"Because," explained Betty, earnestly, "she doesn't feel the way the rest
of the girls do about such things. I'm awfully fond of her, but I noticed
the difference almost the first time I met her. Last year she--oh, there
was nothing like this," added Betty, quickly, "and after she saw how the
other girls felt, she changed. But I suppose she couldn't change all at
once, and so she did this. But she isn't a typical Harding girl, indeed
she isn't, Mr. Blake."

"And yet she is a member of the Dramatic Club," said Mr. Blake, taking up
a telegram from his desk.

"Don't you suppose she wishes she wasn't?" inquired Betty.

Mr. Blake made no answer. "Well, Miss Wales," he said, at last, "I fancy
we've talked as much about this as is profitable. I'm very glad to have
seen you, but I'm sorry that you found us in such disorder. The office
boy is stuck in the drifts over in Brooklyn, and my assistant and the
stenographer are snowed up in Harlem. I only hope you won't get snowed in
anywhere between here and Harding. You're going back to-day, you said?"

Betty nodded. "And I should like--"

"To be sure," Mr. Blake took her up. "You would like to know my answer.
Well, Miss Wales, I really think you deserve it, too; but as it happens,
I find I'm going up to Harding next week, and I want to look over the
ground for myself,--see what I think about the moral tone of things, you
know."

"You're coming up to Harding!" said Betty, ruefully. "Then I needn't have
come down here at all."