. The friends bought immediately for fear some of the other
girls who had come to town would find these and buy the proprietor out.

And then, prone to the usual feminine frailty, they went "window
shopping." And in every store seeking trade from the college girls they
found the baby blue tam-o'-shanters.

"It's the most astonishing thing!" gasped Helen. "What do you suppose it
means? Did you ever see so many caps of one kind and color in all your
life?"

"It is amazing," agreed Ruth. Yet she was reflective.

Jennie began to laugh. "Wonder if the seniors are just helping out their
friends among the tradespeople? It looks as though the storekeepers had
bought a superabundance of baby blue caps and the seniors were putting
it up to us to save the stores from bankruptcy."

Ruth, however, thought it must be something other than that. Was it that
the storekeepers had been notified by the senior "powers that be" to be
ready to supply a sudden large demand for tam-o'-shanters of that
particular hue?

At least, one little Hebrew asked the three friends if they had already
bought their tam-o'-shanters. "For vy, I haf a whole case of your class
colors, ladies, that my poy iss opening."

"What class color?" demanded Helen, grumpily enough.

"Oh, Mees! A peau-ti-ful plue!"

"They're all doing it! They're all doing it!" murmured Jennie,
staggering out of the "emporium." "This is going to affect my brain,
girls. _Did_ the seniors know the storekeepers had the tams in stock, or
have the storekeepers been put wise by our elder sisters at Ardmore?"

"What's the odds?" finally laughed Helen, as they got into the waiting
car. "We've got _our_ tams. I only hope there are enough to go around."

The appearance of more than a score of baby-blue caps on the campus
before evening showed that our trio of freshmen were not the only
members of their class who considered it wise to obey the mandate of the
lordly seniors, and without question.

The tempest in the teapot, however, continued to rage. Many girls
declared they had not come to Ardmore to "be made monkeys of."

"No," May MacGreggor was heard to say. "Some of you were already
assisted by nature. But get together, freshies! Can't you read the
handwriting on the wall?"

"We can read the typewriting on the billboards," sniffed Helen Cameron.
"Don't ask us to strain our eyesight farther."

Perhaps this was really the intention behind the senior order--that the
entering girls