same afternoon and take the sleeper back to Harding. She thought that
spending the night with any of her New York cousins would involve too
much explanation, and besides she could sleep beautifully on the train,
and she wanted to be back in time for the Thursday basket-ball practice.
The girls played every day now, and very often Miss Andrews dropped in to
watch them and take the measure of the various aspirants for a place on
the official teams, which it would soon be her duty to appoint.




CHAPTER XIII

VICTORY OR DEFEAT


During the first part of her journey Betty busied herself with reading
over Mr. Blake's two letters and the lengthy replies that the editors had
composed. These last were as totally unlike as their writers, and Betty
thought that none of them hit the point so well as Madeline's
suggestions, and none was so cogent as the plea that Eleanor and Jim
between them had unconsciously made; but they might all help. From Mr.
Blake's two letters she decided that he must be a very queer sort of
person, and she devoutly hoped that his conversational style would be
less obscure than that of his first letter to Frances West; for it would
be dreadful, she thought, if she had to keep asking him what he meant.

"Well, I guess I shall just have to trust to luck and do the best I can
when the time comes," she decided, putting the letters back into her
suit-case with a little sigh. She admired Helen Adams's way of