me. This is the most elusive thing I ever got hold of. It is so yielding that when I pull it in one direction it heaves up in a great billow in the other. It is the most resistless thing for anything so seemingly responsive that I ever saw."

Seeing fun ahead, Dicky answered her call, and while she pushed, he pulled, till finally the feather bed rolled out and buried Dick under its unwieldy bulk.

The boy emerged laughing. "Whew!" he cried. "I didn't know feather beds were so heavy."

"It is over forty pounds' weight, Aunt Minerva was careful to tell me, and if I hadn't interrupted her, I think she would have informed me that feathers were—I don't know how much—a pound. But I was so voluble in my thanks, and so appreciative that she couldn't get a word in edgewise. Dicky, do you suppose we shall ever be able to get this into the house? Did you ever see anything act so? Just as if it were trying on purpose to get away from us. There, that's it—"

As Dicky gave a mighty tug and moved the bed a few feet, but the next minute, he lost his purchase and fell sprawling into its midst, amid shouts of laughter.

"We'll have to leave it," said Janet, with a long drawn sigh, plumping herself down by Dicky. "We'll wait till Stuart comes home and he will help us. Let's leave it, Dicky. I'm quite worn out with tugging. You can drive Dolly around to the stable and this can stay right here. Let us hope that no strangers will call this afternoon to see the family feather bed airing on the front porch. There are some advantages in living a distance from town; one can be independent."

She watched Dicky drive away with the buggy, but retained her seat in the middle of the feathers, till suddenly remembering that time was short, she sprang up and ran to the room where her mother and Miss Roxy still sat.

"I've got it," she exclaimed.

"Got what?" asked her mother.

"The feather bed. A great big fat one. It's down on the front porch. Where do you want it, Miss Roxy?"

"If it doesn't rain, it may as well stay where it is. I can begin on the pillows in the morning. I hope you remembered to get some new ticking."

"Yes, I did; a whole lot. I left it under the seat of the buggy, but I'll get it. How are you going to trim that waist, Miss Roxy?"

"With this lace." The seamstress laid strips of the trimming on the material and noted the effect with appreciative eye.

"Feather beds are very much like some people," said Janet, watching Miss Roxy's deft fingers.

"How do you make that out?" asked the needlewoman.

"Oh, they are lumpy and heavy and soft, and you think you can manage them till you try, and then you find they are so obstinate that you can't budge them, and if you insist on having them do your way, the first thing you know you are completely overwhelmed."

Miss Roxy laughed. "I reckon you are thinking of your Aunt Minerva. Was she hard to move?"

"No, she really wasn't to-day. You read my simile at once, didn't you, Miss Roxy? She is feather-beddy at times, but to-day she happened to be very amiable. I think my practical use of her feather bed appealed to her, though she didn't see how I could want such a raft of pillows," she said. "You are ready to have me try that on?"

She stood up while the seamstress, with her mouth bristling with pins, snipped here and pinched in there, till Janet sighed from the enforced position of standing still.

"Just the skirt measure now," said Miss Roxy. "Forty-two, no, I think we'd better say forty-three, Mrs. Ferguson." Miss Roxy looked up from her kneeling posture. "She's grown an inch, I do believe." She measured Janet's slim form, running her fingers along the tape measure. "Now you may go. I'm through with you for to-day. Suppose you get that ticking and measure off the pillows the size you want them, and stitch them up, so I can get to work at them first thing in the morning."

Janet obeyed and was soon clacking away at the machine, her cheek glowing and her soft hair curling around the nape of her neck as she grew warm from the exercise. "These are strenuous times," she remarked as she tossed the last square of ticking on a chair. "I will leave the covers till to-morrow. In a week—a week, momsey, I shall be ready to go. Please stop now. You've been driving ahead all day. I should think you would be thankful to see the last of me, for it means a little more rest for you. Now Stuart doesn't need half this fussing over. He gets his clothes at his tailor's, you see that his stockings have no holes in them, and there he is, while I am an eternal nuisance. Here, put that away. You'll go till you drop, and you won't drop till I go—that's a queer sort of sentence—anyhow, I'd rather go without that shirtwaist than have you make another buttonhole this day. Come, I want to talk to you."

She drew her mother from her chair and led her down to the porch where the feather bed still lay. "Let's turn our backs on fussinesses and go out to see if there are any peaches ripe on that tree by the hen-house. You know we always liked those better than any. Oh, dear momsey, it's going to be a long pull, isn't it? Four years of it before I can come home to stay. There'll be the holidays, though, and maybe I shall not be so very homesick between whiles. It will be fine to have Stuart within a couple of hours' ride of me. That counts for a great deal, doesn't it? I don't believe I could stand being so many miles away from everybody. It was very different at Oak Hill, where I could come home every Friday, for no matter how badly things went, there were always the Friday afternoons to think of, and by training oneself, it could be made to seem near even on Mondays."

She kept her arm around her mother's waist as she led her down the garden walk and through a little gate to the hen-house. There she released her hold and climbed on top of the building, feeling among the leaves for a ripe peach. "The best ones are always on top," she remarked. "Here are two beauties. Take them, mother." She crouched on the roof and held out the downy fruit, then clambered easily to the ground demanding her share of the spoils.

"It's a wonder Dicky didn't get them," she said, "but they were a little beyond his reach. Now come, let us go somewhere by ourselves and enjoy them like two nice complacent greedy-gluts. Don't you love to be that once in a while? One gets so tired of virtuously sharing all the good things, and I think it is really a necessary part of our development to indulge our appetites sometimes to the exclusion of our friends."

"That is a very Epicurean philosophy," returned her mother.

"Perhaps, but one should test all philosophies before settling down on any special one. Now, I know if you had your way, you'd save both of these peaches and give one to—let's see—Miss Roxy, and the other to father. I am just reveling in your not doing it. We will gorge ourselves and be wicked and selfish for once."

"On one peach apiece?" laughed her mother.

"Never mind, it is the principle of the thing which I am encouraging. If you do this to-day, maybe in time you will be shutting yourself up in the pantry and gobbling down all those delicious conserves you are so choice with. I'd love to think of your doing that while I am at college."

"Janet, you ridiculous child, what utter nonsense you do talk," said her mother. "One would suppose I lived the life of an anchorite and never allowed myself any luxuries."

"I know that it isn't exactly that way, but you are so exactly like the person who said somebody had to eat the drumsticks. You like white meat but you always refuse it, if you think any one else would like it. Dear oh me, I wonder if I shall ever develop such a self-sacrificing spirit. It doesn't look like it now, does it?"

"Appearances are sometimes deceitful," returned her mother with a smile.

"So cautious? Well, I don't deserve much encouragement yet, I admit. Finished your peach? Then I suppose we shall have to go in."

Another week saw Janet departing, her pillows stowed into a barrel and her trunks stuffed to overflowing with the paraphernalia which she had decided to take with her for her first year at college. Everything appeared very smart and sufficient, and she drove away complacently, feeling that there were no wants unfilled. She was also not ill pleased with herself, and felt the importance which is generally a part of a student's equipment when he or she first enters college. There came a rush of emotion when she bade her mother good-bye, but there were too many novel experiences facing her for her to remain long in a depressed or regretful mood, and she arrived in a tremor of excitement, a little shy, a little happy, wholly expectant.

[CHAPTER II]

POOR FRESH

JANET and her roommate viewed their room with much satisfaction after they had completed the arranging of their furnishings. Especially did Janet congratulate herself upon the lordly array of pillows which were disposed not only upon the divan but upon the floor. She felt in this direction that she had exceeded Edna's expectations, and the glow of conscious pride warmed her so that she could graciously credit Edna with having provided generously in the matter of ornament.

She stood with her head to one side viewing the "drapes" upon Edna's Morris chair, when some one banged on the door and, scarcely waiting for the "Come in" which followed the knock, entered with half a dozen girls attending.

"Oh, Janet!" cried the leader of the troop. "We've come to warn you to look out to-night; the sophs are after us. They are coming to-night for sure. Charity Shepherd overheard two of them saying something which gave her an inkling, so every one of us must lock her door early, and be on her guard. They caught Grace Breitner, and she won't tell what they did to her. She only laughs when we ask her."

"Oh, dear," exclaimed Edna Waite, "can't we keep them away, Cordelia?"

Cordelia Lodge, a bright-looking girl, with a way of squinting up her eyes when she laughed, smiled as she turned to the girl behind her. "Do you hear that, Lee? Can we keep them away?"

"We can try," replied Lee coming forward, "but the sophs are as inflexible as fate once they determine on a thing, and it's mighty hard to evade them."

"Well," remarked Janet, "we can do one thing; we can make it hot for them. I know what I shall do."

"What, Janet? Do tell!" said a chorus of voices.

But Janet shook her head. "No, I think it is up to each one of us to work out her own escape. We may look our doors, but if they are determined to get in, they may find a way of doing it, so the best thing for us to do is to prepare for their reception."

The girls looked at each other. "We'll prepare," they exclaimed.

"Come on, girls," cried Cordelia, "each to her lair, and a murrain on whoever backs out in her preparations."

"What do you intend to do?" asked Edna as the troop left, and Janet grabbed her hat pinning it upon her dark locks.

"I'm going to the drug store."

"What for?"

"I'll tell you when I come back." She was half-way down the corridor before Edna could ask another question.

And when she returned, she bore a roll of something and several small packages.

"What have you there?" asked Edna, all curiosity.

"This," said Janet unrolling her long package, "is fly-paper—tanglefoot, I believe it is called—warranted to catch the unwary. It is usually placed in infested places for the purpose of trapping intruders. A piece of this upon the window-sill over there, another on the floor in front of the door, wouldn't come amiss."

"But we are not troubled with flies, Janet. They surely are not a pest at this time of year. Gracious! I didn't know you were so particular."

Janet gave her a pitying glance. "Edna Waite, where is your perspicuity? I am not preparing for the common house-fly, the musca domestica, but for that variety known as the soph."

"Oh!" Edna's laugh showed that she understood. "What a scheme!"

"Before we go to bed," said Janet, "we shall complete our arrangements. In this small tin box is mustard. Did it ever occur to you that an adhesive mustard plaster would be a good thing? When one must have a mustard plaster, it might be well to manufacture a kind that cannot come off. I may get out a patent for this. Hand me the mucilage, please, and the scissors. This muslin is for the plasters, so is the mucilage, so is the mustard. You cut them this size; you spread them first with mucilage, and then you sprinkle them with mustard. I had thought of red pepper, but my humanity forbade my using that. There, these placed at judicious distances may be of use in case of an onslaught. Beware, Teddy, that you don't get up in the night and stumble into the pit we have digged for others."

"Dear me, I certainly will be careful. Oh, Janet, I almost hope they will come; it would be such fun to see them caught."

"I almost wish it myself," she replied, and when they had retired for the night, it was with much satisfaction that Janet thought of her traps.

About midnight, she awoke with a start. There was a noise outside her door. "What's that?" she exclaimed in a startled whisper. Then she realized what it probably was, and she called softly, "Teddy, Teddy."

"What?" came sleepily from the next room.

"Get up. No, don't. They are coming. Keep perfectly still and don't let yourself be seen unless I call you."

Edna, awaking to a realizing sense of the situation, did as she was bid, and kept as still as possible. Janet lay quietly and listened. Presently there was a scrambling at the transom, then by means of the electric light outside Janet saw a head and shoulders appear. She chuckled to herself as some one dropped lightly to the floor. There was a little suppressed squeal and a sound of some one groping about.

"What's the matter?" came a voice from the outside.

"Nothing," was the answer. "I'll open the door directly, if I can find the key."

Janet hid her laughing face in her pillow. It was a nice precaution not to leave the key in the door, for there would be further difficulties before it would be possible to find it. She made no sound, but waited further developments.

There was a further sound of stealthy footsteps in the room, and after a time an exclamation of "Gracious!"

Still Janet gave no sign of being awake. At last, however, the intruder reached the gas, and struck a light. Janet peeped at her from between nearly closed lids, saw her tear a sticky mass from one hand, and others from each foot, then, picking her way across the room, avoiding the bits of fly-paper laid in her way, she reached the bed, gave a spring and alighted fairly upon Janet.

"Here," she cried, "wake up. You must be one of the Seven Sleepers. Where is the key to the door?"

Janet opened her eyes drowsily, stretched her arms, and said, "Get off my chest, nightmare. I ate no mince-pie last night."

The girl snickered, but immediately assumed a severe manner. "Get up and get me that key," she said.

"What for?" asked Janet.

"So I can get out."

"I don't care whether you get out or not," returned Janet, "so long as you get off—my chest."

The girl perched there sat looking about the room. She was a tiny thing, with fluffy light hair about her elfish little face. "What's the sticky stuff all about here for?" she asked.

"Oh," replied Janet, "it's to catch flies—and things."

The girl drew down her mouth. "I'll not have you alluding to me as a thing, you Miss Fresh. Get up and get me that key, or I'll find a way to make you."

"Find it then!" returned Janet.

There came a tap at the door. "What's the matter, Fay?" asked a voice. "Why don't you come?"

"I'm coming," responded Fay. "Don't get impatient."

She looked at Janet, who grinned in response.

"I'm not going to be outdone by any poor fresh," said Fay. "You're entirely too smart. I am going to have that key."

She suddenly sprang from the bed, and before Janet could be aware of her intention, she had darted to the window-sill and returning, with one of Janet's own plasters, slapped it viciously upon her forehead. "There," she exclaimed, "you tell me where that key is."

In vain, Janet tried to free her hands to get at the plaster; she was at a disadvantage, for she was lying down with some one holding her and pressing her arms tightly to her sides. She bore herself bravely for a few minutes; then the mustard began to burn, and she called for help.

"Teddy, Teddy," she cried, "come take this thing off. A nightmare has possession of me."

Teddy came running to the rescue, but once, on the way, imprudently stepped on a bit of the fly-paper. She tore it off, and reached the bed where Janet, now really suffering from the mustard, was trying to struggle from her captor's grasp.

"Take it off, Teddy, quick," she cried; "the mustard is burning horribly."

Edna managed to remove the plaster which had stuck exceedingly fast and was not easy to get off, and then she threw herself upon the uninvited visitor who now met her Waterloo, for Janet, thus reinforced, was able to free herself and together she and Edna bound the hapless Fay and laid her upon her back on the bed.

Those outside were becoming more anxious. "Aren't you ever coming, Fay?" they asked.

"No, she isn't," replied Janet triumphantly. "We are going to keep her for company. She is so cunning, we are perfectly fascinated with her. She reminds us of our baby dolls. Go away like good girls, for you can't get in and she can't get out."

"Oh, won't I pay you back for this," said Fay, indignant that a sophomore should be thus worsted by her natural prey.

"Will you?" asked Janet pleasantly. "Now why should you want to pay us back for not allowing our room to be broken into? What do they call such a performance? I know it is some sort of crime. We will not prosecute you though, and you can tell those girls outside that you'll not go home till morning, till daylight doth appear. There is no use for them to wait."

Fay reluctantly notified her friends of her failure to carry out their plan, and they went off. It had been rather a trying experience for Fay, for in nearly every room, she had found some sort of trap set. Being the smallest and lightest in her class, as well as the cleverest in gymnastic feats, she had been chosen to defy locked doors and to climb over the transoms; then, before the occupants could be aware of her presence, to unlock the door from the inside and admit the waiting sophomores.

In one room, she had dropped directly into a tub of cold water when she let herself down from above; in another a pitfall in the shape of a long cord stretched from side to side of the room caused her to trip and fall; in a third there was such a barricade of chairs, tables and other furniture, that there was no getting behind the defense, and she was obliged to retreat. But only in the rooms occupied by Janet and Edna did she find the key gone from the door, and so she was lost. On the outside, she had been boosted up by her friends, and in this last instance, if she had been wise, she would have retreated by means of such help as a chair would furnish, and could have made her escape; but she was a little too venturesome, and was detained, in spite of all her prayers, till morning.

When Janet appeared the next day with a crimson blotch across her forehead, the only answer she made to the solicitous questions put to her was "Nightmare," but there was a general understanding that the freshmen had worsted the sophomores in this first attack.

The sophomores did not forget, however. They bided their time, and, like Brer Rabbit, they "lay low" till suspicions should be allayed, and then one triumphant night, they descended upon their sleeping victims. Fay having cleverly stolen the key of the room Janet occupied, was able to rush in with no fear of being unable to get out again. Behind her came a body of victorious sophs guarding half a dozen freshmen whom they had dragged from their beds.

"Shut the door, Fay," said the leader, Juliet Fuller; "we'll settle the business where you tell me the most rebellious of the class hold forth. You'll have to get up, Miss Ferguson; we can't allow you to entertain us in bed. You haven't a mustard plaster handy, have you, and what became of the fly-paper?"

"Oh, I suppose Fay Wingate carried it all off on her feet," returned Janet with an air of innocence.

Juliet frowned. "No base insinuations, if you please. What's in that jar? Candied ginger, as I live. Much better than mustard. Bring it here, Fay."

And Janet had the mortification of seeing her treasured ginger gobbled up before her eyes.

"Having refreshed ourselves through your generosity," remarked Juliet, "we will provide a little entertainment for the assembled company. First on the programme is Miss Charity Shepherd, who will give us an example of Yankee dialect. Miss Shepherd is remarkably clever in having preserved the exact intonation, and pronunciation, as you will presently hear. Step out, Miss Shepherd, and don't be afraid."

As Charity's accent was unmistakable, every one tittered.

Juliet selected a slip from several she held in her hand. "You are requested to give this selection, Miss Shepherd," she said, handing the paper to Charity. "Stand up if you please, and speak out clearly."

Deciding that discretion would be the better part of valor, Charity amiably complied, and read as follows, exactly as Juliet had foreseen that she would: "Take your caad and go to the caa where you will find the staatah whom you will know by the staa he wears. He will tell you the way to Haavahd. If there is doo on the grass, do not go that way, but consider it your dooty to take the other path to the institootion."

"Lovely," exclaimed Juliet as a titter ran around the room. "You may sit down, Miss Shepherd, and we will next hear from the lady from Philadelphia." She looked toward another of the girls who bit her lip, but did not respond. "You are from Philadelphia, aren't you, Miss Cox?" asked Juliet suavely.

"Yes," was the answer.

"And you live somewhere near North Broad Street, don't you?"

Adelaide Cox nodded.

"And your name is—?"

"Auddie Cox."

"To be sure. It would have to be Auddie, young ladies. Well, Miss Cox, you will not refuse to help us out in our little entertainment. With such men as John Wanamaker and George W. Childs as examples of public benefactors, you cannot refuse to help the cause of humanity. Will you not read these few lines as they do it in Philadelphia?" She handed her a paper, typewritten, which Addie took, blushed, but made no attempt to read.

"You must, you know," said Juliet mildly.

"You'd better," whispered Janet, who sat near the victim.

And Addie read: "One doy in Moy, I went daown taown, and while I was trying to open a hayumper, I cut me hayund with a hayutchet. I heard some one soy it wasn't the woy to do it."

"Delicious!" exclaimed Juliet. "I couldn't do that if I tried all night. Now, Cordelia, dear, we are going to let you off with a mere snatch, but we must make this as complete as we can that the effect may be more striking. This, Cordelia, dear."

Cordelia, laughing and squinting up her eyes, took the paper with a good grace. "I am perfectly willing," she said, and glibly rattled off:

"Puryulls may do for some, but give me diamonds, thutty or more puryfect ones, for I am the guryull from New York."

"It is the most interesting study in dialect, that we have ever had at this college," remarked Juliet. "We shall all be immensely benefited by it, for I want you to understand, young ladies, that these are living examples of how they do it in the various localities represented, and the examples have been imported at a great expenditure of time and strength. I think you will all agree that in the last one, we have reached the climax. Miss Lee Penrose, of Virginia, will now give us an example of true Virginny dialect."

Lee had no bashfulness, and was too proud of her native State to consider anything relating to it a matter of criticism, so she gaily took her paper, and told how she "opened the do' into the co't, and beyond it, saw a gyarden where were a lot of pretty gyurls who said we are sho' 'nough F. F. V.'s."

There was a lot more to it which Lee did not hesitate to give.

"Perfectly delightful," Juliet cried. "Now, Miss Penrose, that was so dead easy that you will have to supplement it by something else in character. What shall it be?"

"A break down? A double shuffle? I can do those," said Lee, quite ready for anything.

"Yes, yes," came from every part of the room.

"The amiable Miss Penrose in her unparalleled character dances," announced Juliet.

And Lee stepped out, fairly delighting them all by her agility and the intricacy of her steps, winding up with a cake walk which convulsed them all.

"You are a dear," cried Juliet. "You are worth the whole bunch. I just love you for being so ready to please us."

And Lee, having scored a hit, sat down breathless from her exertions.

"Janet Ferguson, you haven't done any stunt," said Juliet suddenly. "Come out here, you and your roommate. What is her name? Oh, thank you, Teddy Waite. We are not going to let you off too easy in spite of your crimsoned brow. Oh, yes, we did eat all their ginger, didn't we? Well, if they are good, and mind what we say, we won't be very hard on them. Let me see—What? Oh, thank you, Fay. Miss Ferguson, you will have to go out into the hall, and climb over your own door by way of the transom. This is what is called a reflective act, for it is to give you an appreciation of the difficulties we have had to endure, and will also give you some thing to reflect upon."

Now Janet was not very athletic. She had but just begun her work in the gymnasium, yet she could climb, thanks to her country training, and though she was awkward enough in crawling through the transom, she managed to scramble down without mishap. Edna was then requested to go through the same feat, and the sophomores then took their leave, expressing themselves as having been greatly entertained.

When they had gone, Janet threw herself into a chair and sighed with relief.

"It wasn't so bad as I was afraid it might be," she said. "Thank heaven, that's over; and I don't suppose there'll be any more of it." And there was not.

[CHAPTER III]

FRATERNITY GIRLS

SCARCELY had Janet become accustomed to her new surroundings, before she found herself the object of special attention from certain girls in the college, and she quite plumed herself upon being so popular with these students in the upper classes. She took pains, however, to hide her elation, for she had wit enough to discover that most of the freshmen were very well satisfied with themselves, and that it was the aim of the sophs to take them down, a wholesome discipline, to be sure, for the majority of them. Indeed, it was in talking to Rosalie Trent, a junior who had selected Janet for special attention, that she learned what was expected of the freshmen, and how far many of them failed in meeting the expectation.

"They know it all," exclaimed Rosalie. "I don't mean you, Janet dear, for even if you think yourself a star of the first magnitude you have sense enough to keep your opinions to yourself. But the consequential airs of some of the new girls actually put me in a temper. I met one of these important individuals waiting for the elevator awhile ago; Nell Deford was there, too; you know how we all regard Nell, and even if she were not a senior, we'd show her deference. Well, what does this little whipper-snapper do, but push herself into the elevator ahead of Nell."

"What did you do?" asked Janet, appalled at such an impertinence on the part of a freshman.

"I swept her back and said, 'Miss Deford first, if you please.' Then I stepped in after Nell, and let Miss Fresh enter last. I must say that she had the grace to look abashed. You see why we have to sit on such creatures once in awhile, or they would simply run the whole place. You are going to the tea with me, aren't you, Janet? Becky Burdett is a girl worth knowing."

"And she is a senior? I think it is lovely of her to want me to come, and I shall surely go."

"You will meet some of our nicest girls there, and Becky has a very pleasant home."

"I think it just dear of you to take me," said Janet gratefully. She was a little bewildered by Rosalie's evident desire to please her, and wondered why she should have so attracted her. It was after Rosalie left the room and Cordelia came in that she found out.

"I see Rosalie Trent is rushing you," she said.

"Why, what makes you think so?" asked Janet.

"Wasn't she just here, and haven't you been walking with her and meeting her after class to walk home with her?"

"Why, yes, I have sometimes."

"They say that it is a great compliment to be asked to join the fraternity that Nell Deford and Becky Burdett belong to, and you ought to feel flattered."

"Fraternity? Rosalie has never mentioned the word to me."

"Of course not. It would be the greatest breach of etiquette to think of doing that, and Rosalie would rather die than mention it to you; all the same she is rushing you, it is very plain to be seen. You didn't suppose she was showering her attentions upon you simply because she loved you for yourself alone, did you?"

"I didn't know. Some of the others have done the same."

"They are frat girls, too, and nothing is too much for a rushee."

"Well I think it is very nice to be a rushee. I like all this attention whether they want me in their fraternity or not. Any way you put it, it is a compliment, isn't it?"

"Yes, of course, for they are supposed to be very particular whom they ask. Shall you join that one, Janet, or any at all?"

"I don't know. I haven't thought much about it. Shall you?"

"No, I think not. I rather think I shall be a non-frat. It takes up such a lot of time and there are expenses for one thing and another, and I would rather spend my money some other way."

"But there are advantages," said Janet. "You meet a lot of nice girls, and you may make acquaintances that will be a pleasure and a benefit to you all your life."

"That is true, but I can get along without that, I think. Is Ted going to join?"

"I don't know. We haven't discussed it."

"What do you talk about, pray?"

"Oh, a thousand things. Heaven knows there is enough to talk about, isn't there?"

"Well, yes, if one wants to merely say words. It doesn't appear to me that there are many girls here worth holding a real conversation with."

"Another argument for a frat," said Janet. "You might meet a kindred soul, if you joined one," she continued, searching in her bureau drawer for a pair of light gloves. "There's Ted now! If you want to talk frats to her, you can do it, and I will ask to be excused while I complete my toilet, for I am going with Rosalie to the halls of the rich and the great."

Teddy and Cordelia soon left her, and she started off with Rosalie for the tea, which proved to be an occasion for a perfect ovation. Every girl present seemed to want to make herself as agreeable as she knew how, and lavished compliments upon Janet till she might well have become vain.

"I have wanted so much to meet you," said Becky Burdett. "Rosalie has been talking of Janet Ferguson till we all feel that not to know you is to have lost something. Nell Deford has been asking about you. Will you let me bring her over to talk to you?"

Would she let her? Janet was overwhelmed, for of all persons whom she desired to meet, the stately Miss Deford was the one; and when she found herself listening to pretty speeches from this paragon, she was in the seventh heaven of delight. That she, Janet Ferguson, a country girl, a freshman, with nothing special to recommend her, should be receiving friendly advances from the star of the senior class, who had written clever stories, who had an enviable record for brilliant work in more than one course, who was editor-in-chief of the college magazine, and who, altogether, was a person of importance—this was a privilege that Janet never expected to come her way.

She went home in a transport of delight. "I've had the loveliest time," she exclaimed as she drew off her gloves. "I wish you could have gone, Teddy. Just think, I met Nell Deford and Becky Burdett, and some of the loveliest girls, and they were so sweet to me. I think it is perfectly delicious to be rushed."

"One of the seniors invited me to go to a lecture with her," said Edna.

"Which one of the girls was it?"

"I forget her name, but she wears a hat trimmed with a centrepiece and a feather duster."

Janet laughed. "Oh, that's Theresa McGarvey. She is great fun. She had that hat on this afternoon, and she certainly looks like a guy, but she is so droll and so full of life, nobody cares how she looks. I hope you are going to accept her invitation, for if we join any frat it should be that one; the very nicest and brightest of the girls belong to it. How did you happen to meet Miss McGarvey?"

"She came up and spoke to me after Latin this morning. She asked if the nice fresh-looking girl with dark hair whom she saw so often with Rosalie Trent were not my roommate. I replied that she was. Then she asked your name and I told her. Then she asked if I had many friends here, and I said, yes, that I had numbers, that I believed I had as many as six; then she invited me to go to the lecture with her."

"Oh, I do hope she means to rush you, Ted. You don't know what fun it is. I must confess, however, that it plays havoc with one's outside plans, but Cordelia says they don't keep it up very long. I wish you could go to Miss Burdett's; she has such a lovely home. I noticed that she had several awfully good casts in her room. I mean to get some, a Barrye lion, I think, and one of those fascinating heads like hers."

"Has she a fascinating head? It didn't strike me so when you pointed her out to me in chapel."

"Goose, I mean her cast of a head, of course. Say, Teddy, don't forget that it is as much as your life's worth to mention the word frat to any of these girls. One of the freshmen didn't know she oughtn't to, and she asked one of the rushers when pledge day would be; they dropped her instantly, and she couldn't imagine why. We must never give them a suspicion of a hint that we know why they are nice to us. Cordelia told me all that. I don't know what we should do without Cordelia; she is so well posted, you know, because her sister was graduated here last year."

A knock at the door interrupted their talk, and Janet admitted a stylishly dressed girl who asked, "Isn't this Miss Ferguson?"

"Yes, I am Janet Ferguson," was the reply.

"My friend, Effie Chandler, told me to be sure to look you up," said the stranger as Janet ushered her into the room.

"Oh, then you must be Hester Reeves," said Janet. "Effie told me I should see you here. Do let me call Teddy. This is Effie's friend, Miss Reeves, Ted. It is nice to meet friends of your friends when you are away from home, isn't it?" she said turning to the visitor.

Hester smiled. "It is for me in this case. What lovely rooms you have. Aren't those portières the quaintest things. I always envy the girls who can have a sitting room and a bedroom, too."

"We like it so, though I do sleep in the sitting room," said Janet. "We thought it would be better to do that way, and then if one must sit up late studying, the other, who may not have to, can go to bed early and need not be disturbed. Are you in one of the dormitories, Miss Reeves?"

"No," was the answer, "I board outside. I tried Hopper Hall for two years and got tired of it, so this year I concluded to go to one of the boarding houses. It gives me a little more freedom, I find."

"Then if you have been here two years, you are a junior, aren't you?" said Edna. "Dear me, it seems a long time before we shall be in your shoes."

Hester laughed. "It always seems long at the start, but when I think that next year will be my last I cannot realize it, and begin to feel very regretful that the time is so short."

Then followed a lot of personal talk, and at length Hester invited both the girls to go to a matinée with her the next Saturday, and shortly took her leave.

"Well," said Janet, when the door had closed after their guest, "there is one girl who has no axe to grind, and who is going to be nice to us, Teddy. Do you like her?"

"Yes," returned she, "but I should say she was a person fond of her own way."

"Who isn't fond of it?" laughed Janet. "I'm sure I am."

For the next two weeks, Hester saw a great deal of the two girls and was constantly asking them out to dinner, to drive, to walk, and showered so many attentions on them, that they were convinced that she was really very fond of them. Then came pledge day, and both girls, who had decided to join the fraternity to which Becky Burdett, Nell Deford, and Rosalie Trent belonged, donned their pledge pins and came out ardent frat girls.

It was the same day that Janet came in to the room where Edna was hard at work over her daily theme.

"Weren't we to go somewhere this afternoon?" asked Janet.

"We were, but we are not," replied Edna without looking up. "There's a note there on the table from Hester Reeves asking us to excuse her from going to Mrs. Talbot's tea."

"That's funny," returned Janet. "I met Hester in the library just now and she barely spoke to me. What have we done, Ted?"

"I'm sure I don't know," responded Edna, looking puzzled. "I am quite sure I haven't made fun of any of her relations, and I did not monopolize her best young man at the reception the other night."

"I cannot plead guilty to either of those crimes, nor to having been anything but most amiable. It's sort of awkward, isn't it, Ted, to be treated as if you were guilty when you are in a state of conscious innocence? What are these?" She took up two notes lying on the table.

"Oh those? I suppose yours is the same as mine. I am glad we have settled on our fraternity."

Janet glanced at her note. "Ted," she exclaimed, "I do believe this accounts for it. Hester Reeves has been rushing us after all, and we silly-billies didn't see through it. We thought it was all for our own sweet sakes, or for the sake of Effie Chandler." She sat down and began to laugh.

"I wonder if that is it," said Edna after a moment's thought.

"I certainly believe it is."

"Well, I said she looked like a person who was bound to have her own way. I'll bet she is furious."

"Dear me, then let her be," said Janet. "We can't help it. I'd rather it were that, than something else, though I can't help laughing to think how we have been fooled, and how she has been, too, for that matter. I like the girls in our frat so much the best of any, and even if we hadn't pledged, I wouldn't change, would you?"

"Indeed, I would not," replied Edna. "We must not breathe a word of this to any of the other girls, though," she said, as she went back to her theme.

Their conjectures proved to be quite true, for from that time, Hester dropped them, and not only she but several others, who had been particularly agreeable to Janet and Edna in the interest of their fraternity, after this had no more attentions for them.

However, with their new friends, the girls were content, and felt that their fraternity privileges were very great, since it gave them an intimacy with those of the seniors whom it would have been difficult in any other way to meet.

It was to Becky Burdett's pretty home that the girls liked specially to go, for Becky was a city girl and could eschew boarding houses, dormitories and regulations, and was much sought after because of this, and because she was a thoroughly generous-hearted, loyal and lovable girl. She was friendly, too, with a number of the faculty, and visited Professor Newcomb's wife and Professor Satterthwaite's daughters, so that she seemed to the innocent little freshmen a person living within a charmed circle.

"Could you ever, ever imagine yourself on jocose terms with your professor of mathematics?" said Janet as the two girls settled down one afternoon for hard work. "I nearly have nervous prostration if I happen to come face to face with him on the street, and to sit at his right hand at table would finish me completely."

"Well, since you don't have to sit at his right hand," said Edna, "why these remarks?"

"I was thinking of something Becky Burdett told me; of a joke Mr. Satterthwaite told her, and I couldn't imagine his condescending to anything so light."

"My dear, he is but a man, and probably his wife finds him very human," returned Edna sagely. "I am not half so much afraid of him as of Miss Drake. She is so terribly dignified and stately that she freezes me to an icicle. Imagine kissing her, or having little quips with her. Gracious! I'd as soon try to tickle an iceberg or a polar bear."

"Who's a polar bear?" asked some one putting her head in at the door. "I knocked, but you didn't hear. I came to borrow some alcohol."

"Goodness, Lee, we haven't a drop," Janet told her. "What do you want with it?"

"Gwine mek a cup o' tea fo' Miss Meadows an' de gals," returned Lee; "by Miss Meadows meaning Miss Drake."

"Not Miss Drake, the instructor in Latin? We were just talking about her."

"It was not she whom you were calling a polar bear, was it?"

"Oh, but we said first an iceberg; she's so very dignified, you know."

Lee laughed. "Come in and have a cup of tea with us. Ted said you were going to Mrs. Talbot's tea or I would have asked you before."

"With Miss Drake there?" ejaculated both the girls.

"Why not?"

"She isn't really in your room, is she?"

"Of course she is. I've known her all my life."

Janet's college career

Janet's College Career

[CHAPTER I]

[CHAPTER II]

[CHAPTER III]