Grace Harlowes Third Year at Overton College | Page 9

ground. "I hope I shall be eulogized when I have graduated from Overton."
"That will depend largely on your behavior as a freshman," drawled Elfreda.
"What do you mean?" asked Kathleen sharply. "I thought freshmen were of the least importance in college."
"So they are to the other classes," returned Elfreda. "They are of the greatest importance to themselves, however, and if they make false starts during their freshman year it is likely to handicap them through the other three."
"Much obliged for the information," declared Kathleen flippantly. "I'll try not to make any false starts. Good gracious! It is half-past ten. I had no idea it was so late. I've had a lovely time at your tea party. I'm going to send out invitations for a social gathering before long." She rose lazily to her feet, and carefully set her cup on the table. "I suppose Miss Ainslee will be sound asleep," she remarked, yawning. "Lighting the gas will awaken her and she will be cross. She goes to bed with the chickens."
"Don't light it, then," suggested Grace. "You can see to undress with the blind up. There is full moon to-night."
"Why shouldn't I light it?" asked Kathleen. "Half of the room is mine. I wouldn't grumble if the case were reversed. She will soon grow used to the light. I intend occasionally to read or study after hours. Don't tell me it is against the rules. I know it. But circumstances, etc. I'll see you to-morrow. I wish I were a junior. The freshmen I have met so far are regular babies. I'm going to study hard next summer and see if I can't pass up the sophomore year. There is nothing like having a modest ambition, you know."
With this satirical comment the newspaper girl nodded a pert good night and left the room.
No one spoke after she had gone.
"I must go to bed," said Grace, breaking the significant silence that had fallen on the quartette. "Come, Anne, it's twenty minutes to eleven. Good night, girls."
"What do you think of Miss West, Anne?" asked Grace a little later as they were preparing to retire.
"I don't like to say," returned Anne slowly. "She's remarkably bright--" Anne paused. Her eyes met Grace's.
"I know," nodded Grace understandingly. "We will try to keep a starboard eye on her. She is going to find college very different from being a newspaper woman." Grace smiled faintly. The word "woman," as applied to Kathleen West, seemed wholly amusing.
"I don't think she showed particularly good taste in speaking as she did of Mabel Ashe," criticized Anne, a moment later. "I didn't intend to say that, but I might as well be perfectly frank with you, Grace."
"I was sorry she spoke as she did, too," agreed Grace. She did not add that the newspaper girl's half slighting remarks about Mabel Ashe still rankled in her loyal soul. It was chiefly to please Mabel that she and her friends had hospitably received this stranger into their midst, prepared to do whatever lay within their power to make her feel at home with them. And she had dared to speak almost disparagingly of the girl who was beloved by every student in Overton who knew her. In spite of her resolution to keep a "starboard eye" on the freshman, Grace felt infinitely more like leaving the ungrateful freshman to shift for herself.
"Well, what about her?" Elfreda asked bluntly of Miriam, as she piled the tea cups one inside the other.
"What about who?" returned Miriam tantalizingly.
"You know very well" declared Elfreda; "but, if I must be explicit, what do you think of Miss West now?"
"What do you think?" counter-questioned Miriam.
"I think she has more to learn than I had when I came here," said Elfreda speculatively, "and unless I am very much mistaken it will take her longer to learn it."
CHAPTER V
TWO IS A COMPANY
"Grace! Grace Harlowe!" called a clear, high voice. On hearing her name, Grace, who was on the point of entering the library, turned to greet Arline Thayer, who came running up the walk, flushed and laughing.
"Did you say you had won prizes as a champion fast walker?" she inquired laughingly. "I saw you clear across the campus, and I've been running at top speed ever since. I had just breath enough left to call to you. Where have you been hiding? I haven't seen you for ages. Ruth thinks you have deserted her. Don't bother going to the library now. Suppose we go down to Vinton's and have luncheon. Have you eaten yours? I never eat luncheon at Morton Hall on Saturday afternoon."
"I'll answer your questions in the order they were asked," laughed Grace. "No, I am not a champion fast walker. I haven't been hiding, and I still live at Wayne Hall, though a certain young person I know