"Oh, yes, Will wrote, and I'm very glad to meet you, Mr. Parsons," Betty broke in. "Only I didn't know you were--I mean I didn't know that Miss Brooks's caller was you. Miss Kittredge, Mr. Parsons. Wasn't your friend going to wait?"

"Bob," called Mr. Parsons after the retreating figure of his companion, "come back and hear about the runaway. You're wanted."

It was fully half-past four when Messrs. Parsons and Hughes, remembering that they had another engagement, left their escorts by request at the gymnasium and returned from a pleasant walk through Paradise and the campus to Meriden Place, where a rather frigid reception awaited them. Betty and Katherine, having watched the finish of the basket-ball game, followed them, and spent the time before dinner in painting a poster which they hung conspicuously on Mary's door. On it a green dragon, recently adopted as freshman cla.s.s animal, charged the soph.o.m.ores' purple cow and waved a long and very curly tail in triumph. Underneath was written in large letters, "Quits. Who is going to the Kappa Phi dance at Winsted?"

"I'm dreadfully afraid mother won't let me go though," said Betty as they hammered in the pins with Helen's paper-weight. "And anyhow it's not for three whole weeks."

When the drawing was securely fastened, Betty surveyed it doubtfully. "I wonder if we'd better take it down," she said at last. "I don't believe it's very dignified. I'm afraid I oughtn't to have asked Mr. Parsons to call his friend back, but I did so want to meet both of them and crow over Mary. And it was they who suggested the walk. Katherine, do you mind if we take this down?"

"Why, no, if you don't want to leave it," said Katherine looking puzzled. "I'm afraid Mr. Hughes didn't have a very good time. Men aren't my long suit. But otherwise I think we did this up brown."

Just then Eleanor came up, and Katherine gave her an enthusiastic account of the afternoon's adventure. Betty was silent. Presently she asked, "Girls, what is a back row reputation?"

"I don't know. Why?" asked Eleanor.

"Well, you know I stopped at the college, Katherine, to get my history paper back. Miss Ellis looked hard at me when I went in and stammered out what I wanted. She hunted up the paper and gave it to me and then she said, 'With which division do you recite, Miss Wales?' I told her at ten, and she looked at me hard again and said, 'You have been present in cla.s.s twelve times and I've never noticed you. Don't acquire a back row reputation, Miss Wales. Good-day,' and I can tell you I backed out in a hurry."

"I suppose she means that we sit on the back rows when we don't know the lesson," said Helen who had joined the group.

"I see," said Betty. "And do you suppose the faculty notice such things as that and comment on them to one another?"

"Of course," said Eleanor wisely. "They size us up right off. So does our cla.s.s, and the upper cla.s.s girls."

"Gracious!" said Betty. "I wish I hadn't promised to go to a spread on the campus to-night. I wish---- What a nuisance so many reputations are!" And she crumpled the purple cow and the green dragon into a shapeless wad and threw it at Rachel, who was coming up-stairs swinging her gym shoes by their strings.

CHAPTER VI

LETTERS HOME

Betty was cross and "just a tiny speck homesick," so she confided to the green lizard. Nothing interesting had happened since she could remember, and it had rained steadily for four days. Mr. Parsons, who played right tackle on the Winsted team, had written that he was laid up with a lame shoulder, which, greatly to his regret, would prevent his taking Betty to his fraternity dance. Helen was toiling on a "lit." paper with a zealous industry which got her up at distressingly early hours in the morning, and was "enough to mad a saint," according to her exasperated roommate, whose own brief effusion on the same subject had been hastily composed in one evening and lay neatly copied in her desk, ready to be handed in at the proper time. Moreover, "gym" had begun and Betty had had the misfortune to be a.s.signed to a cla.s.s that came right in the middle of the afternoon.

"It's a shame," she grumbled, fishing out her fountain pen which had fallen off her desk and rolled under the bureau. "I shall change my lit.

to afternoon--that's only two afternoons spoiled instead of four--and then tell Miss Andrews that I have a conflict. Haven't you finished that everlasting paper?"

"No," said Helen meekly. "I'm sorry that I'm so slow. I'll go out if you want to have the girls in here."

"Oh no," called Betty savagely, dashing out into the hall. Eleanor's door was ornamented with a large sign which read, "Busy. Don't disturb."

But the door was half-way open, and in the dusky room, lighted, as Eleanor liked to have it, by candles in old-fashioned bra.s.s sticks, Eleanor sat on a pile of cushions in the corner, strumming softly on her guitar.

"Come in," she called. "I put that up in case I wanted to study later.

Finished your lit. paper?"

Betty nodded. "It's awfully short."

"I'm going to do mine to-night--that and a little matter of Livy and French and--let me see--Bible--no, elocution."

"Can you?" asked Betty admiringly.

"I'm not sure till I've tried. I've been meditating asking your roommate to do the paper. Would you?"

"No," said Betty so emphatically that Eleanor stopped playing and looked at her curiously.

"Why not? Do you think it's wrong to exchange her industry for my dollars?"

Betty considered. She still admired Eleanor, but she had learned her limitations. Her beauty wove a spell about all that she did, and she was very clever and phenomenally quick when she cared to apply herself. But she cared so seldom, roused herself only when she could gain prestige, when there was something to manipulate, to manage. And apparently she was not even to be trusted. Still, what was the use of quarreling with her about honor and fair play? To Betty in her present mood it seemed a mere waste of time and energy.

"Well, for one reason," she said at last, "Helen hasn't her own paper done yet, and for another I don't think she writes as well as you probably do;" and she rose to go.

"That was a joke, Bettina," Eleanor called after her. "I am truly going to work now--this very instant. Come back at ten and have black coffee with me."

Betty went on without answering to Rachel's room. "Come in," chorused three cheerful voices.

"No, go get your lit. paper first. We're reading choice selections,"

added Katherine.

"She means she is," corrected Rachel, handing Betty a pillow. "You look cross, Betty."

"I am," said Betty savagely, recounting a few of her woes. "What can we do? I came to be amused."

"In a Miracle play of this type----" began Katherine, and stopped to dodge a pillow. "But it is amusing, Betty."

"I'm afraid it will amuse Miss Mills, if the rest is anything like what you read," said Rachel with a reminiscent smile. "What are you doing, Roberta?"

"Writing home," drawled Roberta, without looking up from her paper.

"Well, you needn't shake your fountain pen over me, if you are," said Katherine. "I also owe my honored parents a letter, but I've about made up my mind never to write to them again. Listen to this, will you." She rummaged in her desk for a minute. "Here it is.

"'My dear daughter'--he only begins that way when he's fussed. I always know how he's feeling when I see whether it's 'daughter' or 'K.' 'My dear daughter:--Your interesting letter of the 12th inst. was received and I enclose a check, which I hope will last for some weeks.' ("I'm sorry to say it's nearly gone already," interpolated Katherine.) "'Your mother and I enjoyed the account of the dance you attended in the gymnasium, of the candy pull which Mrs. Chapin so kindly arranged for her roomers, and the game of hockey that ended so disastrously for one of your friends. We are glad that you attended the Morality play of "Everyman," though we are at a loss to know what you mean by the "peanut gallery." However it occurs to us that with your afternoon gymnasium cla.s.s, your recitations, which, as I understand it, fully engage your mornings, and all these diversions in one week, you could have spent but little time in the study of your lessons. Do not forget that these years should be devoted to a serious preparation for the multifarious duties of life, and do not neglect the rich opportunities which I am proud to be able to give you. The Wetherbees have----' Oh well, the rest of it is just Kankakee news," said Katherine, folding the letter and putting it back in her desk. "But isn't that first bit lovely? Why, I racked my brain till it ached, positively ached, thinking of interesting things to say in that letter, and now because I didn't mention that I'd worked three solid hours on my German every day that week and stood in line at the library for an hour to get hold of Bryce's American Commonwealth, I receive this pathetic appeal to my better self."

"How poetic you're getting," laughed Betty. "Do you know it's awfully funny, but I got a letter something like that too. Only mine was from Nan, and it just said she hoped I was remembering to avoid low grades and conditions, as they were a great bother. She said she wanted me to have a good time, but as there would be even more to do when I got on the campus, I ought not to fall into the habit of neglecting my work this year."

"Mine was from Aunt Susan," chimed in Rachel. "She said she didn't see when I could do any studying except late at night, and she hoped I wasn't being so foolish as to undermine my health and ruin my complexion for the sake of a few girlish pleasures. Isn't that nice--girlish pleasures? She put in a five dollar bill, though I couldn't see why she should, considering her sentiments."

Roberta put the cap on to her fountain pen and propped it carefully against an adjacent pillow. "I've just answered mine," she said, sorting the sheets in her lap with a satisfied smile.

"Did you get one, too? What did you say?" demanded Betty.

"The whole truth," replied Roberta languidly. "It took eight pages and I hope he'll enjoy it."

"I say," cried Katherine excitedly. "That's a great idea. Let's try it."

"And read them to one another afterward," added Rachel. "They might be more entertaining than your lit. paper."

"May I borrow some paper?" asked Betty. "I'm hoping Helen will finish to-night if I let her alone."