bad!"

"What are you going to do about that tam of yours, Heavy?" asked Ruth,
slily. "It's a gay thing--nothing like baby blue."

"Oh well," growled the fleshy girl, "baby blue is one of my favorite
colors."

"Mine, too," said Ruth, drily.

"Oh, girls! Are you going to give right in--_so_ easy?" gasped Helen.

"I don't feel like making myself conspicuous," Ruth said. "You can wager
that most of our class will hustle right off and get the proper hue in
tams."

"Then we'd better go to town this very afternoon," Jennie cried, in
haste, "and see if we can find three of baby blue shade. The stores will
be drained of them by to-morrow."

"But to give--right--in!" wailed Helen, who dearly loved a fight.

"No. It isn't that. But, as the advertisements say: 'Eventually, so why
not now?' We'll have to come to it. Let's get our tams while the
tamming's good."

Helen could not see the reason for obeying the senior order; but she
could see no reason, either, for not following her chum's lead. The
three girls telephoned for a taxicab, which came to Dare Hall for them
at half past three.

They were not the only girls going to town; but some of the freshmen,
like Helen, wished to display their independence and refused--as yet--to
obey the senior command.

A line at the bottom of the notice announced that three days were
allowed the freshmen to obtain their proper tam-o'-shanters.

"Three days!" gasped Heavy, as they started off in the little car. "Why,
it will take the stores in Greenburg two weeks to supply sufficient tams
of the proper color."

"Then if we don't get ours," laughed Ruth, "we'd better go bareheaded
until the new tams can be sent us from home."

"I won't do that!" cried the annoyed Helen. "Oh! oh!" she exclaimed, the
next moment, and before they were out of the grounds. "See Miss Frayne!
She has her scrambled-egg tam on."

"Don't you suppose she has read the notice?" worried Ruth.

"Why hasn't she?"

"Well, she seems to flock together with herself so much. Nobody seems to
be chummy with her--yet," Ruth explained.

"Now, old Mother Worry!" exclaimed Helen, "bother about _her_, will
you?"

"Yes, ma'am," said Ruth, demurely. "I shall, I suppose."

"Goodness, Ruth!" cried Jennie.

They discovered a rather strange thing when they arrived in Greenburg
and entered the first store that dealt in ladies' apparel. Oh, yes,
indeed! the proprietor had tam-o'-shanters of just the required shade,
baby blue