"I move that there be two committees, one for nominating speakers and the other for choosing a subject."

"I move that we reconsider our other vote first."

The motions were coming in helter-skelter from all quarters, instead of decorously from the front row as usual. The president was trying vainly to restore order and to remember whose motion should have precedence, and to make way somehow for the prearranged nomination, which so far had been entirely crowded out, when three girls in one corner of the room began thumping on their seat-arms and chanting in rhythmic, insistent chorus, "We--want--Emily--Davis. We--want--Emily--Davis.

We--want--Emily--Davis."

Hardly any one in the room had ever heard of Emily Davis, but the three girls const.i.tuted an original and very popular little coterie known individually as Babe, Babbie, and Bob, or collectively as "the three B's." They roomed on the top floor of the Westcott House and were famous in the house for being at the same time prime favorites of the matron and the ringleaders in every plot against her peace of mind, and outside for their unique and diverting methods of recreation. It was they who had successfully gulled Mary Brooks with a rumor as absurd as her own; and accounts of the "spread" they had handed out to the night-watchman in a tin pail, and dangled just out of his reach, in the hope of extracting a promise from that incorruptible worthy not to report their lights, until the string incontinently broke and the ice cream and lobster salad descended as a flood, were reported to have made even the august president of the college laugh. Ergo, if they "wanted" Emily Davis, she must be worth "wanting." So their friends took up the cry, and it quickly spread and gathered volume, until nearly everybody in the room was shouting the same thing. Finally the president stepped forward and made one determined demand for order.

"Is Miss Emily Davis present?" she called, when the tumult had slightly subsided.

"Yes," shouted the Three and the few others who knew Miss Davis by sight.

"Then will she please--why, exactly what is it that you want of her?"

questioned the president, a trifle haughtily.

"Speech!" chorused the Three.

"Will Miss Davis please speak to us?" asked the president.

At that a very tall girl who was ineffectually attempting to hide behind little Alice Waite was pulled and pushed to her feet, and amid a sudden silence began the funniest speech that most of the cla.s.s of 19-- had ever listened to; but it was not so much what she said as her inimitable drawling delivery and her lunging, awkward gestures that brought down the house. When she took her seat again, resolutely ignoring persistent cries of "More!" the cla.s.s applauded her to the echo and elected her freshman debater by acclamation.

It was wonderful what a change those twenty riotous minutes had made in the spirit of the cla.s.s of 19--. For the first time in its history it was an enthusiastic, single-hearted unit, and to the credit of the Hill girls be it said that no one was more enthusiastic or joined in the applause with greater vigor than they. They had not meant to be autocratic--except three of them; they had simply acted according to their lights, or rather, their leaders' lights. Now they understood how affairs could be conducted at Harding, and during the rest of the course they never entirely forgot or ignored the new method.

To Betty's utter astonishment and consternation the lion's share of credit for the sudden triumph of democracy was laid at her door. The group around her after the meeting was almost as large and quite as noisy as the one that was struggling to shake hands with Miss Davis.

"Don't! You mustn't. Why, it was the B's who got her, not I," protested Betty vigorously.

"No, you began it," said Babe.

"You bet you did," declared Bob.

"Yes, indeed. We were too scared to speak of her until you proposed something like it," added Babbie in her sweet, lilting treble.

"You can't get out of it. You are the real founder of this democracy,"

ended Christy Mason decidedly. Betty was proud of Christy's approval. It was fun, too, to have the Hill girls crowding around and saying pleasant things to her.

"I almost think I'm somebody at last. Won't Nan be pleased!" she reflected as she hurried home to keep her promise to Eleanor. Then she laughed merrily all to herself. "Those silly girls! I really didn't do a thing," she thought. And then she sighed. "I never get a chance to be a bit vain. I wish I could--one little wee bit. I wonder if Mr. West came."

It did not occur to Betty as at all significant that Jean Eastman and Kate Denise had not spoken to her after the meeting, until, when she knocked on Eleanor's door, Eleanor came formally to open it. "Jean and Kate are here," she said coldly, "so unless you care to stop----"

Jean and Kate nodded silently from the couch where they were eating candy.

"Oh, no," said Betty in quick astonishment. "I'll come some other time."

"You needn't bother," answered Eleanor rudely. "They've told me all about it," and she shut the door, leaving Betty standing alone in the hall.

Betty winked hard to keep back the tears as she hurried to her own room.

What could it all mean? She had done her best for Eleanor, and n.o.body had guessed--they had been too busy laughing at that ridiculous Emily Davis--and now Eleanor treated her like this. And Jean Eastman, too, when she had done exactly what Jean wanted of her. Jean's curtness was even less explainable than Eleanor's, though it mattered less. It was all--queer. Betty smiled faintly as she applied Alice Waite's favorite adjective. Well, there was nothing more to be done until she could see Eleanor after dinner. So she wiped her eyes, smoothed her hair, and went resolutely off to find Roberta, whose heavy shoes--another of Roberta's countless fads--had just clumped past her door.

"I'm writing my definitions for to-morrow's English," announced Roberta.

"For the one we could choose ourselves I'm going to invent a word and then make up a meaning for it. Isn't that a nice idea?"

"Very," said Betty listlessly.

Roberta looked at her keenly. "I believe you're homesick," she said.

"How funny after such a jubilant afternoon."

Betty smiled wearily. "Perhaps I am. Anyway, I wish I were at home."

Meanwhile in Eleanor's room an acrimonious discussion was in progress.

"The more I think of it," Kate Denise was saying emphatically, "the surer I am that she didn't do a thing against us this afternoon. She isn't to blame for having started a landslide by accident, Jean. Did you see her face when Eleanor turned her down just now? She looked absolutely nonplussed."

"Most people do when the lady Eleanor turns and rends them," returned Jean, with a reminiscent smile.

"Just the same," continued Kate Denise, "I say you have a lot to thank her for this afternoon, Jean Eastman. She got you out of a tight hole in splendid shape. None of us could have done it without stamping the whole thing a put-up job, and most of the outsiders who could have helped you out, wouldn't have cared to oblige you. It was irritating to see her rallying the mult.i.tudes, I'll admit; but I insist that it wasn't her fault. We ought to have managed better."

"Say I ought to have managed better and be done with it," muttered Jean crossly.

"You certainly ought," retorted Eleanor. "You've made me the laughing-stock of the whole college."

"No, Eleanor," broke in Kate Denise pacifically. "Truly, your dignity is intact, thanks to Miss Wales and those absurd B's who followed her lead."

"Never mind them. I'm talking about Betty Wales. She was a friend of mine--she was at the supper the other night. Why couldn't she leave it to some one else to object to your appointing me?"

"Oh, if that's all you care about," said Jean irritably, "don't blame Miss Wales. The thing had to be done you know. I didn't see that it mattered who did it, and so I--well, I practically asked her. What I'm talking about is her way of going at it--her having pushed herself forward so, and really thrown us out of power by using what I--" Jean caught herself suddenly, remembering that Eleanor did not know about Betty's having been let into the secret.

"By using what you told her," finished Kate innocently. "Well, why did you tell her all about it, if you didn't expect--"

Eleanor stood up suddenly, her face white with anger. "How dared you,"

she challenged. "As if it wasn't insulting enough to get me into a sc.r.a.pe like this, and give any one with two eyes a chance to see through your flimsy little excuses, but you have to go round telling people----"

"Eleanor, stop," begged Jean. "She was the only one I told. I let it out quite by accident the day I came up here to see you. Not another soul knows it but Kate, and you told her yourself. You'd have told Betty Wales, too,--you know you would--if we hadn't seen you first this afternoon."

"Suppose I should," Eleanor retorted hotly. "What I do is my own affair.

Please go home."

Jean stalked out in silence, but Kate, hesitating between Scylla and Charybdis, lingered to say consolingly, "Cheer up, Eleanor. When you come to think it over, it won't seem so----"

"Please go home," repeated Eleanor, and Kate hurried after her roommate.

CHAPTER XIII

SAINT VALENTINE'S a.s.sISTANTS