"Well, that's neither here nor there," retorted Leslie somewhat rudely.

It did not please her to learn that any of the Sans had received more attention from the seniors than herself. Thus far she had not been the recipient of an invitation to dine from a senior. She was still inwardly sore at the lack of attention they had met with on their arrival at Hamilton station.

"I don't think it is a very good policy for we eight founders of the Sans to keep to ourselves too much," deprecated Dulcie Vale, regardless of Leslie's views on the subject. "The whole eighteen of us will have to stick together and work hard if we expect to keep the upper hand of things here at Hamilton."

"Oh, forget it," ordered Leslie brusquely. "Your trouble is easy to explain. You are sore because I didn't invite Eleanor, your pal, to this dinner."

"I am not," stoutly contradicted Dulcie. Nevertheless her sudden flush belied her words.

"Of course you are," went on Leslie imperturbably. "Understand, I didn't _want_ the rest of the gang here tonight, and that's that. What I started out to say when Nat and Joan and Margaret and you b.u.t.ted in, one by one, was this: We must bestir ourselves and make a fuss over the freshies. This year's freshman cla.s.s is, I'm told, the largest entering cla.s.s for ten years. I don't feel like bothering myself with the diggy, priggy element of freshies, but even they will have to be considered.

I'd do anything to spite that Sanford crowd and upset the progress they have made against us."

"What progress have they made, I'd like to know?" demanded Harriet Stephens scornfully. "If you mean the way they got back at us for ragging Miss Dean, I think that was _simply disgraceful_ in them to call a meeting as they did and blacken our standing at Wayland Hall. It is a wonder we managed to keep our rooms at the Hall after all the row they made about a little bit of ragging."

"We kept them, just the same, and you may thank Joan and I for it,"

significantly reminded Leslie. "I know old Remson is so sore at us she could snap our heads off. The funny part of it is, she will never know how cleverly we blocked her little game. That reminds me. I don't want the rest of the Sans to know the way we worked that scheme. Eight of us in the secret is enough. Remember, if it ever got out we would be all through at Hamilton College."

"Do you believe we would be expelled, Les?" asked Dulcie Vale, looking worried.

"I don't believe it. I _know_ we would. Nothing could save us. Never mind being scared, though. No one will ever know the rights of our plot unless some one of you girls here is silly enough to tell it. That's why I am cautioning you to be careful."

"Leslie is precisely right about that," Natalie Weyman hastened to agree. "We shall have to be very careful what we do this year. I think that a little missionary work among the freshies would be a good thing for all of us. Later on we can drop them if they grow to be too much of a bore."

"They will take care of themselves as they get used to college,"

predicted Leslie. "If some of 'em turn out to be really smart, like Lola Elster, for instance, then we needn't be slow about running with them.

_You_ think, Nat, that I have a crush on that Miss Walbert." Leslie turned directly to Natalie. "I have not. She is just the person I need, though, to carry out a plan of mine. Joan and Harriet both say that the Walberts have millions. They have a wonderful place at Newport. So Mrs.

Barry Symonds told Joan. What did you say the Walbert's place was called, Joan?"

"Evermonde," furnished Joan promptly. "I was sorry I didn't go and call on the kid, particularly after I found out who she was. I only met her twice at the tag end of the season."

"What I want her for," continued Leslie with slow emphasis, "is the freshman presidency."

"Some modest little ambition," murmured Evangeline Heppler.

"Um-m! Well, rather!" agreed Adelaide Forman. "How do you propose to make it happen, Les?"

"Leave that to me. I'm not prepared to tell you yet. I only know that it has to happen. It will give us a good hold on the freshies." Leslie's loose-lipped mouth tightened perceptibly. "We'll have to do some clever electioneering. I expect it will cost money. I don't care how much it costs, so long as I win my point."

"You mean we must rush the freshies?" interrogated Margaret Wayne.

"Yes," nodded Leslie. "Cart them around in our cars. Blow them off to dinners and luncheons. Begin tomorrow to go down to the station and grab them as they come off the train."

"Deliver me from the station act." Joan Myers made a wry face.

"You'll have to go to it with the rest of us," insisted Leslie with a suggestive lowering of brows. "This is really serious business, Joan. I don't intend to sit still and see a bunch of m.u.f.fs like those Sanford girls run Hamilton College. We had things all our own way until they came upon the scene. Nothing has been as it should be for us since then.

They have turned a lot of upper cla.s.s girls against us. I don't mean Leila Harper and her crowd. They never had any time for us. There are a good many Silverton Hall girls of our social standing, but they went almost solid against us in that Miss Reid affair last year. Who was to blame for that? Those Sanford busybodies, you may be sure."

"I believe it was that Miss Page who started the Silverton Hall gang,"

differed Dulcie Vale, with a touch of sulkiness. She was still peeved at Leslie and now delighted in expressing a contrary opinion.

"I don't care what _you_ believe," mimicked Leslie disagreeably. "I say it was the Sanford crowd who started the trouble."

"Say it, then. Sing it if you like," retorted Dulcie. "I am privileged to my own opinion."

"Keep it to yourself, then. I don't care to hear it," coolly returned Leslie. "You girls make me weary. You are all so ready to start fussing over nothing."

"You are just as ready!" burst forth Dulcie, in a sudden gust of anger.

"You think we all ought to do precisely as you say and never have an opinion of our own. I fail to see why I, at least, should be bossed by you. It isn't we girls that are at fault. It is you. I like you, Leslie, when you don't try to run everything. When you begin bullying, I can't endure you. Please don't attempt to bully me, for I won't stand it."

"There is one thing about it," broke in Harriet Stephens decidedly, "we shall not accomplish much if there is no unity among us. So far as I am concerned, I would rather have Leslie take the lead. I will never forgive the Sanford crowd for what they did to us last March. If Leslie can find ways to get even with them, I am willing to do as she says, simply to see those hateful girls defeated in whatever they set out to do."

"That is the proper spirit," approved Leslie. "Believe me, I know what I am saying when I tell you that we must fight those girls and put them in the background where they belong. The way to begin this year is to win over the freshies. The minute it is known we are interesting ourselves in these greenies' welfare, our popularity will take a jump upward. Every one of you can either give me your promise tonight to help or keep away from me the rest of the year. Think it over. Don't promise and then go to grumbling behind my back about it. If you do, I'll be sure to hear it."

"It will be rather good fun to play angel to the freshies for a change,"

said Evangeline Hepper. "We might have a picnic some Sat.u.r.day, or give a hop for them. Have it understood, of course, that it was the Sans Soucians who were to be the hostesses."

"We can decide better what to do after we have met a few of the freshmen," returned Leslie. "I hope there won't be many of those beggarly-looking girls who come into college on scholarships or sc.r.a.pe their way through without a cent above their expenses. They are so tiresome. That Miss Langly, of our cla.s.s, is a glowing example of what I mean."

"She is very high and mighty since the Sanford crowd took her up, isn't she?" shrugged Natalie.

"She always was, for that matter," said Adelaide Forman. "Those girls have praised her and babied her until she is a good deal more infatuated with herself than she used to be."

"That is another reason I have for wanting to get back at them,"

a.s.serted Leslie. "You all know the snippy way she acted when we asked her to change rooms with Lola. Worse still, she had to go and tell her troubles to the Sanford crowd. They started right in to tell everyone how brilliant she was and how shabbily we had treated her. Then the Silverton Hall girls took it up and spread the news abroad that Langly had won a scholarship no one else had been able to win for twenty years.

That sent her stock away up and we had to stop ragging her or be disliked. I shall not forget that little performance in a hurry."

"They certainly put one over on us with that miserable old beauty contest, too." Natalie's voice quivered with bitterness.

"Leila Harper was to blame for that, Nat. She is the cleverest girl at Hamilton. We made a serious mistake in the beginning about her. They say her father has oodles of money." Joan looked brief regret at the mistake the Sans had made in not cultivating Leila.

"We never could have got along with her," Leslie said decidedly. "I am glad we never took her up. I detest her and Vera Mason, too, but not half so hard as I do Miss Bean and her satellites." Leslie invariably said "Bean" instead of Dean in derision of Marjorie.

She now paused, her heavy features dark with resentment. The independence of Marjorie Dean and her friends was a thorn to her flesh.

Each time she had attempted to injure them she had been ingloriously defeated. She was determined, this year, not only to win back and maintain her former leadership at Hamilton College, but also to crush the rising power of the girls she so greatly disliked.

"Are you going to let the rest of the Sans in on this station business?"

inquired Harriet Stephens.

"Naturally; we need them to help us out. Don't get the idea I am trying to keep the other girls out of our plans. I am not. It's like this. The eight of us ran around together at prep school before we took the rest of the girls into our crowd. We have always been a little more confidential among ourselves because we are the old guard, as you might say. Of course they know all about our troubles with Miss Bean and her pals. They went through them with us. What we must keep to ourselves is this Wayland Hall affair. We saved their rooms for them. They know that.

They don't need to know the exact process by which we did it, do they? I merely told them that I thought I could get my father to fix up matters if there was any trouble started. They let us do all the worrying over it. I guess we have the right to keep it to ourselves. That settles you, Dulcie. You can quit sulking because I won't allow you to tell everything you know to Eleanor. Remember it is to your own precious interest not to."

Leslie delivered herself of this long speech very much as her father might have addressed himself to a group of his business lieutenants. It was received with a certain amount of respect which was always accorded her by her chums when she adopted her father's tone and manner. They were all still more or less uneasy over the method which she and Joan had employed to save them their residence at Wayland Hall.

"Leslie, do you think we will ever have any trouble about--well--about what you and Joan did?" questioned Evangeline Heppler rather uneasily.

"Not unless you let someone outside this crowd into the secret. The only other person who knows it would not dare tell it. She would deny knowing a thing about it to the very end. Don't worry. That is past. It won't come up again. We are safe enough. It is up to us now to put the enemy on the back seats where they belong and regain the ground we lost last year. I repeat what I said awhile ago. We have _got_ to get busy."