Roberta helped herself to a book from the shelves and an apple from the table, and the rest settled themselves to their epistolary labors.

Except for the scratching of Betty's pen, and an occasional exclamation of pleasure or perplexity from one of the scribes, the room was perfectly still. Betty had just asked for an envelope and Katherine was numbering her pages when Mary Brooks knocked at the door.

"What on earth are you girls doing?" she inquired blandly, selecting the biggest apple in the dish and appropriating the Morris chair, which Katherine had temporarily vacated. "I haven't heard a sound in here since nine o'clock. I began to think that Helen had come in and blown out the gas again by mistake and you were all asphyxiated."

Everybody laughed at the remembrance of a recent occasion when Helen had absent-mindedly blown out the gas while Betty was saying her prayers.

"It wasn't so funny at the time," said Betty ruefully. "Suppose she'd gone to sleep without remembering. We've been writing home, Mary," she said, turning to the newcomer, "and now we're going to read the letters, and we've got to hurry, for it's almost ten. Roberta, you begin."

"Oh no," said Roberta, looking distressed.

"I wish somebody would tell me what this is all about first," put in Mary. Rachel explained, while Katherine and Betty persuaded Roberta to read her letter.

"It isn't fair," she protested, "when I wrote a real letter and you others were just doing it for fun."

"Go on, Roberta!" commanded Mary, and Roberta in sheer desperation seized her letter and began to read.

"DEAR PAPA:--I have been studying hard all the evening and it is now nearly bedtime, but I can at least begin a letter to you. To-day has been the fourth rainy day in succession and we have thoroughly appreciated the splendid opportunity for uninterrupted work. Yesterday morning--I think enough has happened in these two days to fill my letter--I was up at seven as usual. I stuck a selection from Browning into my mirror, as it was the basis of our elocution lesson, and nearly learned it while I dressed. Before chapel I completed my geometry preparation. This was fortunate, as I was called on to recite, the sixth proposition in book third being my a.s.signment. The next hour I had no recitation, so I went to the library to do some reference work for my English cla.s.s. Ten girls were already waiting for the same volume of the Century Dictionary that I wanted, so I couldn't get hold of it till nearly the end of the hour. I spent the intervening time on the Browning. I had Livy the next hour and was called on to translate. As I had spent several hours on the lesson the day before, I could do so.

After the elocution recitation I went home to lunch. At quarter before two I began studying my history. At quarter before four I started for the gymnasium. At five I went to a tea which one of the girls was giving for her mother, so I felt obliged to go. I stayed only half an hour and cannot remember how I spent the half hour till dinner, so I presume it was wasted. I am afraid I am too much given to describing such unimportant pauses in the day's occupation and magnifying their length and the frivolous pleasure which we thoughtlessly derive from them.

"In the evening---- Oh it all goes on like that," cried Roberta. "Just dull and stuffy and true to the facts. Some one else read."

"It's convincing," chuckled Mary. "Now Katherine."

Katherine's letter was an absurd mixture of sense and nonsense, in which she proved that she studied at least twelve hours out of the twenty-four. Rachel's was a sensible explanation of just how much time, or rather how little, a spread, a dance or a basket-ball game takes.

"That's what they don't understand," she said, "and they don't know either how fast we can go from one thing to another up here. Why, energy is in the air!"

Betty's letter, like her literature paper, was extremely short. "I couldn't think of much to say, if I told the truth," she explained, blushing. "I don't suppose I do study as much as I ought."

Mary had listened with an air of respectful attention to all the letters. When the last one was finished she rose hastily. "I must go back," she said. "I have a theme to write. I only dropped in to ask if that famous spread wasn't coming off soon."

"Oh, yes," said Betty. "Let's have it next week Wednesday. Is anything else going on then? I'll ask Eleanor and you see the Riches and Helen."

A few days later Mary appeared at the lunch table fairly bursting with importance. "Well," she said, beaming around the table. "What do you suppose has happened now? Really, Mrs. Chapin, you ought to be proud of us. We began to be famous before college opened----"

"What?" interrupted Eleanor.

"Is it possible you didn't know that?" inquired Mary. "Well, it's true nevertheless. And we were the heroines of Mountain Day, and now we're famous again."

"How?" demanded the table in a chorus.

Mary smiled enigmatically. "This time it is a literary sensation," she said.

"Is it Helen's paper?" hazarded Betty.

"Mine, of course," said Katherine. "Strange Miss Mills didn't mention it this morning when I met her at Cuyler's."

Mary waited until it was quiet again. "If you've quite finished guessing," she said, "I'll tell you. You remember the evening when I found four of you in Rachel and Katherine's room writing deceitful letters to your fond parents. Well, I had been racking my brains for weeks for a pleasing and original theme subject. You know you are supposed to spend two hours a week on this theme course, and I had spent two hours for four weeks in just thinking what to write. I'm not sure whether that counts at all and I didn't like to ask--it would have been so conspicuous. So I was in despair when I chanced upon your happy gathering and was saved. Miss Raymond read it in cla.s.s to-day,"

concluded Mary triumphantly.

"You didn't put us into it--our letters!" gasped Roberta.

"Indeed I did," said Mary. "I put them all in, as nearly as I could remember them, and Miss Raymond read it in cla.s.s, and made all sorts of clever comments about college customs and ideals and so on. I felt guilty, because I never had anything read before, and of course I didn't exactly write this because the letters were the main part of it. So after cla.s.s I waited for Miss Raymond and explained how it was. She laughed and said that she was glad I had an eye for good material and that she supposed all authors made more or less use of their acquaintance, and when I went off she actually asked me to come and see her. My junior friends are hoping it will pull me into a society and I'm hoping it will avert a condition."

"Where is the theme?" asked Eleanor. "Won't you read it to us?"

"It's--why, I forgot the very best part of the whole story. Sallie Hill has it for the 'Argus.' She's the literary editor, you know, and she wants it for the next number. So you see you are famous.

"Why don't some of you elect this work?" asked Mary, when the excitement had somewhat subsided. "It's open to freshmen, and it's really great fun."

"I thought you said that you spent eight hours and were in despair----"

began Eleanor.

"So I was," said Mary. "I declare I'd forgotten that. Well, anyhow I'm sure I shan't have any trouble now. I think I've learned how to go at it. Why, do you know, girls, I have an idea already. Not for a theme--something else. It concerns all of you--or most of you anyway."

"I should think you'd made enough use of us for the present," said Betty. "Why don't you try to make a few soph.o.m.ores famous?"

"Oh it doesn't concern you that way. You are to---- Oh wait till I get it started," said Mary vaguely; and absolutely refused to be more explicit.

CHAPTER VII

A DRAMATIC CHAPTER

The Chapin house girls decided not to spend the proceeds of the dancing cla.s.s for an elaborate supper, as they had first intended, but to turn their "spread" into the common college type, where "plowed field" and chocolate made with condensed milk and boiling water are the chief refreshments, and light-hearted sociability ensures a good time for everybody.

"But do let's have tea too," Betty had proposed. "I hate the chocolate that the girls make, and I don't believe tea keeps many of us awake. Did I tell you that mother sent a big box of cheese crackers?"

The spread was to be in Betty's room, partly because she owned the only chafing-dish in the house, and partly because eighteen girls--the nine hostesses and the one guest asked by each--could get into it without uncomfortable crowding. Eleanor had lent her pile of floor cushions and her beloved candlesticks for the occasion, everybody had contributed cups and saucers. Betty and Helen had spent the afternoon "fixing up,"

and the room wore a very festive air when the girls dropped in after dinner to see if the preparations were complete.

"I think we ought to start the fudge before they come," said Betty, remembering the procedure at Miss King's party.

"Oh, no," protested Eleanor. "Half-past eight is early enough. Why, most of the fun of a spread is mixing the things together and taking turns tasting and stirring."

"It would be awkward to finish eating too early, when that's the only entertainment," suggested Rachel.

"Or the candy might give out before ten," added Mary Rich.

The majority ruled, and as some of the girls were late, and one had some very amusing blue-prints to exhibit, it was considerably after half-past eight before the fudge was started. At first it furnished plenty of excitement. Betty, who had been appointed chief fudge-maker, left it for a moment, and it took the opportunity to boil over. When it had settled down after this exploit, it refused to do anything but simmer. No amount of alcohol or of vigorous and persistent stirring had any effect upon it, and Betty was in despair. But Eleanor, who happened to be in a gracious mood, came gallantly to the rescue. She quietly disappeared and returned in a moment, transformed into a gypsy street singer. She had pulled down her black hair and twisted a gay scarf around it. Over her shirt-waist she wore a little velvet jacket; and a short black skirt, a big red sash, an armful of bangles and bracelets, and the guitar hung over her shoulder, completed her disguise.

"Sing a lil'?" she asked, smiling persuasively and kissing her hand to the party.

Then she sat down on the pile of cushions and played and sang, first a quaint little folk-song suited to her part, and then one or two dashing popular airs, until the unaccommodating fudge was quite forgotten, except by Betty, who stirred and frowned, and examined the flame and tested the thickness of the rich brown liquid, quite unnoticed. Eleanor had just shrugged her shoulders and announced, "I no more sing, now,"

when somebody else knocked on the door, or rather pushed it open, and a grotesque figure slouched in.