Transcriber's Note:

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation in the original document have been preserved.

SMITH COLLEGE STORIES

SMITH COLLEGE STORIES
TEN STORIES BY
JOSEPHINE DODGE DASKAM

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
MCM

Copyright, 1900, by Charles Scribner's Sons

D. B. Updike, The Merrymount Press, Boston

To my Mother, who sent me to college,

I offer these impressions of it.

J. D. D.

PREFACE

If these simple tales serve to deepen in the slightest degree the rapidly growing conviction that the college girl is very much like any other girl—that this likeness is, indeed, one of her most striking characteristics—the author will consider their existence abundantly justified.

J. D. D.

CONTENTS

THE FIRST STORY

THE EMOTIONS OF A SUB-GUARD

I
THE EMOTIONS OF A SUB-GUARD

Theodora pushed through the yellow and purple crowd, a sea of flags and ribbons and great paper flowers, caught a glimpse of the red and green river that flowed steadily in at the other door, and felt her heart contract. What a lot of girls! And the freshmen were always beaten—

"Excuse me, but I can't move! You'll have to wait," said some one. Theodora realized that she was crowding, and apologized. A tall girl with a purple stick moved by the great line that stretched from the gymnasium to the middle of the campus, and looked keenly at Theodora. "How did you get here?" she asked. "You must go to the end—we're not letting any one slip in at the front. The jam is bad enough as it is."

Theodora blushed. "I'm—I'm on the Sub-team," she murmured, "and I'm late. I—"

"Oh!" said the junior. "Why did you come in here? You go in the other door. Just pass right in here, though," and Theodora, quite crimson with the consciousness of a hundred eyes, pulled her mackintosh about her and slipped in ahead of them all.

Oh, here's to Ninety-yellow,

And her praise we'll ever tell—oh,

Drink her down, drink her down, drink her down, down, down!

the line called after her, and her mouth trembled with excitement. She could just hear the other line:

Oh, here's to Ninety-green,

She's the finest ever seen!

and then the door slammed and she was upstairs on the big empty floor. A member of the decorating committee nodded at her from the gallery. "Pretty, isn't it?" she called down.

"Beautiful!" said Theodora, earnestly. One half of the gallery—her half—was all trimmed with yellow and purple. Great yellow chrysanthemums flowered on every pillar, and enormous purple shields with yellow numerals lined the wall. Crossed banners and flags filled in the intervals, and from the middle beam depended a great purple butterfly with yellow wings, flapping defiance at a red and green insect of indistinguishable species that decorated the other side. A bevy of ushers in white duck, with boutonnières of English violets or single American beauties, took their places and began to pin on crêpe paper sunbonnets of yellow or green, chattering and watching the clock. A tall senior, with a red silk waist and a green scarf across her breast, was arranging a box near the centre of the sophomore side and practising maintaining her balance on it while she waved a red baton. She was the leader of the Glee Club, and she would lead the sophomore songs. Theodora heard a confused scuffle on the stairs, and in a few seconds the galleries were crowded with the rivers of color that poured from the entrance doors. It seemed that they were full now, but she knew that twice as many more would crowd in. She walked quickly to the room at the end of the hall and opened the door. Beneath and all around her was the hum and rumble of countless feet and voices, but in the room all was still. The Subs lounged in the window-seats and tried to act as if it wasn't likely to be any affair of theirs: one little yellow-haired girl confided flippantly to her neighbor that she'd "only accepted the position so as to be able to sit on the platform and be sure of a good place." The Team were sitting on the floor staring at their captain, who was talking earnestly in a low voice—giving directions apparently. The juniors who coached them opened the door and grinned cheerfully. They attached great purple streamers to their shirt-waists, and addressed themselves to the freshmen generally.

"Your songs are great! That 'Alabama Coon' one was awfully good! You make twice the noise that they do!"

The Team brightened up. "I think they're pretty good," the captain said, with an attempt at a conversational tone. "Er—when do we begin?"

"The Subs can go out now," said one of the coaches, opening the door importantly. "Now, girls, remember not to wear yourselves out with kicking and screaming. You're right under the President, and he'll have a fit if you kick against the platform. Miss Kassan says that this must be a quiet game! She will not have that howling! It's her particular request, she says. Now, go on. And if anything happens to Grace, Julia Wilson takes her place, and look out for Alison Greer—she pounds awfully. Keep as still as you can!"

They trotted out and ranged themselves on the platform, and when Theodora got to the point of lifting her eyes from the floor to gaze down at the sophomore Subs across the hall in front of another audience, the freshmen were off in another song. To her excited eyes there were thousands of them, brilliant in purple and yellow, and shouting to be heard of her parents in Pennsylvania. A junior in yellow led them with a great purple stick, and they chanted, to a splendid march tune that made even the members of the Faculty keep time on the platform, their hymn to victory.

Hurrah! hurrah! the yellow is on top!

Hurrah! hurrah! the purple cannot drop!

We are Ninety-yellow and our fame shall never stop,

'Rah, 'rah, 'rah, for the freshmen!

They sang so well and so loud and strong, shouting out the words so plainly and keeping such splendid time, that as the verse and chorus died away audience and sophomores alike clapped them vigorously, much to their delight and pride. Theodora looked up for the first time and saw as in a dream individual faces and clothes. They were packed in the running-gallery till the smallest of babies would have been sorely tried to find a crevice to rest in. A fringe of skirts and boots hung from the edge, where the wearers sat pressed against the bars with their feet hanging over. They blotted out the windows and sat out on the great beams, dangling their banners into space. She could not see the Faculty behind her, but she knew they were adorned with rosettes, and that the favored ones carried flowers—the air where she sat was sweet with violets. A group of ushers escorted a small and nervous lady to the platform: on the way she threw back her cape and the sophomores caught sight of the green bow at her throat.

Oh, here's to Susan Beane,

She is wearing of the green,

Drink her down, drink her down, drink her down, down, down!

they sang cheerfully.

Just behind her a tall, commanding woman stalked somewhat consciously, decked with yellow streamers and daffodils. The junior leader consulted a list in her hand, frantically whispered some words to the allies around her box, and the freshmen started up their tribute.

Oh, here's to Kath'rine Storrs,

Aught but yellow she abhors,

Drink her down, drink her down, drink her down, down, down!

Miss Storrs endeavored to convey with her glance, dignity, amusement, toleration of harmless sport, and a repudiation of the personality involved in the song; but it is to be doubted if even she was satisfied with the result. Theodora wished she had seen the President come in. She had been told how he walked solemnly across the hall, mounted the platform, unbuttoned his overcoat, and displayed two gorgeous rosettes of the conflicting colors—his official and exclusive privilege. And she had heard from the Team's retreat the thunder of applause that greeted this traditional rite. She wondered whether he cared who won: whether he realized what it was to play against a team that had beaten in its freshman year.

A burst of applause and laughter interrupted her meditations. She felt herself blushing—was it the Team? No: the sophomore Subs were escorting to the middle of the floor a child of five or six dressed in brightest emerald green: a child with a mane of the most remarkable brick-red hair in the world. She wore it in the fashion of Alice in Wonderland, and it grew redder and redder the longer one looked at it. She held a red ribbon of precisely the same shade in her hand, and at the middle of the floor the sophomores suddenly burst away from her and ran quickly to their seats, revealing at the end of the ribbon an enormous and lifelike green frog. The child stood for a moment twisting her little green legs undecidedly, and then, overcome with embarrassment at the appreciation she had evoked, shook her flaming locks over her face, and dragging the frog with her, sometimes on its side, sometimes on its head, fled to the sophomores, who bore her off in triumph.

"They got her in Williamsburgh," said somebody; "they've been hunting for weeks for a red-haired child, and that frog was from the drug store—oh, my dear, how perfectly darling!"

Alone and unabashed the freshman mascot took the floor. He was perhaps four years old and the color of a cake of chocolate. His costume was canary yellow—a perfect little jockey suit, with a purple band on his arm adorned with Ninety-yellow's class numerals. He dragged by a twisted cord of purple and yellow a most startling plum-colored terrier, of a shade that never was on land or sea, with a tendency to trip his master up at every step. In the exact middle of the floor the mascot paused, rolled his eyes till they seemed in danger of leaving their sockets, and then at a shrill whistle from the balcony pulled his yellow cap from his woolly head and made a deep and courtly bow to his patrons. But the storm of applause was more than he had been prepared for, and with a wild look about the hall and a frantic tug at the cord he dragged the purple and protesting animal to a corner of the room, where a grinning elder sister was stationed for his comfort.

Theodora's heart beat high: theirs was the best! Everybody was laughing and exclaiming and questioning; the very sophomores were shrieking at the efforts of the terrier to drag the little darkey out again; one member of the Faculty had laughed himself into something very like hysteria and giggled weakly at every twitch of the idiotic purple legs.

"It was Diamond Dyes," Theodora heard a freshman just above call out excitedly, "and Esther Armstrong thought of it. They dyed him every day for a week—"

The mascot and the dog had trotted up again, and as they ran back and the animal gave a more than ordinarily vicious dart, the poor little boy, yielding suddenly, sat down with exquisite precision on his companion, and with distended eyes wailed aloud for his relative, who disentangled him with difficulty and bore him away, his cap over his ear and his little chocolate hands clutching her neck. In the comparative silence that followed the gale of laughter some bustle and conference was noticed on the sophomore side, and suddenly the leader rose, lifting her green and red stick, and the front line of sophomores and seniors intoned with great distinctness this thrilling doggerel:

I never saw a purple pup:

I never hoped to see one:

But now my mind is quite made up—

I'd rather see than be one!

This was received favorably, and the gallery congratulated the improvisatrice, while Theodora wondered if that detracted at all from the glory of the freshmen! The chattering began again, and she drummed nervously with her heels against the platform, while the Centre, sitting next her, prophesied gloomily that Grace Farwell felt awfully blue, and that Miss Kassan had said they were really almost too slight as a team—the sophomores were so tall and big. Harriet Foster had said that she was perfectly certain she 'd sprain her ankle—then who would guard Martha Sutton? It was all very well for Caroline Wilde to say not to worry about that—she hadn't been able to guard her last year! She was just like a machine. Her arm went up and the ball went in; that was all there was to it. And Kate was as bad. They might just as well make up their minds—

"Oh, hush!" cried Theodora, her eyes full of nervous tears; "if you can't talk any other way, just keep still!"

"Very well," said the Centre, huffily, and then the chattering died away as Miss Kassan made mysterious marks on the floor, and the coaches took their places with halves of lemon and glasses of water in their hands. A door opened, and in a dead hush the sophomore team trotted in, two and two, the Suttons leading, bouncing the big ball before them. There was such a silence that the thudding feet seemed to echo and ring through the hall, and only when Martha suddenly tossed it behind her at nothing and Kate from some corner walked over and caught it did the red and green burst forth in a long-drawn single shout: "Ninety-gre-e-e-e-e-n!"

Miss Kassan looked apprehensive, but no 'Rah, 'rah, 'rah! followed; only,—

Here's to Sutton M. and K.

And they'll surely win the day,

Drink 'em down, drink 'em down, drink 'em down, down, down!

Theodora set her teeth. "Humph! Will they?" she muttered savagely.

"Here they come!" cried the Centre, and they ran in, the big yellow numerals gleaming effectively against their dark suits, their braids bobbing behind them. Grace Farwell was quite pale, with one little spot of red in each cheek, but Harriet Foster was crimson with excitement, and the thick braids of auburn hair that fell over her breast bumped up and down as she breathed. The thunder of recognition died away, and they tossed the ball about nervously, with an eye on Miss Kassan, who handed a ball to her assistant and took her place on the line to watch fouls.

"All ready!" said the assistant. There was a shuffling about, a confusion in the centre, a concentration of eyes. Harriet Foster took her place by Martha Sutton and sucked in her under lip; Grace lined up with Kate in the centre, clasping and unclasping her hands. Near her stood a tall slim girl with green numerals on her sleeve. Her soft dark hair was coiled lightly into a Greek knot—it seemed that the slightest hasty movement must shake it over her sloping shoulders. It grew into a clean-cut widow's peak low on her smooth white forehead; below straight, fine brows two great, sad, gray eyes, wide apart, wondered at life; her oval face was absolutely colorless and threw out the little scarlet mouth that drooped softly at the corners. Her hands lightly folded before her, she swayed a little and looked dreamily over the heads of the others; she seemed as incongruous as a Madonna at a bull-fight.

"Who is that lovely girl in the middle?" said some one behind Theodora.

"That is a Miss Greer," was the reply. "She is one of the best—"

"Play!" called the assistant, and the big ball flew out of her hands into Kate Sutton's. Kate gave an indescribable twist of her shoulder, the ball rose in the air, passed over an utterly irrelevant scuffle in the centre, and landed in Martha's hands. Martha balanced it a moment and threw it into the exact middle of the basket, while the sophomores howled and pounded and the freshmen looked blankly at one another. They had not been accustomed to such simple and efficacious methods.

"One to nothing!" said the assistant, quietly. "Play!"

Theodora caught her breath. She dared not look at Grace, but she stared hard at Harriet. What was Harriet thinking? Not that she could have done anything—Martha was two inches taller and had the ball tight in her hands two seconds after the assistant had tossed it—Ah, what was that?

The ball had reached the floor and Grace had somehow gotten it. She threw it to Virginia Wheeler, whose hands were just grazing it when something shot like a flash of lightning upon her. She fell back and some one slapped the ball from between her very finger-nails up, up into the air, where Kate caught it, and a few short, sharp, instantaneous passes got it into Martha's relentless hands. When it dropped into the basket Alison Greer was looking beyond the tumult, across the gallery, into the sky—white and unruffled. Theodora winked and tried to think that some one else had swooped down from her place six seconds before.

The sophomores were shouting yet. Some one said: "That's as pretty a piece of team work as you'll often see, isn't it? Those twins have eyes in the backs of their heads."

"Two to nothing—play!" said the assistant.

Theodora did not see the next goal won. Through a mist she stared into the gallery. Her eye caught a face she knew, and she wondered angrily how Miss Carew could smile so nonchalantly—it was her own class! From the plume in her exquisite toque to the tip of her patent leather toe she looked the visiting lady of leisure. The little lace handkerchief dangling from her hand had a green silk monogram in the corner—how dared she wear green? She nodded at a senior, across the game, and fanned herself. The freshmen broke into a roar of delight that ended in a long-drawn A-a-a-a-h! There was a scuffle, a little cry, a flash from Alison Greer's corner, and the assistant's "Three to nothing—play!" was drowned in the sophomore shouts.

"You see the freshmen have no chance, really," said some one behind, calmly, and as if it made little matter at best. "They are terribly scared, of course, and they've never had the training of a big game. The sophomores have been all through this before—they don't mind the crowd. And then, they beat last year, and that gives them a tremendous confidence. They're so much bigger, too—"

Theodora turned and stared at her. She was very pretty; she had a bunch of violets as big as her head pinned to her dress, and her hands were full of daffodils. That was like the Faculty! To take their flowers and talk that way! "Horrid thing! Horrid thing!" she muttered, and the Centre, looking angrily at Miss Greer, assented.

"She's a perfect tiger! Look at her eyes! She knocked Virginia right over—you couldn't stop her with a steam-engine—Oh! Oh! Oh! Ninety-yellow! Rah, rah-a-a-a-ah!"

Right out of their hands it had slipped, and the two girls slid across the floor, fell, reached out, missed it, and gritted their teeth as the Centres, with a long-practised manœuvre, passed it rapidly from hand to hand to Martha, whose long arm slid it imperturbably into the basket.

"That Guard doesn't accomplish much," said somebody.

"Good heavens, how can she? Look at the girl! She lays it in like—like that," was the answer, as the assistant called, "Five to nothing—play!"

Theodora looked up at the purple and yellow gallery. The freshmen stared as if hypnotized at their steady misfortune, their faces flushed, their mouths tremulous: when the players ran to suck the half-lemon or kneeled to tighten their shoes, their class-mates held breath till they returned; when Grace got the ball or Virginia pushed it aside, they started a cheer that faded into a sigh as Alison Greer drove everything before her or Kate sent that terrible Sutton throw to her sister. Theodora suddenly started. Just before the ball left Kate, she threw up her left hand with the palm slightly spread, and some instinct moved Theodora to glance at Martha. Her left hand went up instantly as if to throw back a braid, but it waved toward the right, and while Harriet braced herself for a jump the ball flew into the air far off to the right and the instinctive motion toward Martha left the way clear for one of Alison Greer's rushes and sudden, birdlike throws. In a moment Martha had it, and as Harriet bent forward to guard, and the ball toppled unsteadily on the edge of the basket and fell off, in the midst of the hubbub and scuffle some one pushed heavily on Harriet, four hands grasped the ball firmly, somebody called, "Foul, foul!" and as five panting girls hurled themselves against the wall and the assistant tossed up where it fell, to make sure of fair play, Harriet dropped with her foot beneath her and did not get up. Martha put the ball in from an amazing distance, and in the storm of applause no one noticed the freshman Guard, till the cry of, "Six to nothing—play!" found her still sitting there.

The ball was dropped, and they ran up to her. Two doctors hurried out; she half rose, fell back and bit her lip. The freshmen craned out over the gallery, the sophomores shook their heads; "Too bad, too bad!" they murmured. Two freshmen made a chair, lifted Harriet quickly and ran out with her, the doctors followed, and in the dead hush they heard her voice as the door closed.

"I'm so sorry, girls—go right on—don't wait—"

"Plucky girl," said a man's voice. "It's a shame!"

The freshmen looked very blue; the team stood about in groups; the sophomores waited politely at one side. Martha went over to Grace and held her hand out: "I'm terribly sorry," she said earnestly, "it's too bad. They say your Subs are very good, though."

Grace nodded, and ran over to the coaches, who walked aside with her for a moment, talking earnestly. Presently they came over to the platform and the Centre nudged Theodora enviously. "Go on!" she whispered. "Grace wants you!"

Theodora gasped. "Not me—not me!" she objected feebly. "Me—guard—Martha Sutton!"

"Go on!" said somebody, and they pushed her out.

"Come on, Theodora—hurry up, now!"

The people seemed to swim before her; for one dreadful moment she longed for her home as she had never longed before. Her knees shook and the clapping of the class sounded faraway. With her eyes on the floor she moved out; halfway to the centre Virginia Wheeler stepped to meet her and put her arm over Theodora's shoulder.

"Don't be scared, Theo," she said, "don't be scared, but help us out—heaven knows we need it!"

"Watch Martha—don't take your eyes off her!" whispered the coach as she handed the lemon to the new Guard.

As in a dream Theodora passed to the lower basket. Martha patted her on the shoulder. "Hello!" she said in a bluff, friendly way, and then the assistant called, "Six to nothing, play!" and threw the ball. It dropped in the middle, and there was a terrible scrimmage for at least four minutes, while the people swayed and sighed and clapped and screamed, for the freshmen were getting terribly excited and rapidly losing their self-control, as it became evident that their team was struggling desperately and making one of the longest fights on record for the ball they were determined to have. It was almost in the basket, it tottered on the edge, it fell, and Kate Sutton caught it—how, no one knew, for it was nowhere near her. The freshmen were shrieking with rage, the sophomores clapping with triumph. Every eye in the hall was fixed on Kate Sutton—every eye but Theodora's.

She watched Martha, and saw above her head that long brown hand wave ever so slightly to the left as she tossed her hair back. She braced herself, and just as Martha made a dash to the right, Theodora let her go and flew to the left. She went too far, but even as Martha dashed up behind her and put up her hands, Theodora jumped, caught the ball with her left hand and with her right hit it a ringing blow that sent it straight over to the other basket. It hit Alison Greer's head as she rushed toward it, and while she was raising her hand Grace Farwell snatched it from her shoulder, glanced desperately at the Home, who had lost them two balls, and bounded across, throwing the ball before her. The roar of delight from the freshmen was literally deafening, and as Grace put it into the basket it seemed to Theodora that the roof would surely drop.

"Six to one and the first half's up," said somebody, and Theodora was pushed along with the Team—her team—into the sanctum of their rest. But as they neared the door, the applause became a song, and before she quite understood what the verse was, it rang out above her head:

Here's to Theodora Root,

She's our dandy substitoot,

Drink her down, drink her down, drink her down, down, down!

Any one who has never been a subject of song to some hundreds of young women cannot perhaps understand why the mention of one's name in flattering doggerel should be so distinctly and immediately affecting. But any one who has had that experience knows the little contraction of the heart, the sudden hot tightening of the eyelids, the confused, excited desire to be worthy of all that trust and admiration. It is to be doubted if Theodora ever again felt so ideally, impersonally devoted to any cause, so pathetically eager to "make them proud of her."

In the little room the Team dropped on the floor and panted. The coaches bustled in with water, shook the hand of the new Guard and told her to lie flat and not talk. A strong odor of spirits filled the room, and Theodora, turning her head languidly—for she felt very tired all at once—saw that one of the juniors was rubbing somebody with whiskey. Grace was nursing an elbow and excitedly asking everybody to sit on Alison Greer: "She works her elbow right into you! She runs you right down—"

"There, there!" said one of the juniors, "never mind, never mind, Gracie! She's a slugger, if you like, but you've got to beat her! Don't be afraid of her."

"It's no good," said the Home that had missed two balls, "we're too—"

"That's enough of that," interrupted the coach who was fanning Virginia Wheeler. "You're playing finely, girls. Now all you've got to do is to make up your five goals. Don't you see how low you've kept it down? You did some fine centre work. Last year it was eight to something the first half. You tried to put it in standing right under the basket, Mary—stand off and take your time."

They trotted out to the music of the sophomore prize song. It was a legacy from the seniors, who had themselves inherited it. It leaped out at them—a mocking, dancing, derisive little tune to which everybody kept time.

It was repeated indefinitely, and at every repetition it went faster and more furious, and strangers who had not heard it laughed louder and louder.

Grace smiled grimly. The Team remembered her words just before the door opened.

"Girls, it isn't likely that we'll win, but we can give 'em something to beat!"

And as the ball went back and forth and could not get free of the centre, the sophomores realized that they had "something to beat." The freshmen had somehow lost their fear; they smiled up at their friends and grinned cheerfully at their losses, which is far better than to try to look unconscious. A little bow-legged girl with a large nose and red knuckles accomplished wonders in the centre, and won them their second basket by stooping abruptly and rolling the ball straight between Kate Sutton's feet to Grace, who sat upon it and threw it so hard at Alison Greer that it bounded out of her hands and was promptly caught by Virginia Wheeler and put into the basket. This feat of Grace's was due entirely to her having quite lost her head, but it passed as the most daring of manœuvres, and received such wild applause that Miss Kassan very nearly stopped the game.

"What shall I do? This is terrible. I never heard such noise as the freshmen are making!" she mourned, with an apprehensive glance at the platform. At that moment the ball soared high, fell, was sent up again, and caught by a phenomenal leap on the part of the little bow-legged girl, who got it into the basket before the Home knew what was happening. The war broke out again, and Miss Kassan beheld two members of the Faculty pounding with their canes on the platform.

"Did you see her jump? George! That was a good one! Did you see that, Robbins?"

But Robbins was standing up in his interest and cheering under his breath as Martha Sutton snatched a ball clearly intended for some one else, quietly put it in the basket, and smiled politely at her enthusiastic friends.

"Lord! What a Fullback she'd make!" he muttered, as Alison charged down into the centre. The lavender shadows under her eyes were deep violet now; her mouth was pressed to a scarlet line; her eyes were fixed on the ball like gray stars. People seemed to melt away before her: she never turned to right or left.

Theodora saw nothing, heard nothing but the slap of hands on the ball, the quick breaths that slipped past her cheek. She knew that the score was nine to five now; a little later it was nine to six. She caught the eye of the girl in the toque: she was standing now, her cheeks very red, and the little lace handkerchief was torn to shreds in her hands.

"Does she really care?" thought Theodora, as she jumped and twisted and doubled. Back on the senior side sat Susan Jackson, her eyes wide, her lips parted; Cornelia Burt was breathing on her hands and chafing them softly. "Nine to seven—play!" called the assistant.

Harriet sat near the fireplace, her bandaged foot on a bench before her, her hands twisting and untwisting in her lap.

Here's to Harriet Foster,

And we're sorry that we lost her,

Drink her down, drink her down, drink her down, down, down!

sang the freshmen. Would Harriet have done better? Would she have—Ah!

"Ten to seven—play!"

And they were so near, too! They were playing well—Grace and Virginia were great—they could have done something if that stupid Home—Oh!

Theodora leaped, missed the ball, but danced up in front of Martha and warded off the girl who slipped in to help her. Martha uttered an impatient exclamation and scowled. The freshmen howled and kicked against the gallery, and as the freshman Home woke out of an apparent lethargy and put the ball in neatly Theodora clapped and cheered with the rest.

"Ten to eight—play!"

There was a scuffle, a fall, and a hot discussion. Two girls grasped the ball, and the captains hesitated. Miss Kassan ran up, and in the little lull Theodora heard from the platform:

"Oh, give it to the freshmen! They deserve it!"

"No, Miss Greer had it!"

"She knocked the girl off it, if that's what—" A rebellious howl from the yellow gallery as Miss Greer bore off the ball, and a man's voice:

"Oh, nonsense! If you don't want 'em to howl, don't let 'em play! The idea—to get 'em all worked up and then say: 'No, young ladies, control yourselves!' How idiotic! I don't blame 'em—I'd howl myself—Jiminy crickets! Look at that girl! Good work! Good work!"

"Eleven to eight—play!"

"Good old Suttie! Good girl! Ninety-gre-e-e-en!"

Theodora's mouth was dry, and she ran to the coach for a lemon. The junior's hand shook, and her voice was husky from shouting.

"It's grand—it's grand!" she said quickly. "Martha's mad as a hatter! See her braid!"

Martha had twisted her pale brown pigtail tightly round her neck, and was calling with little indistinct noises to her sister. Adah Levy was talking to herself steadily and whispering, "Hurry now, hurry now, hurry now!" as she doubled and bent and worried the freshman Home out of her senses. Grace Farwell was everywhere at once, and was still only when she fell backwards with a bang that sickened the visiting mothers, and brought the freshmen's hearts into their mouths. A great gasp travelled up the gallery, and the doctor left her seat, but before she reached the players Grace was up, tossed her head, blinked rapidly, and with an unsteady little smile took her place by Alison Greer. And then the applause that had gone before was mild in comparison with the thunder from both galleries, and Miss Kassan looked at her watch uneasily and moved forward.

Now everybody was standing up, and the men were pushing forward, and only the gasps and bursts of applause and little cries of disappointment disturbed the stillness—the steady roar had stopped.

Theodora knew nothing, saw nothing: she only played. Her back ached, and her throat was dry; Martha's elbow moved like the piston of a steam-engine; her arm, when Theodora pressed against it, was like a stiff bar; she towered above her Guard. It was only a question of a few, few minutes—could they make it "eleven to nine"?

She must have asked the question, for Martha gasped, "No, you won't!" at her, and her heart sank as Miss Kassan moved closer. The ball neared their basket; the little bow-legged girl ducked under Alison's nose and emerged with it from a chaos of swaying Centres, tossed it to Grace, who dashed to the basket—

"Time's up!"

The freshmen shrieked, the Team yelled to its captain: "Put it in! put it in!" The sophomore Guards had not heard Miss Kassan, and Grace poised the ball. A yell from the freshmen—and she deliberately dropped it.

"Time's up," she said, with a little break in her voice, and as Miss Kassan hurried forward to stop the play she gave her the ball. Through the tumult a bass voice was heard: "I say, you know, that was pretty decent! I'm not sure I'd have done that myself!"

And as the assistant and Miss Kassan retired to compare fouls, and the noise grew louder and louder, the freshman team, withdrawn near the platform, heard a young professor, not so many years distant from his own alma mater, enthusiastically assuring any one who cared to hear, that "That girl was a dead game sport, now!"

For a moment the feeling against Grace had been bitter—the basket was so near! But as the sophomores were openly commending her, and as Miss Kassan was heard to say that the Team had played in splendid form and had given a fine example of "the self-control that the game was supposed to teach," they thought better of their captain with every minute.

"Eleven to eight, in favor of Ninety-green—fouls even!" said Miss Kassan, and the storm broke from the gallery. But before it reached the floor, almost, Martha was energetically beating time, and above the miscellaneous babble rose the strong, steady cheer of the sophomores:

'Rah, 'rah, 'rah!

'Rah, 'rah, 'rah!

'Rah, 'rah, 'rah!—Ninety-ye-e-e-e-llow!

"Quick, girls! quick!" cried Grace, for Miss Kassan was running toward them with determination in her eye.

'Rah, 'rah, 'rah!

'Rah, 'rah, 'rah!

'Rah, 'rah, 'rah!—Ninety-gre-e-e-e-n!

Then it was all a wild, confused tumult. Theodora had no distinct impressions; people kissed her and shook her hand, and Kathie Sewall carried Grace off to a swarm of girls who devoured her, but not before Martha, breathless from a rapid ride around the floor on the unsteady shoulders of her loyal team, had solemnly extended her hot brown hand to the freshman captain and said, with sincere respect, "That was as good a freshman game as ever was played, Miss Farwell—we're mighty proud of ourselves! Your centre work was simply great! And—and of course we know that that last goal was—was practically yours!"

Theodora had expected to feel so ashamed and sad—and somehow she was so proud and happy! The sophomores last year had locked themselves in for one hour and—expressed their feelings; but the freshmen could only realize that theirs was the closest score known for years, and that they had made it against the best team the college had ever seen; that Martha had said that in fifteen minutes more, at the rate they were playing, nobody knew what might have happened; that Miss Kassan had said that except in the matter of noise she had been very proud of them; and that Professor Robbins had called their captain a Dead Game Sport!

It would not have been etiquette to carry Grace about the hall, but they managed to convey to her their feelings, which were far from perfunctory, and in their enthusiasm they went so far as to obey the Council's earnest request that the decorations should remain untouched. They cheered Theodora and Virginia and Harriet and the bow-legged girl till you would have supposed them victorious; and when Harriet told Grace, with a little gulp, that it was all up with her, for her mother had said that a second sprained ankle meant no more basket-ball, the little sympathetic crowd brightened, and all eyes turned to Theodora, who breathed hard and tried to seem not to notice. Could it be? Would she ever run out bouncing the ball in that waiting hush?...

They were out of the Gym now, and only the ushers' bonnets, the green and yellow flowers that the Council had not controlled, the crumpled, printed sheets of basket-ball songs, and the little mascots posing for their pictures on the campus made the day different from any other.

"Come and lie down," said somebody, regarding Theodora with a marked respect. "You'll want to get rested before the dinner, you know."

And as Theodora stared at her and half turned to run after Grace, whom Kathie Sewall was quietly leading off, the girl—she was in the house with her—held her back.

"I'd let Grace alone, if I were you," she said. "She's pretty well used up; she hurt her elbow quite badly, but she wouldn't say anything, and Dr. Leach says she'll have to keep perfectly quiet if she wants to be at the dinner—wants to! the idea! But she said of course you were to come. They say they're going to take some of the Gym decorations down.—What! Why, the idea! Of course you'll go! You're sure to make the Team, anyhow, for that matter! I tell you, Theodora, we're proud of you! It wasn't any joke to step in there and guard Martha Sutton with a score of six to nothing!"

Theodora paused at the steps, her mackintosh half off, her hair tangled about her crimson cheeks, her sleeve dusty from that last mad slide.

"No," she said, with a wave of reminiscence of that sick shaking of her knees, that shrinking from a million critical eyes. "No, it wasn't any joke—not in the least!"

And she climbed up the stairs to a burst of applause from the freshmen in the house and the shrill cry of her room-mate:

"Come on, Theo! I've got a bath-tub for you!"

THE SECOND STORY

A CASE OF INTERFERENCE

II
A CASE OF INTERFERENCE

"What I want to know," said the chairman of the committee, wearily, "is just this. Are we going to give the Lady of Lyons, or are we not? I have a music lesson at four and a tea at five, and while your sprightly and interesting conversation is ever pleasing to me—"

"Oh, Neal, don't! Think of something for us! Don't you want us to give it?"

"I think it's too love-making. And no one up here makes love. The girls will howl at that garden scene. You must get something where they can be funny."

"But, Neal, dear, you can make beautiful love!"

"Certainly I can, but I can't make it alone, can I? And Margaret Ellis is a stick—a perfect stick. But then, have it! I see you're bent on it. Only I tell you one thing—it will take more rehearsing than the girls will want to give. And I shan't do one word of it publicly till I think that we have rehearsed enough together. So that's all I've got to say till Wednesday, and I must go!"

The door opened—shut; and before the committee had time for comment or criticism, their chairman had departed.

"Neal's a trifle cross," suggested Patsy, mildly. "Something's the matter with her," said Julia Leslie. "She got a note from Miss Henderson this afternoon, and I think she's going to see her now. Oh, I haven't the vaguest idea—What? No, I know it's not about her work. Neal's all straight with that department. Well, I think I'll go over to the Gym and hunt out a suit. Who has the key to the property box now?"

The little group dissolved rapidly and No. 18 resumed its wonted quiet. "There's nothing like having a society girl for a room-mate, is there, Patsy?" said the resident Sutton twin, opening the door. She and her sister were distinguishable by their room-mates alone, and they had been separated with a view to preventing embarrassing confusion, as they were incredibly alike. "Couldn't I make the Alpha on the strength of having vacated this hearth and home eighteen times by actual count for its old committees?"

"I've put you up five times, Kate, love, but they think your hair's too straight. Couldn't you curl it?"

Kate sniffed scornfully. "I've always known that the literary societies had some such system of selection," she said to the bureau. "Now, in an idle moment of relaxation, the secret is out! Patsy, I scorn the Alpha, and the Phi Kappa likewise."

"I scorn the Phi Kappa myself, theoretically," said Patsy.

"Do you think they'll take in that queer junior, you know, that looks so tall till you get close to her, and then it's the way she walks?"

"Dear child, your vivid description somehow fails to bring her to my mind."

"Why don't you want her in Alpha? But be careful you don't wait too long! You're both leaving me till late in the year, you know, and then, ten to one, the other one gets me!"

"A little violet beside a mossy stone is a poor comparison, Katharine, but at the moment I think of no other. I am glad you grasp the situation so clearly, though."

"But, truly, I wonder why they don't take that girl—isn't her name Hastings?—into Phi Kappa? She writes awfully well, they say, and I guess she recites well enough."

The other Sutton twin sauntered in, and appearing as usual to grasp the entire conversation from the beginning, rolled her sister off the couch, filled her vacant place, and entered the discussion.

"But, my dear child, you know she won't make either society! She's too indifferent—she doesn't care enough. And she's off the campus, and she doesn't go out anywhere, and she is always alone, and that speaks for itself—"

"Oh, I'm tired of talking about her! Stop it, Kate, and get some crackers, that's a dear! Or I'll get them myself," and Patsy was in the hall.

Kate shook her head wisely at the bureau. "Something's in the air," she said softly. "Patsy is bothered. So is Neal. And there are plenty of crackers on the window-seat!"

Miss Margaret Sewall Pattison sauntered slowly down the stairs. For one whose heart was set on crackers she seemed strangely indifferent to the hungry girls standing about the pantry with fountain pens and lecture books and racquets and hammocks under their arms. She walked by them and out of the door, stood a moment irresolutely on the porch, and then, as she caught sight of Cornelia Burt coming out of the dormitory just beyond, she hurried out to meet her.

"Busy this hour, Neal?" she said.

"No," said Cornelia, briefly. "Where shall we go?"

"We can go to the property box and get some clothes," said Patsy, "and talk it over there."

In the cellar of the gymnasium it was cool and dim. The beams rose high above their heads, and a musty smell of tarlatan and muslin and cheese-cloth filled the air. Patsy sat on an old flower-stand, and pushed Cornelia down on a Greek altar that lay on its side with a faded smilax wreath still clinging to it.

"What did she say to you, Neal?" she asked.

Neal looked at the floor. "She was lovely, but I didn't half appreciate it. I was so bothered and—vexed. Pat, I didn't know the Faculty ever did this sort of thing, did you?"

"I don't believe they often do," said Patsy. "Did she read that thing to you, too?"

"Yes. Patsy, that's a remarkable thing. Do you know, when I went there I thought she was going to call me down for taking off the Faculty in that last Open Alpha. The girls say she hates that sort of thing. You know she always says just what she thinks. And she said, 'I want to read you a little story, Miss Burt, that happened to come into my hands, and that has haunted me since.'"

"How do you suppose she got hold of it?" queried Patsy.

"I don't know, I'm sure. I certainly shouldn't pick her out to exhibit my themes to!—I never saw them together."

"I think I saw them walking once—well, go on!"

"'For the Monthly?' said I.

"'No,' said she. 'I think the author would not consent to its publication.' And then she read it to me. Pat, if that girl has suffered as much as that, I don't see how she stays here."

"She's too proud to do anything else," said Patsy. "Go on."

"Then Miss Henderson said: 'I needn't tell you the value of this thing from a literary point of view, Miss Burt.'

"'No,' said I, 'you needn't.'

"'Very well,' said she; 'then I'll tell you something else. Every word of it is true.'

"'I'm sorry,' said I."

"Oh, Neal! I cried when she read it to me! I blubbered like a baby. And she was so nice about it. But I hated her, almost, for disturbing me so."

"Precisely. So I said: 'And what have you read this to me for, Miss Henderson?' And then she told me that the girl in the story was Winifred Hastings. She has always lived with older people and been a great pet and sort of prodigy, you know, and was expected to do great things here, and found herself lonely, and was proud and didn't make friends, and got farther away from the college instead of nearer to it, and all that. And I said, 'I suppose she's not the only one, Miss Henderson.' And she looked at me so queerly. 'Mephistopheles said that,' said she."

"Oh! Neal! How could you? I—why are you so cold and—"

"Unsympathetic? I don't know. We all have the defects of our qualities, I suppose. Miss Henderson was quite still for a moment, looking at me. I felt like a fly on a pin. 'Why do you try so hard to be cruel, Miss Burt?' said she, finally. 'I think you have an immense capacity for suffering and for sympathy. Is it because you are afraid to give way to it?' And I said, 'Exactly so, Miss Henderson. I never go to the door when the tramps come.'

"'Neither did I, once,' said she, 'but I found it was a singularly useless plan. You've got to, some time, Miss Burt.'

"'That's what I've always been afraid of, but I'm putting it off as long as I can,' said I.

"And then she told me that this was the first time that she had done anything of this kind for a long while. 'I don't believe in helping people to their places, as a rule,' she said. 'They usually get what they deserve, I fancy. But this is a peculiar case. You suppose she is not the only one, Miss Burt? I hope there are very few like her. I have never known of a girl of her ability to lose everything that she has lost. There are girls who are queer and erratic and somewhat solitary and perhaps discontented, but they get into a prominence of their own and you call it a "divine discontent," and make them geniuses, and they get a good deal out of it, after all. There are girls who are queer and quick-tempered, but good students, and devoted to a few warm friends, and their general unpopularity doesn't trouble them particularly. There are the social leaders, who don't particularly suffer if they don't get into a society, who are popular everywhere, and get the good time they came for. But Winifred Hastings has somehow missed all these. She got started wrong, and she's gone from bad to worse. She is not solitary by nature, and yet she is more alone than the girls who like solitude, even. She is not naturally reserved, and yet she is considered more so than almost any girl in college. I believe her to have great executive ability. I consider her one of the distinctly literary girls in her class,—and if there is anything in essentially "bad luck," I do honestly believe that she is the victim of it. Her characteristics are so balanced and opposed to each other that she can't help herself, and she does things that make her seem what she is not. Her real self is in this story. You can see the pathos of that!'"

Neal drew a long breath. "Did she say that to you?" she concluded.

"No, not exactly. She told me that she was speaking to me as one of the social influences of the college. I felt like a cross between Madame de Staël and Ward McAllister, you know. And then she spoke of the power we have, the girls like me, and how a little help—oh, Neal! it does mean a good deal, though! I can't make people take this girl up, all alone! The girls aren't—"

"They are! They're the merest sheep! If you do it, they'll all follow you. That is, if she's really worth anything. Of course, they aren't fools."

"She sat on me awfully, though, Neal! I said, 'I suppose you think we ought to have her in Alpha, Miss Henderson.' She gave me a look that simply withered me. 'My dear Miss Pattison,' said she, in that twenty-mile-away tone, 'I am not in the habit of suggesting candidates for either of the societies: I must have made myself far from clear to you.' And I apologized. But it's what she meant, all the same!"

"Of course it is. Well, I suppose she's right. It isn't everybody would have dared to do that much. I respect her for it myself. You are to launch her socially, I am to—"

"Neal Burt, I think you ought to be ashamed! Didn't Miss Henderson tell you how Winifred Hastings admired you?"

"Yes. She said that I was the only girl in the college whose friendship—Oh, dear! I wish she had gone to Vassar, that girl! Heavens! It's half-past three! I must go this minute. Well, Patsy, we're honored, in a way. I don't think Miss Henderson would talk to every one as she has to us, do you?"

"No," said Patsy, gravely, "I don't. You know, Neal, just as I was going, she said, 'Of course you realize, Miss Pattison, that only you and I and Miss Burt have seen this story?' 'I understand,' said I. 'Perhaps I have done this because I understand Miss Hastings better than she thinks,' she said. 'I—I was a little like her, myself, once, Miss Pattison!'"

"Yes," said Neal, "she told me that."

"I don't see why Miss Henderson doesn't take her up herself, if she understands her so terribly well," scowled Patsy. "She looks just like the kind of girl to be devoted to one person and all that, you know. Miss Henderson could go for walks with her and—"

"Too much sense!" said Neal, briefly. "She wants to get her in with the girls. That sort of thing would kill her with the girls, and she knows it."

"Oh, bother! Look at B. Kitts—she's a great friend of Miss Henderson's, and look at yourself!"

"Not at all," Neal returned decidedly. "Biscuits was in with your set long before she got to know Miss Henderson, and I knew Marion Hunter at home before she came up here. It's all very well to chum with the Faculty if you're in with the girls, too, but otherwise—as my friend Claude says, Nay, nay, Pauline! Besides, Miss Henderson doesn't go in for that sort of thing anyhow—she's too clever."

"Oh, well, I suppose it is best for us to do it. I guess she's right enough," said Patsy, rising as she spoke, "and I suppose we can do it as well as anybody, for that matter."

They mounted the stone steps and came out into a light that dazzled them. "There she is!" said Patsy softly, as a tall girl, plainly dressed, walked quickly by them. Her face was strangely set, her mouth almost hard, her eyes looked at them with an expression that would have been defiant but for something that softened them as they met Neal's. She bowed to her, hardly noticing Patsy's "Good afternoon, Miss Hastings!" and hurried off to the back campus. Behind were two freshmen loaded with pillows. "Isn't that Miss Hastings?" said one.

"Yes. She's going to leave college."

"Oh! Well, we can lose her better than some others I could mention," said the prettier and better dressed of the two. Then, catching sight of Patsy and Neal, she stopped and blushed a little. "Did—did you get my note, Miss Burt? Will you come?" she asked prettily. Neal smiled.

"Why, yes, I shall be pleased—at four on Saturday, I think you said?" And then as the two moved on she added, "I heard you say something about Miss Hastings: is it true she's going to leave?"

"Yes," said the other freshman, importantly. "Immediately, she told Mrs. White. I'm in the house with her. I think she said next week. She's disappointed in college, I guess. Well, I should think she would be. She—"

"I trust the college has given her no reason to be," said Neal, gravely. "I sometimes think her attitude—if that should happen to be her attitude—somewhat justifiable." And before the freshman could recover, Miss Burt and her friend were halfway across the campus.

Patsy sighed with admiration. "Oh, Cornelia, how I reverence you!" she said. "I couldn't do that to save my soul. No. Once I tried it, and the freshman laughed at me. I slunk away—positively slunk."

But Neal did not laugh. "I can't see what to do," she half whispered, as if to herself. "Next week—next week! Why then, why then, it's all over with her. She's thrown up the sponge!"

Patsy peered into Cornelia's face and caught her breath. "Why, Neal, do you care? Do you really care?" she said. Neal looked at her defiantly through wet lashes. "Yes, I do care. I think it's horrible. To have her beaten like this!—I have to go now. Be sure to come to Alpha to-night!"

"When Cornelia leaves, she leaves sudden," said Kate Sutton, from the window. "Coming up?"

Patsy stamped slowly up the two flights, and rummaged in a very mussy window-box for a silk waist. Her room-mate listened for some expression of grief or joy to give the tone to conversation, but none came; so she began on her own account.

"Martha says," indicating her twin, who was polishing the silver things with alcohol and a preparation fondly believed by her to be whiting, but which incessant use had reduced to a dirty gritty gum, "Martha says she knows who's going in to-night."

"Oh, indeed?"

"Yes. She says it's Eleanor Huntington and Leila Droch. She knows for certain."

"Great penetration she has—they've never been mentioned," returned the senior, absent-mindedly, grabbing under the chiffonier for missing hair-pins.

A shriek of triumph from the twins brought her to her knees.

"Aha! I told you they weren't in it! Perhaps you'll believe me again! Perhaps I can't find out a thing or two!"

The twins shook hands delightedly, and Patsy, irritated at her slip, grabbed again for the hair-pins, incidentally discovering a silver shoe-horn and a fountain pen.

"Very clever you are—very," she remarked coldly. "Quite unusual, and so young, too. No wonder your parents are worried!"

This was a bitter cut, for the twins were industriously engaged in living down the report that the Registrar had in their freshman year received a note from Mrs. Sutton imploring her to curb if necessary their passion for study, which invariably brought on nervous headaches. This was peculiarly interesting to their friends, who had never remarked any undue application on their part and were, of course, proportionately eager to caution them against it. They squirmed visibly now and changed their tone abruptly.

"They say that Frances Wilde was terribly disappointed about making Alpha—she'd much rather have got Phi Kappa," said Kate, with a mixture of malice and humility.

Patsy was silent. Martha grinned and took up the conversation.

"But her heart would have been broken if she hadn't gotten in this year," she returned amiably.

Patsy turned and glared at them, one arm in the silk waist.

"What utter nonsense!" she broke out. "As if it made any matter, one way or the other! As if it made two cents' worth of difference! You know perfectly well that it's no test at all—making a society. Look at the girls who are in! It's a farce, as Neal says—" She stopped and scowled at them defiantly. The twins gasped. This from a society girl to them, as yet unelect! Even for a conversation with the Sutton twins, with whom, owing to their own contagious example, truth was bound to fly out sooner or later, this was unusual. It was odd enough to discuss the societies at all with perfectly eligible sophomores who might reasonably expect to enter one or another sometime and who were nevertheless yet uncalled; but the twins discussed everything with everybody, utterly regardless of etiquette, tradition, or propriety, and their upper-classroom-mates had long ago given up any ideas of reserve and discipline they might have held.

Martha gasped but promptly replied. "That's all very well for Cornelia Burt," she said, with the famous Sutton grin. "Anybody who made the Alpha in the first five and was known well enough to have been especially wanted in Phi Kappa and even begged to refuse—"

"How did you know that, Martha Sutton?"

"Oh! how did I? The President confided it to me one day when he was calling. As I say, Neal Burt and you can afford to talk; you can say it's a bore and all that and make fun of the meetings—"

"I don't!"

"You do! I heard you growling about it to Neal. And Bertha Kitts said she'd about as soon conduct a class prayer-meeting as Phi—Oh, not to me, naturally, but I know the girl who heard the girl she said it to! Heard her tell about it, I mean.

"It's all very well for you, but you'd feel differently if you were out! It's just like being a junior usher. There are plenty of spooks in, but there aren't many bright girls out. Everybody knows that lots of the society girls are pushed in by their friends and pulled in for heaven knows what—certainly not brains! But, just the same, you know well enough that you can count on one hand all the girls in the college that you'd think ought to be in and aren't. You don't know anything about it, for you were sure of it and everybody knew it, but the ones that aren't, they're the ones that worry! Why, I know sophomores to-day that will cry all night if they don't get their notes and their flowers and their front seat in chapel Monday!"

"Oh, nonsense!"

"Oh, nonsense, indeed! Won't they, Katie?"

"Sure!" returned her sister, placidly.

"I guess Alison Greer will cry all right, if she's not in!"

Patsy bit her lip and tapped her foot nervously. Then she shrugged her shoulders and opened the door, turning to remark, "You don't seem to be wasted away, either of you!"

"Oh, we! We're all right!" replied Martha, comfortably. "We never expected it sophomore year, anyhow. Nothing proddy about us, you know. Too many clever girls in the sophomore class, you see. But we expect to amble in next year, we do. And violets from you. And supper at Boyden's. Oh, yes! Don't you worry about us, Miss Pattison, we're all right!"

Miss Pattison sighed: sighs usually ended one's conversations with the twins, for nothing else so well expressed one's attitude.

"It's a pity you're so shrinking," she contented herself with observing. "I'm afraid you'll never come forward sufficiently to be known well by either society!" And she went down to get her mail.

II

There was a full meeting of the Alpha that Saturday night. The vice-president was lobbying energetically in behalf of a sophomore friend who would prove the crown and glory of the society, if all her upper-class patroness said of her could possibly be true. There was but one place open for the rest of the term, for the society had grown unusually that year, and some conservative seniors had pressed hard on the old tradition that sixty was a suitable and necessary limit, and put a motion through to that effect, and every possible junior had been elected long ago. So the vice-president was distinctly hopeful. Amid the buzz and clamor of fifty-odd voices, the president slapped the table sharply. "Will the meeting please come to order!" she cried. A little rustle, and the handsome secretary arose. "The regular meeting of the Alpha Society was held—" and the report went on.

"Are there any objections to this report?" asked the president, briskly. "Yes. It's far too long," muttered Suzanne Endicott, flippantly. The president looked at her reproachfully, and added, "If not, we will proceed to the election of new members—I mean the new member. As you probably know, there is but one place left, according to the recent amendment, and I think that we will vote as usual on the three that are before us, and elect the one having the most affirmative ballots. Are there any objections to this method?" There were none. The vice-president glanced appealingly at the girl she was not quite sure of and smiled encouragingly at the sophomore she had successfully intimidated. The secretary rose again. "The names to be voted on this evening are Alison Greer, '9-, Katharine Sutton, '9-, Marion Dustin, '9-," she announced. "I may add that Miss Sutton has the highest marks from the society, and that if we don't take her this time there is very little doubt that Phi Kappa Psi will. They'll be afraid to risk another meeting."

"That's true," said somebody, as the buzzing began again. "We're carrying this point a little too far. I declare, it's harder to decide on the people that aren't prods than anybody would imagine. We know we want 'em sometime, but we put it off so long—"

"Kate Sutton's awfully bright! I think she should have been here before. I've been trembling for fear we'd lose her by waiting so long—"

"Still, Marion is such a dear, and it's pretty late for a girl that's been known so well for so long, without getting in, it seems to me," said the vice-president, skilfully. "Why didn't she get in before if she was so bright?"

"And there's Martha, too. They're just alike. I think Martha's a little brighter, if anything. Shall we have to take 'em both?"

"No. The girls all say to give her to Phi Kappa, and tell 'em apart by the pins!"

"Like babies!"

"How silly!"

"To be perfectly frank, Miss Leslie, I must say I don't think so. Alison is an awfully dear girl, and all that, but I hardly think she represents the element we hope to get into Alpha. I'm sorry to say so, but—"

"The voting has begun," said the president. "Will you hurry, please?"

"Miss President," said Cornelia Burt, rising abruptly, "may I speak to the society before the voting?"

"Certainly, Miss Burt," said the president. There was an instant hush, and the girls stood clustered about the ballot-table in their pretty, light dresses—a charming sight, Neal thought vaguely, as she hunted for the words to say.

"I know perfectly well that what I am about to propose is quite unconstitutional," she began, and to her own ears her voice seemed far off. How many there were, and how surprised and attentive they looked! They were no fools, as she had said. They represented the cleverest element in the college, on the whole, and they had, naturally enough, their own designs and inclinations—why should they be turned from them in a moment?

"I know that no girl is eligible for voting upon until she has been read two meetings before, and been properly put up for membership, and all that," said Neal, quietly, with her eyes fixed on Patsy's, who tried to evade them. Poor Patsy. She wanted Kate to get the society in her sophomore year! "But I am in possession of certain facts that seem to me to warrant the breaking through the constitution, if such a thing can ever be done."

The silence had become intense. An ominous look of surprise deepened on the girls' faces, and the president looked doubtfully at the secretary.

"I think I am quite justified in believing that I have not the reputation of a sentimental person," said Cornelia. She had herself well in hand, now. The opposition that she felt nerved her to her customary self-possession. A little grin swept around the room. She was, apparently, quite justified.

"I have been in the Alpha as long as any one here," said Neal, quietly still, "and in all this time I have never proposed any one for membership in it. I have voted whenever I knew anything about the person in question, and I have never blackballed but once. I think I may say I have done my share of work for the society—"

There was a unanimous murmur of deep and unqualified assent. "You have done more than your share," said the president, promptly.

"I mention these things," said Neal, "in order that you may see that I recognize the need of some apology for what I am about to propose. I want to propose the name of Winifred Hastings to-night, and have her voted on with the rest. If it is a possible thing, I want her elected. That she would be elected without any doubt, I am certain, if only I could put the facts of the case properly before you. That she must be elected, now, to-night, is absolutely necessary, for by another meeting she will have left the college—left it for the lack of just such recognition as membership in the society will give her."

Cornelia Burt was a born orator. Never was she so happy as when she felt an audience, however small, given over to her, eyes and ears, for the moment. She stood straight as a reed, and looked easily over their faces, holding by very force of personality their attention. She spoke without the slightest hesitation, yet perfectly simply and after no set form. Insensibly the girls around her felt conviction in her very presence: they agreed with her against their will, while she was speaking.

"Before I go any farther, I want to tell you that Miss Hastings is no friend of mine," said Neal. "I hardly know her. Only lately I have learned the circumstances that led me to take this step. I feel that I must do this thing. I feel that we are letting go from the college a girl whose failure in life, if she fails, will be in our hands. We can elect these others later: Winifred Hastings leaves the college next week. And, speaking as editor of the college paper, I must say that she carries with her some of the best literary material in the college. You ask me why we have never seen it—I tell you, because she is a girl who needs encouragement, and she has never had it. She can do her best only when it is called for. Some of you may think you know her—may think that she is proud and solitary and disagreeable: she is not. This is the real girl!"

And, stepping farther into the circle, Cornelia, by an effort of memory she has never equalled since, told them, with the simplest eloquence, the pathetic story of Winifred Hastings' life, as she had written it. She did not comment—she only related. Her keen literary appreciation had caught the most effective parts, and she had the dramatic sense to which every successful speaker owes so much. Under her touch the haughty, solitary figure of a scarcely known girl melted away before them, and they saw a baffled, eager, hungry soul that had fought desperately, and was going silently away—beaten.

Cornelia Burt had made speeches before, and she made them afterward, to larger and more excited college audiences, but she never held so many hearts in her hand as she did that night. She was not a particularly unselfish girl, but no one who heard her then ever called her egotistic afterward. Her whole nature was thrown with all its force into this fight—for it was a fight.

Perhaps there is nowhere an audience less sentimental and more critical than a group of clever college girls. They see clearly for the most part, and, like all clever youth, somewhat cruelly. They object to being ruled by any but their chosen, and however they admired her, Cornelia was not their chosen leader. It was not because her speech was able, but because it was so evident that she believed herself only the means of preventing a calamity that she was striving with all her soul to avert, that she impressed them so deeply.

For she did impress them. When she ended, it was very quiet in the room. "I have broken a confidence in telling this," she said. "The girl herself would rather die than have you know it, I'm sure, and now—I feel afraid. It has been a bold stroke; if I have lost, I shall never forgive myself. But oh! I cannot have her go!"

She sat down quickly and stared into her lap. The spell of her voice was gone, the girls looked at each other, and a tall, keen-eyed girl with glasses got up. "I wish to say," she said, "that while Miss Burt's story is terribly convincing, still this may be a little exaggerated, and, at any rate, think of the precedent! If this should be done very often—"