At breakfast the next morning Grace began her campaign, and she continued to sing Gertrude Wells's praises when she encountered a group of her freshmen friends after the services. Then Anne, Miriam, Elfreda and she went for a stroll down College Street and into Vinton's for ices. Here they encountered quite a delegation of girls from Morton House, among whom was Gertrude herself, and a great deal of mysterious intriguing went on behind that young woman's back, who, quite unconscious of the honor about to be thrust upon her, was telling her chum that she thought Grace Harlowe would make a good president for 19----.

On her way home Grace exclaimed delightedly: "Look across the street, girls! There is Mabel Ashe. Let's go over and speak to her."

Suiting the action to the word the four girls hurried across the street to greet their favorite. Mabel smiled pleasantly, stretching forth a welcoming hand, but the young woman with her regarded their presence as an intrusion and glared her displeasure at the newcomers.

"How do you do, Miss Alden?" ventured Grace politely, but Miss Alden stared over her head and with a frigid, "Really, Mabel, under the circ.u.mstances, you'll have to excuse my leaving you," she turned and marched off in the other direction.

"I suppose we are the circ.u.mstances," said Grace, with a faint smile.

She was furiously angry at the unlooked-for snub, but refused to show it. Anne looked distressed, Miriam was frowning, while Elfreda glowered savagely.

"Don't mind what she says," soothed Mabel. "She feels awfully cross this afternoon because she has met with a disappointment. She has an invitation to a Pi Kappa Gamma dance and she has been refused permission to go. Result, she is in a raging, tearing humor."

"But I thought one could always go to a fraternity dance if properly chaperoned," remarked Grace innocently.

"One can," mimicked Mabel, "if one doesn't ask permission to go too often, and if one has no conditions to work off. Now, you see why Mistress Beatrice is obliged to languish at home while the man who invited her will no doubt have to invite some other girl, who is lucky enough to have no conditions."

"Isn't it rather early in the year to be conditioned?" asked Miriam.

"Yes, but Beatrice has been cutting cla.s.ses ever since she came back this year," confided Mabel. "I am not betraying a confidence in telling you this. She admits that she neglects her work. She says she is going to settle down after mid-year's exams and work."

"I think she's about the most sn.o.bbish proposition I ever came across,"

announced Elfreda. "It would serve her right if she did flunk in her examinations. I hope with all my heart she falls down with an awful b.u.mp."

Elfreda had forgotten her former aspirations toward cultivating the true college spirit.

"You mustn't wish even your bitterest enemy bad luck," smiled Mabel Ashe. "Superst.i.tious people say that the bad luck will be visited on the head of the one who wishes it."

"I'm not superst.i.tious," retorted Elfreda. "Of course, I believe that pins cut friendship, and that it's bad luck to see the new moon through the window, or to walk under a ladder. It's a sure sign of death to break a looking gla.s.s or dream of white flowers, too, and to drop a spoon means certain disappointment, but aside from a few little things like that, I certainly don't believe in signs."

"Oh, no, you don't believe in signs," chorused the girls, in gleeful sarcasm.

"Well, I don't," reiterated Elfreda. "That is, not a whole lot of them."

"Good-bye, children, I must leave you at this corner," announced Mabel.

"Come and see me soon. I'll look you up the first evening I have free."

"I should think that Miss Alden would hate herself," remarked Elfreda scornfully, as she marched along beside Grace. "She hates you, that's sure enough."

"Nonsense, why should Miss Alden hate me? You are letting your imagination run away with you, Elfreda," laughed Grace.

"Don't you believe it," declared Elfreda doggedly. "She doesn't like you, because Mabel likes you, and she likes Mabel. Some one told me the other day that she can't bear to have Mabel look cross-eyed at any other girl here. She claims that it's because she loves her so much, but I think it's because she wants to have the most popular girl at Overton for her friend," finished the stout girl shrewdly.

"What shall we do this afternoon?" called Miriam Nesbit over her shoulder.

"Go on boosting our candidate," laughed Anne. "Let us go for a walk after dinner. We will call on Ruth Denton. Then we'll take her with us to Morton House. That will be a nice way for her to meet the Morton House girls. While we are there we can find out how the land lies. Then we will take Ruth home with us for supper and the rest of the evening, if she doesn't have to study."

At the dinner table that day Grace again introduced the subject of the cla.s.s election and was pleased to note that her suggestion regarding Gertrude Wells as the best possible choice for cla.s.s president had borne fruit. The two soph.o.m.ores at the table who had been through two cla.s.s elections, having just elected their president, smiled tolerantly at the excitement exhibited by the "babies," and advised them not to elect in haste and repent at leisure.

"Why don't you children find out something about what the rest of the cla.s.s think before you rush into electing Miss Wells, just to please two or three girls?" asked Virginia Gaines, the soph.o.m.ore who had a.s.siduously cultivated the acquaintance of Elfreda--then dropped her at the first sign of trouble. "We soph.o.m.ores wouldn't allow ourselves to be influenced by cliques. We consider the good of the cla.s.s of more importance than the good of any individual member."

She smiled disagreeably at Grace, who looked at her steadily, then said, "Was your remark intended for me and my friends, Miss Gaines?"

"Not necessarily," flung back the soph.o.m.ore, "unless you feel that it applies to you and to them."

"No, I don't believe it does," declared Grace with a quiet smile. "In fact, I quite agree with you in saying that the good of the cla.s.s should always come first. That is why we are all anxious to nominate Miss Wells for president of 19----."

A dull flush rose to Virginia Gaines's sallow face. She was not quick-witted and could think of no reply. The other freshmen at the table were taking no pains to disguise their glee at Grace's retort.

Virginia's sarcastic comment had proved a boomerang and she had gained nothing by launching it. She hurried through with her dessert and left the table without another word, casting a half malignant look at Grace as she went.

"Virginia's mad, And I am glad,"

sang a freshman softly as the door banged.

"Please, don't," said Grace soberly. "I'm sorry she's angry, but I couldn't help it. I seem always fated to arouse soph.o.m.ore ire."

"I wouldn't mind a little thing like that," comforted Elfreda. "I'd rather be the enemy than the friend of some girls."

"But I don't want to be the enemy of any girl," declared Grace, looking almost appealingly about the table.

"Of course you don't," soothed Emma Dean, a tall, near-sighted girl at the end of the table, who had the reputation of making brilliant recitations. "You couldn't antagonize the rest of us if you tried. That is, unless you deliberately broke my gla.s.ses."

A shout of laughter went up from the table. Virginia Gaines, who had lingered in the hall, heard it, and her face darkened. In spite of Grace's declaration for peace she had made an enemy.

CHAPTER XIII

GRACE TURNS ELECTIONEER

Directly after dinner that afternoon, the four girls, looking very smart in their new fall suits and hats, set out for Ruth's. They found her seated at her little table eating a very humble dinner of her own cooking. "I'm sorry I can't offer you anything to eat. I have 'licked the platter clean,' you see. But won't you have some tea? I think I have cups enough to go round, only I'm afraid I haven't enough saucers."

"Thank you," began Elfreda, "but--" then a warning pinch from Miriam caused her to eye the latter reproachfully and subside.

"We'd love to have tea with you," smiled Miriam. "Wouldn't we, girls?"

Elfreda, who had divined the reason for the pinch, said "yes" with the others, and Ruth bustled about with pink cheeks and a delicious air of importance. She took down from the cupboard shelf a box of Nabiscos that she had been treasuring for some such occasion as the present, placing them on a little hand-painted plate, the only piece of china she possessed. When the tea was made the guests emptied the little tea-pot and ate all of the Nabiscos, to the intense satisfaction of their hostess, to whom entertaining was a new and delightful pastime.

"Now, you must put on your wraps and go with us," commanded Grace, setting her cup on the table. "We are going to Morton House to make our party call. The future president of 19---- lives there. That is, we think she is the future president and we hope to make others think so, too."

Ruth obediently went to the closet where her plain little hat and shabby, old-style coat hung. She looked hesitatingly from the smartly tailored suits of her guests to her own well-worn coat, then with a proud little lifting of her head, she took it down and began putting it on.

During their walk to Morton House the girls met several freshmen they knew, and these were faithfully interviewed as to their preference in the matter of 19----'s president. To Grace's delight none of them had made any choice in regard to candidates, so her glowing remarks as to Gertrude Wells's ability to make a good president fell on fertile soil.

Fortune favored them, for when they reached Morton House they found Miss Wells out and two-thirds of the girls downstairs in the living room listening to the new songs that the curly-haired little girl at the piano had received from New York the day before. She was in the middle of one when the girls entered the room. Grace held up a warning finger and pointed to the piano.

The song ended several notes short and the little girl turned her head toward her audience, saying, "I knew some one came in."