You know that you're sure to go in to-night, and it's a mean trick to
deprive Babe of her hard-won earnings."

This sally was greeted with shrieks of laughter, for it was a standing
joke with 19-- that Babe was supposed by her adoring mother to be keeping
a French maid at Harding. In October of her freshman year she had packed
the maid off to New York and engaged Emily Davis to do her mending. But
the maid's board and wages were paid unquestioningly by her mother, who
lamented every vacation that she could get no such excellent seamstresses
as her daughter was always able to find at Harding. Meanwhile Babe rented
a riding horse by the term, reveled in dinners at Cuyler's, and stilled
her conscience with the thought that Emily Davis needed the money more
than any maid.

"I wish," said Madeline Ayres, when the tumult had subsided again, "that
you'd explain something to a poor, benighted little freshman. There's
just one thing about Harding that I don't understand. Why should Bob mind
having you know that she hopes she's going into the Dramatic Club?"

"Suppose she doesn't go?" suggested Christy. "Of course there's always a
chance that she won't."

"Seems so nervy, anyhow," muttered Bob, who was still in the sulks.

"I don't see why," persisted Madeline. "When you all say that she's
perfectly certain to go in. But in general, I mean, why will you never
admit that you want a certain thing, or hope to get a certain thing?"

"It is funny, isn't it?" said Rachel. "Wild horses couldn't drag it out
of any junior that she hopes for a place on the 'Argus' board, or the