hurried away from the lakeshore about dusk. "We'll push you through the
figures. Jess and I will be on either side of you, except when we pair off
with the boys. And then you will be with my brother Chet. And if he isn't
nice to you he'll hear from me!" she added with vigor.

"Oh, but Laura!" whispered Jess Morse, as they separated from Janet, "Chet
mustn't be too nice to her. For Janet Steele is an awfully pretty girl."

"Now, dear!" exclaimed her laughing chum, "don't develop incipient
jealousy."

With only two hours before them in which to do a hundred things, the girls
were as busy as bees for the remainder of the afternoon. That Hester Grimes
had been forbidden to take part in the carnival by Gee Gee troubled the
girls of Central High less than they might have been troubled had it been
almost any other of their number that the strict teacher had demerited.
For, to tell the truth, Hester Grimes was not well loved.

The daughter and much-indulged only child of a wealthy butcher, Hester had
in the beginning expected to be catered to by her schoolmates. With such
rather shallow schoolmates as Lily Pendleton, Hester was successful. Lily
toadied to her, to use Bobby Hargrew's expression; nor was Lily alone in
this.

Upon those whom Hester considered her friends she spent her pocket money
lavishly. She was not a pretty girl, but was a tremendously healthy
one--strong, well developed, and tomboyish in her activities. Yet she
lacked magnetism and the popularity that little Bobby Hargrew, for
instance, attained by the exercise of the very same traits Hester
possessed.