After the famous basketball game a marked change was noticeable in the att.i.tude of the freshman cla.s.s toward the Oakdale girls. Grace and Miriam received numerous invitations to dinners and spreads, in which Anne was frequently included. Then the girls at Wayne Hall gave a play in which Anne enacted the role of heroine, stage manager, prompter, and producer, besides doing all the coaching. After that her star was also in the ascendant and the little slights and coolnesses that had been noticeable after Elfreda's ill-timed gossip had done its work, died a natural death.

The stout girl had lost no time in leaving Virginia. The evening after her quarrel with the soph.o.m.ore she had moved her belongings into the hall the moment she reached her room, then gone downstairs and demanded another room. As it happened, a freshman whose cousin lived at Morton House had invited her to share her room. She had departed that very afternoon and Mrs. Elwood offered Elfreda the now vacant half of her room. Emma Dean, the tall, near-sighted freshman, occupied the other half. There was a single room in the house of Mrs. Elwood's sister, but Elfreda had refused to consider it. Despite the fact that there were now four young women at Wayne Hall with whom she was not on speaking terms, she could not bring herself to leave the house. In her inmost heart she knew that it was because she did not wish to leave the three girls she had repudiated, but not for worlds would she have acknowledged this to be the case.

Several times she had been on the point of throwing her pride to the winds and apologizing to Grace, Miriam and Anne for her childish behavior. Then she would scoff at her own weakness and go doggedly on.

Her new roommate, Emma Dean, was a cheery sort of girl who lived every day as it came and refused to borrow trouble. She never criticized other girls, nor did she gossip, and she was extremely thoughtful of the comfort of her roommate. After several days of dubious speculation the stout girl decided she liked Emma, and Emma decided that Elfreda was rather an agreeable disappointment.

There were two young women, however, who had suddenly appeared to take a great interest in Elfreda. Alberta Wicks and Mary Hampton had met Elfreda in Vinton's late one afternoon, and had made distinctly friendly overtures to her. At any other time she would have pa.s.sed them by in disdain, but on that particular occasion, feeling gloomy and downcast, she decided to forget her grievance against them. Then, too, she did not know them to be the girls who had sent her the anonymous letter. Grace had never told her the truth of the affair, so she played unsuspectingly into their hands. They had invited her to have ice cream with them, and she had insisted that they be her guests at dinner. After that they had invited her to Stuart Hall to dinner and she had entertained them at Wayne Hall one evening, greatly to the surprise of Grace, who suddenly remembered that, after all, Elfreda was not so much to blame as she did not know the truth. But why should these two girls accept the hospitality of the very girl they had tried to drive away from Overton? It was a puzzle that Grace could not solve. She discussed it with Anne and Miriam but they could throw no light on the mystery.

The coming of the Easter vacation gave the three girls more pleasant matters of which to think. This time Ruth Denton accompanied them to Oakdale as Grace's guest, while Miriam invited Arline Thayer also, as a surprise to Ruth. When Arline serenely joined them at the station the morning of their departure, Ruth could hardly believe the evidence of her own eyes.

The two weeks in Oakdale flew by on wings. With the boys and the other members of the Phi Sigma Tau at home, too, there were more things to do and places to go than could possibly be squeezed into that brief s.p.a.ce of time. Arline Thayer, who was a joyous, irrepressible spirit, announced with conviction that Oakdale was even nicer than New York. She and Nora became sworn friends and the joint guardians of Hippy, who declared that he never would have believed there were two such relentless tyrants in the world, if he had not seen them face to face.

Mrs. Gray, who had been in Florida during the Christmas holidays, had returned in time to welcome her adopted children home. She was especially delighted to see Anne and would scarcely allow the quiet little girl out of her sight. She had been greatly disappointed because Anne had refused to accept from her the money for her college education, but secretly exulted in Anne's independence and smiled to herself when she thought of a certain clause in her will that had amply provided for her adopted daughter's future welfare.

Altogether it was a vacation long to be remembered, and the four originals separated with the glad thought that the next time they met it would be months instead of weeks before their little company would again set their faces in opposite directions.

The night after their return to Overton, Grace, after having made a conscientious effort to study, threw down her history in despair. "I know a great deal more about the history of Oakdale than I do about the history of Rome," she sighed.

"I wish I had never heard of trigonometry," returned Anne, shutting her book with a snap. "I can't think of anything except the good time we've had. Home has completely upset my student mind." She rose, laid down her book and walked listlessly toward the window. It had been an unusually warm day for early spring and the night air had that suspicion of dampness in it that betokens rain. "It will rain before morning," she declared. "There isn't a star in sight and the moon has gone behind a cloud."

Grace joined Anne at the window. The two girls stood peering out into the darkness of the spring night. "I feel as though I'd like to go out and walk miles and miles to-night," declared Grace.

"So do I," agreed Anne. Then glancing back at the clock, she remarked, "It's twenty minutes past ten. Too late for us to go now. We can go to-morrow night, can't we?"

Grace nodded. "We'll get our work done early, or, better still, we can go walking early in the evening and study when we come back. I wish you'd remind me that I must call on Mabel Ashe this week. In fact, all three of us ought to go over to Holland House."

The next day, however, Anne remembered regretfully that she had promised to help a troubled freshman through the mazes of an especially trying trigonometry lesson, while Miriam had a theme to write which she had neglected until the last minute, and had to rush through on record time.

"You're a set of irresponsible young things who don't know your own mind from one minute to the next," laughed Grace. "As I can't very well go walking alone, I'll make my call on Mabel."

Directly after dinner she set out for Holland House and Mabel's delighted: "I'm so glad you came, Grace. Where have you been keeping yourself?" sounded very sweet to Grace, who adored Mabel and outside of her own particular chums liked her better than any other girl she knew at home or in college. The two young women were deep in conversation when a rap sounded at the door. Mabel opened it, looked inquiringly at the girl who stood outside and exclaimed contritely: "Oh, Helen, I'm so sorry I forgot all about you. I'll get ready this minute. Come in. Miss Harlowe, this is Miss Burton. Grace, I wonder if you will mind making a call to-night. I promised Helen I'd take her down to Wellington House and introduce her to a junior friend of mine who plays golf. Helen is a golf fiend."

"So am I," laughed Grace. "I brought my golf bag to Overton, but didn't play much in the fall. I'm going to try it, though, as soon as the ground is in shape."

"How nice!" exclaimed Helen Burton, with a friendly smile that lighted up her rather plain face and brought the dimples to her cheeks. "We can have some nice times together. You had better come with us now."

"Thank you, I shall be pleased to go," replied Grace politely. "I have never been in Wellington House. It is an upper cla.s.s house, isn't it?"

"Yes," replied Mabel. "It is given up entirely to juniors and seniors.

It is the oldest house on the campus, and very difficult to get into.

Personally, I like Holland House better. I had an opportunity to get into Wellington House last fall, but refused it." Grace noted that Mabel frowned slightly and set her lips as though determined to shut out an unpleasant memory.

To reach Wellington House was merely a matter of crossing one end of the campus. Grace looked about her curiously as they were ushered into the long, old-fashioned hall that extended almost to the back of the house.

They entered the parlor at one side of the hall and sat down while Mabel excused herself and ran upstairs after Leona Rowe, the junior she had come to see. She had hardly disappeared before a flaxen head was poked in the door and a surprised voice said: "For goodness sake, Helen Burton, when did you rain down? You are just the one I want to see. What do you think of to-morrow's German? I can't translate it. It's frightfully hard. Come up and help me, dearest."

The ingratiating emphasis she placed on the word "dearest" caused both Grace and Helen to laugh.

"All right, I will for just two minutes. Want to come upstairs, Miss Harlowe?"

Grace smilingly shook her head. "I'll stay here in case Mabel comes back."

"Thank you," returned Helen. "Miss Harlowe, this is Miss Redmond."

The two girls exchanged friendly nods. Then the flaxen-haired girl led the way, followed by Helen Burton, and Grace settled herself in the depths of a big chair to await their return. As she sat idly wondering what the subject of her next theme should be, the sound of voices reached her ears, proceeding from the back parlor that adjoined the room in which Grace sat. Two girls had entered the other room, but the heavy portieres which hung in the dividing arch, hid them from view. The voices, however, Grace recognized with a start as belonging to Beatrice Alden, the disagreeable junior, and Alberta Wicks of the soph.o.m.ore cla.s.s.

"I'll be glad when my soph.o.m.ore year is over," grumbled Alberta Wicks.

"Mary and I have asked for a room here. I hope we get it. If we do we will be able, at least, to eat our meals without the eternal accompaniment of Miss Harlowe's and Miss Nesbit's doings. Ever since that basketball game, Stuart Hall has talked of nothing else."

"Are there many freshmen at Stuart Hall?" asked Beatrice Alden.

"Too many to suit me," was the emphatic answer.

"If you are so down on freshmen in general, how in the world do you manage to endure that dreadful Miss Briggs?"

"J. Elfreda is a joke," replied Alberta. "Nevertheless, she is a very useful joke. In the first place, she has plenty of money to spend, and we see to it that she spends a good share of it on us. Then, too, we can borrow money of her. She is a great convenience. The funny part of it is she doesn't know about that letter we wrote. For once that priggish Miss Harlowe did manage to hold her tongue to some purpose."

"Suppose she does find out?"

"She can't prove that we wrote the note," was the quick retort. "When Miss Harlowe tried to pin us to it that day at Stuart Hall I merely said that a number of soph.o.m.ores felt justified in sending the note. Of course, she drew her own conclusions, but conclusions are far from proof, you know. She would hardly dare circulate any reports concerning it. We aren't going to bother with J. Elfreda much longer at any rate.

It's getting too near warm weather to risk being bored to death. Mary expects a check from home soon, and I've written Mother for some extra money, so we won't need hers. Besides, I don't wish to let our acquaintance lap over into my junior year. She's frightfully ill bred, and I'm going to begin to be more careful about my a.s.sociates next year."

"What a frightful sn.o.b you are, Bert," said Beatrice rather disgustedly.

"Well, you are my first cousin, you know," retorted Alberta significantly. "I never considered you particularly democratic."

"I'm not deceitful, at any rate," reminded Beatrice. "If I dislike a girl I take no pains to conceal it, and I am certainly not a grafter."

"Neither am I, Beatrice Alden, and the fact of your being my cousin doesn't give you the right to insult me. I intended to tell you about a stunt we had planned for Friday night, but since you seem to be so conscientious about Miss Briggs, I shan't tell you anything."

Then a silence fell that was broken the next instant by the violent slam of the front door. Grace rose to her feet, took a step forward, paused irresolutely, then pushing apart the heavy curtains walked into the other room. Beatrice Alden stood unconcernedly running through the leaves of a magazine she had picked up from the table.

"Miss Alden!"

The senior turned quickly, looking inquiringly, then sternly, at Grace.

"How long have you been here?" she said abruptly.

"I heard part of the conversation," replied Grace coldly. "When you began talking I recognized your voices, then I heard my name mentioned, and true to the old adage about listeners I heard no good of myself.

When I heard Miss Briggs's name spoken I decided that under the circ.u.mstances I was justified in listening further, as I intended at any rate to announce my presence and just what I heard as soon as you two had finished speaking. Miss Wicks's sudden departure prevented me from carrying out my intention as far as she was concerned. I shall, however, notify her at the earliest opportunity." Grace paused, looking squarely at the older girl.

Beatrice Alden's expression of intense displeasure gave way to one of reluctant admiration with dislike struggling in the background. "You are extremely frank in your statements, Miss Harlowe," she said sarcastically.

"There is no reason why I should not be," returned Grace composedly.

"Miss Wicks and Miss Hampton, for reasons best known to themselves, chose to make Miss Briggs the victim of an unwomanly practical joke on the very day of her arrival at Overton. I think you are in possession of the story. Miss Briggs's method of retaliation was unwise, I will admit, but Miss Wicks and Miss Hampton had no right to try to drive her from Overton on account of it. In her distress over a certain anonymous letter she received, Miss Briggs came to me, and I, suspecting the source from which the letter came, tried as best I could to straighten out the tangle, without allowing Miss Briggs to know who was at fault.

"Since then, unfortunately, a misunderstanding has arisen between us. I have now no influence whatever with Miss Briggs, and she has played directly into the hands of the only two enemies she has in college. All along I have been certain that Miss Wicks and Miss Hampton meant mischief. What I have heard to-day confirms it. Miss Alden, you are Miss Wicks's cousin. I heard her say so. As a true Overton girl, will you not use your influence with her in persuading her to abandon whatever plan she and Miss Hampton have made to annoy Miss Briggs?"

Beatrice Alden eyed Grace reflectively but said nothing.