penetrating as to be quite unmistakable.

"Yes, he leaves it entirely to us," she was saying. "He said he thought
we could be trusted to know what was best."

"I wish he hadn't made the condition that no one should say anything to
her," objected a second speaker. "It doesn't seem to me quite wise to let
things just drift along the same as ever."

"Nonsense," broke in a third voice, sharp with irritation. "You know
perfectly well--"

Eleanor had walked as slowly as she dared. Now there was nothing for it
but to open the door without waiting to find out the identity of the last
two speakers, or risk being caught eaves-dropping.

She hurried on up the stairs to the society rooms on the second floor,
and devoted herself for the rest of the evening to the dullest and most
unpopular members of the faculty with an ardor that won her the heart-
felt gratitude of the president of the club.

"I can be agreeable," she thought, as she sat down at her desk an hour
later. "I can do whatever I make up my mind to. I'll show them that I'm
not going to 'drift along!'"

It was six o'clock in the morning when, stiff and heavy-eyed, she turned
off her light and crept into bed.

"I've driven a coach and four through their precious ten o'clock rule,"
she thought, "but I don't care. I've finished the story."